Can you buy eurostar tickets on the day of travel

Select your starting city I can't write a page for every possible starting point, so use common sense - for example, if you wanted Sorrento to Groningen, you'd look up Naples to Amsterdam.

Cesky Krumlov. Cinque Terre. St Petersburg. San Sebastian. Each European country has its own national train operator with its own ticketing system and its own website.

There are private operators too. Most operators offer cheap budget-airline-style fares if you book ahead, but you can only buy them from their own website or from an agency directly linked to that ticketing system. Take Prague to Budapest for example.

You can even choose your seat from a seating plan! And your seat is allocated with little or no choice. Can you now see why it matters where you buy? Ticket delivery matters too. For example, you can book Vienna to Venice at Trenitalia. Luggage storage at stations Train seat numbering plans Can I stop off on the way? How to buy tickets by phone What to do when things go wrong Do you need to book in advance? Can you just buy at the station? If you can get your head around the 3 different concepts of train ticketing explained here, you'll understand how European train ticketing works, and why sometimes you're told to buy at the station but other times to book in advance.

The price is fixed so there's no price advantage in pre-buying. Reservation is usually not even possible, these trains can never sell out, so again there's no point in pre-buying. Just buy a ticket at the station, hop on the next train and sit anywhere you like. Think New York Subway! Buying online just saves a few minutes at the ticket office.

Fares are dynamic like air fares, cheap if you book in advance, expensive if you buy on the day. Every ticket comes with a reserved seat included, just like flights. Trains are all-reserved so can sell out, at least in theory, although in practice they seldom do except at very busy periods. The message in this case is clear: Pre-book to save money and be sure of a place!! There's a flexible full-price fare with unlimited availability and a fixed price, good for any train that day.

This cannot sell out, you can always turn up, buy a full-price ticket and hop on the next train, sitting in any empty unreserved seat. However, these full-price flexible tickets are often expensive, especially for longer distances. You can buy cheaper advance-purchase fares if you book ahead and commit to a specific train with limited or no refunds or changes to travel plans. The prices are dynamic with limited availability at each price level.

The price rises as the cheaper tickets are sold and departure day approaches. But at busy periods you may have to stand if you find all the seats already taken.

I wouldn't bother reserving if I was travelling solo mid-week in February, but I would make a seat reservation if I was travelling on a Friday in July and there were 4 of us! The message here is, pre-book to save money if you are happy committing to a specific train, but if you don't mind paying full-whack you can buy on the day as trains cannot sell out. The single biggest reason people initially hit a brick wall trying to buy a train ticket is that they try to look too far ahead.

Overseas visitors planning a once-in-a-lifetime trip to Europe try to buy a mile train ticket 10 months ahead and wonder why trains aren't shown and booking doesn't work. There's no rush, wait till bookings open! See the How far ahead can I book? Tip: If you need to book hotels or accommodation at your destination before train bookings open, no problem, you can hold accommodation risk-free at www. I strongly recommend waiting until onward train booking is open so you can confirm the actual times of your onward train for that date before booking a non-changeable non-refundable Eurostar ticket.

You cannot stop off with these cheap tickets as they are only valid on the specific train you've booked. If you need to, you can get off short of your destination with these tickets fine in mainland Europe, although not in the UK , but the unused part of your ticket becomes worthless. On trains with compulsory reservation for example, almost any longer-distance train in France, Spain or Italy , you cannot stop off even with flexible tickets, as they too are only valid on the train you've booked.

On local trains, and on long distance trains without compulsory reservation, you can often stop off if you have a flexible ticket which allows stopovers. There is one useful exception, where you can pre-programme a stopover into a cheap advance-purchase ticket When booking a journey to, from, across or within Germany at the German Railways website, www.

Or Berlin to Prague with a stopover in Dresden. Maximum 2 stopovers, within the 2 day period for which the ticket is valid. Well worth knowing! Finally, of course, if you are making a long multi-train journey such as London to Malaga where each train is ticketed separately in any case, you can naturally arrange stopovers simply by booking each leg for whatever date and time you want.

They find lots of conflicting information about passes, railcards, discounts, and get confused. Forget being senior. Just go to the relevant train operator website, book 2 or 3 months in advance, find a cheap advance-purchase ticket, pay, print, travel. Don't worry about being 'senior' as 9 times out of 10 it's irrelevant.

You can pretty much say the same thing about youth fares. Here's why A senior or youth fare will be offered automatically if there is one and it's cheapest : Most websites ask your age before you run an enquiry and it'll show a senior or youth fare if there is one and it's the cheapest option for your journey. So don't waste time thinking about it, run the enquiry and buy whatever ticket is cheapest.

If you are offered a senior or youth fare just because you entered your age, then no special railcard is needed, just carry proof of age when you travel such as your passport. Most websites ask you what discount cards you have and won't show you card-discounted fares if you don't enter a card, but a few sites show railcard-discounted fares to everyone. The biggest culprit is Trenitalia.

In fact, it asks you for your Cartafreccia card number in the next step, so you can't buy a discounted ticket accidentally, but it confuses people who don't realise Cartafreccia is a discount card they don't have!

The senior or youth fare is often irrelevant Only if you needed to travel at short notice when the cheap advance-purchase fares were sold out would there be any point in buying the senior fare. So again, forget being senior, just buy the cheapest ticket.

Railcards for seniors or unders: Useful for regular travellers, a distraction for occasional visitors : Some countries have their own senior or youth railcard schemes. You buy the railcard for a fixed fee, it then gives discounts on tickets for domestic journeys within that country for a year, but not usually on international journeys. In many cases you can only buy these railcards when you get to the country concerned, not online and not from abroad.

In general, you only need to consider such a railcard if you are planning to make multiple journeys in that country during the course of a year. Most holiday travellers can forget this distraction, just go online in advance and nab a cheap deal, don't worry about railcards. They are National Railcards, the clue is in the name! To find out more about senior or youth railcards in a given country Go to the relevant rail operator website, see the list on the links page.

In Italy, the senior fares shown on Trenitalia. In Spain there's the Tarjeta Dorada. The golden rule when booking is, don't select any strange brand-name with the word 'card', 'carta', 'carte' etc.

However, it has now been withdrawn, no great loss as it wasn't valid on any of the 'globally priced' international trains in western Europe, which now means almost all of them! Child fares Infants under a certain age go free on trains, no ticket required Spain is an exception, see here and so is Russia , just bring them with you. Forewarned is forearmed, so here are the two key pitfalls to keep an eye open for when booking children online: 1 Child fare more expensive than adult fare.

This happens when a the train operator has created an adult full-price fare and a child full-price fare plus some cheap adult advance-purchase fares, without creating any advance-purchase fares for children, and b the website software isn't clever enough to know that an adult advance-purchase fare can be used by a child just not the other way round, of course! The solution is to manually re-run the enquiry with 2 adults selected, or find a better website: Raileurope.

So keep your eyes open and brain engaged! It's a particular problem when booking Paris-Germany trains as French Railways apply their own 'under 4s free, under 12s child rate' policy when the German Railways website Bahn. Now, not everyone plans that far ahead. However, the best deals on tickets are nearly always going to be available in that timeframe. Peter is the editor of France Travel Blog. He has traveled to France many times and is ready to share the knowledge in this travel guide for France.

Should I buy Eurostar tickets way in advance, or wait? How far in advance can I buy Eurostar tickets? Peter Peter is the editor of France Travel Blog. Prev Post. But using Raileurope. And unlike Eurostar. Or you might want to buy European tickets from a site which doesn't do through tickets from British stations north of London such as Dutch Railways nsinternational. In this case you'll want to book the UK leg separately. You have several options:. You can check fares and buy online www. The second guide to British train tickets on the UK travel page will help you understand the 3 different types of UK train ticket.

Make sure you allow plenty of time to connect with Eurostar, allowing for the 30 minute Eurostar check-in and any delay to your UK train. Since tickets to London International no longer exist from every station in Britain, but they still exist from most stations and are well worth knowing about.

If you have a railcard, it can be used with these fares. Advantage 1: Fewer time restrictions! In other words, you can hop on any train you like, even in the expensive Monday-Friday business peaks when normal Off-Peak fares are not valid, to connect with a Eurostar to Europe. This can be very useful. A handful of operators introduced time restrictions for these fares a few years ago, so please check, but you'll still find the time restrictions more generous than with normal Off-Peak fares.

So if the British train is late and you miss your Eurostar, the CIV conditions of carriage oblige Eurostar to put you on the next available Eurostar without additional charge, even if your ticket is a no-refunds no-changes one. Similarly, if your return Eurostar arrives late into London and you miss your onward connection, the UK train operator is obliged to let you take the next available train, even if you have a train-specific Advance ticket. I'm glad to say that Eurostar normally honour this in the event of a delayed UK connection even if you only have a regular UK ticket, but it's good to have the actual legal entitlement.

Advantage 3: They include the Underground to St Pancras : If you arrive at one of the other London terminal stations and need the Underground to reach St Pancras, tickets to London International include the Underground. Although from Euston, it's easier to walk 5 minutes along the main road than to try and take the Underground for just one stop. Go to www. In the origin box, enter the name of your local station. If any fare appears in the results with the word EURO in it but without the letters ITX which is a special rate for tour operators then you can indeed buy a special ticket to London International with CIV conditions of carriage.

If there are no restrictions shown, you can hop on any train. How to buy these tickets online London International CIV tickets cannot now be bought online, you must go to a staffed station or perhaps call a train operator telesales.

Buy them in person at your local station: Help staff by quoting destination code LNE You must show your Eurostar ticket to qualify. The flexible Saver variety but not the cheaper Advance type can be bought on the day of travel if necessary as the price doesn't change, no advance reservation is necessary, and they are available in unlimited numbers.

You can also travel to Ebbsfleet by train. To see an access map of Ebbsfleet and see a list of station facilities, see www. Option 5 : Take a ferry from Hull or Newcastle If you live in the north of England or Scotland, by all means buy a Eurostar through ticket or buy a ticket to London to connect with Eurostar.

Allow at least 2 hours between your train arriving at Newcastle Central Station and the ferry sailing from Newcastle's International Ferry Terminal, a bus links Newcastle station with the terminal, journey time 30 minutes or so.

Use www. Then use daytime trains to places such as Berlin or Munich or Basel, arriving in the evening. Simply use www. Or book with German Railways English-speaking line on 00 49 0 30 68 29 04 , lines open Monday-Friday, weekends, 1.

Brittany Ferries Bretagne waiting to sail from Portsmouth to Caen If you live in the West Country or along the South Coast, by all means buy a Eurostar through ticket or buy a ticket to London to connect with Eurostar. But also consider a ferry crossing direct to France then a train to Paris. Once in Paris you can pick up the trains to Italy, Switzerland or Spain shown on the relevant country pages of this site.