Some help with booking Eurostar and French trains please

[wibdib]

I wonder if anyone can help me please? I've suddenly got to book a train for ds to get to a city in France next month - he's been offered a great opportunity. Usually I would make him do all the research and sort it out but he isn't around and it needs to get done so he doesn't miss the opportunity...

However, it's ages since I have booked an European trains - pre kids used to use them for holidays and work quite a bit as I hate flying, so knew everything about booking them - but that was in the old days when Eurostar was in Waterloo and there were still plenty of services that you could ring up and speak to a help desk if you wanted a quick answer to a question - but can't find any answers to the questions I need... Man in seat 61 doesn't have the answers either nor does google.

I'm trying to book a Eurostar return, I know the date and time of the service he needs to be on, but not the details for the return yet - is it better to just book something now and then change it or will I be charged for changes?

Also - as we are now out of London, I seem to remember that if I buy a ticket from hometown to London - Eurostar then it's cheaper than adding a standard return in and means that if there are delays they have to take you on a later service - but he can stay with a relative the night before to be closer rather than have a crazy early train in the morning, so can that be split to go earlier?

Going home I'm also not sure if he is going to be able to go directly from his destination to Paris and then to London and then get home all on the same day of if he is going to have to break it at some point due to the timings and distances involved.

It also used to be cheaper to get a ticket that said it was London - French city rather than London - Paris - French city. - is that still the case?

I used to be able to do all this on the Eurostar website and I think another - but Eurostar is only letting me do the standard Eurostar destinations rather than my own starting and finishing points. I've found the Rail Europe site which lets me do some of what I need but not everything...

I"ve got to the point of wanting to throw my computer through the window so have stopped, taken a big breath and thought I'd see if there are any mumsnetters that could point me in the right direction please!

Many thanks in advance!

You need the seat61 website, there's loads of brilliant advice on there

www.seat61.com/index-mobile.htm

You can do loads of it directly on the Trainline website/app nowadays

SNCF is French trains www.sncf-connect.com/en-en/

Many thanks guys - however I’ve looked at all those sites already and they don’t answer the questions I’m looking at - specifically how easy it is to change, the booking, how I can book from my home town and end up in the French destination and if I can split the journey from my hometown to London overnight…

I'm not sure how much you can split journeys over different days
Would an inter rail pass be an option, are they still available?

I think (but not 100%) that you're automatically covered to take the next TGV if the Eurostar is late. You can book the TGV on ouiconnect. Make sure you leave time to get the metro across Paris though! It normally only takes 20 mins, but I generally leave 90 for safety.

I'm not British. Do you need to show a return ticket to enter the EU these days?

I'm trying to book a Eurostar return, I know the date and time of the service he needs to be on, but not the details for the return yet - is it better to just book something now and then change it or will I be charged for changes?

The Eurostar site says
"Standard and Standard Premier
Exchange
You can exchange the departure date and/or time of your ticket with no fee up until one hour before your original departure time. You can’t change your destination."
https://www.eurostar.com/uk-en/travel-info/travel-planning/eurostar-fares-and-fees

So it seems the best thing is to buy a return ticket, guessing the return date, and change it once you have a firm date

As a PP has suggested, you need proof of return or onward travel to enter the Schengen area, including France. The Eurostar return ticket provides proof of intention to return to the UK.

You can't book through tickets from UK stations any more - all bookings have to start from London St Pancras. So UK train travel will have to be booked separately.

You can book tickets and onward travel in France on the Trainline site or app

https://www.thetrainline.com/ I just did a dummy booking for London to Bordeaux and back.

Trainline has a useful section on changing tickets for French travel.
https://support.thetrainline.com/en/support/solutions/articles/78000000458-exchanging-a-train-ticket-travel-outside-of-uk- Scroll down to France including SNCF

I'm afraid train travel is a lot more fragmented than it used to be.

When I came back from France and the Eurostar was delayed Lner let me on the next train foc after I missed one. They have a reciprocal agreement. I hadn’t booked the tickets at the same time and that didn’t seem to matter.

Which town in France is he trying to get to? Possibility to change at Lille vs Paris. Is he travelling during the Olympics?

Just go on the Eurostar website and choose your destination, type it in if needed. We booked a ticket from London to Beziers recently through Eurostar.

It had got a bit cranky since Brexit so it pays to see if it is better to book the legs spearatrly (using SNCF Connect for the French leg). Don't forget to leave enough time to cross Paris if you are changing trains there.

A belated thanks everybody for their advice and input.

Just in case anyone else should be looking for this particular info, we ended up booking a train on the RailEurope website which did go from hometown through to his destination (Vichy!) and we had spotted that it seems like they have got good flexibility on rebooking up until about a week before departure so we just booked it as I could see that there were fewer and fewer seats available on the Eurostar he needed to be on (even though he won't be sitting with his friends, at least he will be there and able to travel across Paris with them and board the next train with them).

I also discovered that if you try to book a Eurostar train on the tramline app/website, it won't let you book from your home destination but it will show you the number of seats remaining on the particular Eurostar service...

The raileurope site has some useful help info on it about how to change your bookings and also about how to change seat reservations where possible.

The SNCF site didn't seem to be as useful for booking and incorporating Eurostar so didn't bother with it as the other sites did what I needed - there was 20% off Eurostar as well until today with a discount code, so always worth looking around for one!

Thanks again and happy travelling!