Interrail or Eurail gets you a special fare on Eurostar

• Eurostar joined the Interrail & Eurail pass schemes in January 2017.

  If you have an Interrail or Eurail pass you can use Eurostar between London & Lille, Paris, Brussels, Disneyland, Rotterdam & Amsterdam, but you must pay a special passholder fare.

• These passholder fares have limited availability and are not always available on the busiest trains or dates, so you should check availability before buying a pass.

How much is the Eurostar passholder fare?

• London to Lille, Brussels or Paris costs €30 in standard class or €38 in standard premier.

• London to Rotterdam or Amsterdam costs €35 in standard class or €43 in standard premier.

• The price is one-way, a round trip is two one-ways.

About these fares

• You qualify for a Eurostar passholder fare if you have an Interrail or Eurail global pass.  You don't qualify if you only have a one-country pass.

• If you've a 2nd class pass you can only book standard class.  If you've a 1st class pass you can book standard or standard premier.

• The passholder fare is the same for adults, seniors, youths & children.

  Children aged under 12 must pay the passholder fare, even if they have a free Interrail or Eurail pass (but children under 4 travel free).

• Eurostar passholder fares are non-refundable, but can be changed for €20 fee using the Manage booking section on www.eurostar.com.

• If you have a flexi pass, the Eurostar journey must take place on one of your unlimited travel days.  But one pass day can cover a train from your home station to London, the Eurostar to Paris, Brussels or Amsterdam, then an onward train to (say) Cologne or Barcelona or wherever.

• You don't need to have activated the pass to buy the Eurostar passholder fare, you only need to have bought a pass so you have a valid pass number.  Buying a passholder fare for a particular date does not commit you to using your pass on that day.  In fact, there is absolutely no connection between making a reservation and using your pass, they are entirely separate.  You can leave your pass un-activated, and if you so wish, later bin the passholder fare and use your pass on a completely different date and a completely different route, whatever.

• Inbound/outbound days:

  If you have an Interrail pass, you are only permitted to use it in your home country on two days, normally the first & last days of your trip to get you out & back.  If you live in Britain, Eurostar counts as a journey in your home country so triggers one of your two inbound/outbound days.  You can take other trains the same day, for example Edinburgh-London-Paris-Lyon on the first day, Cologne-Brussels-London-Edinburgh on your last day, but you can't go Edinburgh-London day 1, stay overnight, then go London-Paris day 2, then Brussels-London-Edinburgh on the last day, because that would be 3 home country days and you're limited to 2.  More information about inbound/outbound journeys.

• See the Eurostar page for a guide to Eurostar's trains, classes, check-in procedures and journey.

  Tip:  Remember to add the Eurostar journey to My trip and toggle it onto your pass (if using a mobile pass), or record the Eurostar journey in your hand-written travel diary (if using a hard copy pass) just as for any other train journey.

• Remember that Eurostar's regular fares start at £78 return without a pass if you book well in advance and avoid busy days, so only buy a pass if the cheapest tickets have sold out, if you're using other trains before or after the Eurostar journey making it worthwhile.

Availability is limited, here's how it works

• You can check availability of Eurostar passholder places before you buy a pass using www.b-europe.com/EN/Booking/Pass.

  This doesn't need a pass number to show passholder  availability.  I strongly recommend you check availability before you buy a pass, as places for Interrail & Eurail passholders are limited.  Here's how it works:

• Eurostar has dynamic pricing, managed using 'price buckets' like an airline.  There are around 12 buckets, let's say bucket 1 is the most expensive and always available as long as there are any seats at all left on that train, and price bucket 12 is the cheapest, available if you book months ahead for a wet Wednesday in February.

  The Interrail/Eurail passholder fare is in the 3rd bucket down from top, bucket 3.  Which means availability is pretty good, even at short notice.

  If you book in advance you'll usually find plenty of availability, but maybe not on the busiest trains on a Friday or Sunday afternoon.  If you book on the day of travel you'll often find availability on some trains, but not all trains, or perhaps on a few trains tomorrow but none today.

  However, on busy dates, days and trains you'll find that buckets 1 or 2 are available for normal travellers paying cash, but bucket 3 is unavailable so no passholder places, even though the train isn't full.  Friday & Sunday afternoons are very busy and so is July & August.

  Put another way, if the normal price shown at www.eurostar.com is £143 or less for a given train, €30 passholder places should be available.  But if the normal price is £160 or higher, there will be no passholder places on that train.

  See for yourself!  Run an enquiry at www.b-europe.com/EN/Booking/Pass to see what availability looks today, tomorrow, next week.

• Tip:  I've known people turn up in Paris in July or August to find the next Eurostar with passholder places is in 3 days' time.  You can always catch a train to Calais or Caen and take a ferry back to Dover or Portsmouth, see the London to Paris by train & ferry page.  Or from Amsterdam or Brussels, use the Hoek-Harwich Stena Line service between Amsterdam & London.

• Tip:  If there's no availability from London to Paris (or Paris to London), book London to Lille (or Lille to London) instead.  You can then use a French domestic train between Lille & Paris, either a direct TGV for a €10/€20 fee or TERs (with a change at Amiens or Aulnoye) with no fee.

How to buy a Eurostar passholder ticket

Option 1, buy at www.b-europe.com/EN/Booking/Pass

• You can check availability of Eurostar passholder places on Belgian Railways website www.b-europe.com/EN/Booking/Pass before buying a pass because (unlike option 2 below) you do not need a pass number to run an enquiry and see availability.

  You should see passholder fares at the prices listed above.  Only trains with passholder places available show up.

  With a 1st class pass you can travel in either class.  With a 2nd class pass only standard class Eurostar tickets will show up.

  When you've bought a pass and have a pass number, you can buy your Eurostar passholder ticket here.

  B-europe charge a €4 booking fee, on the overall booking.  In option 2 below the fee is only €2, but per person not per booking.

  You can print out your Eurostar ticket or can show it on your phone in the B-Europe app or Eurostar app.

  Tip:  Booking usually opens 6 months ahead.  Eurostar trains can sometimes appear open for booking up to 330 days ahead, but you may find that no Interrail passholder places are available until less than 6 months before departure, if so don't panic, just wait!

• If it won't accept a mobile pass number, you can easily generate a pass cover number from your mobile pass number at www.eurail.com/en/book-reservations#/generatePassCoverNumber.

• Tip:  Once you've bought your passholder ticket, you can choose better seats from a Eurostar seat map following the instructions here.

• Please let me know if the direct link to www.b-europe.com/EN/Booking/Pass stops working.  To navigate from their home page:

  1.  On the www.b-europe.com home page, hover over Plan & book then click Purchase Interrail Passes.

  2.  Scroll down to Make your reservation on Eurostar at the special Pass fare and click Book your Eurostar ticket at pass fare now.

Option 2, buy using the InterRail/Eurail reservations service

• You can book Eurostar passholder places online using the official Interrail/Eurail reservation service at www.interrail.eu/en/book-reservations (Interrail) or www.eurail.com/en/book-reservations (Eurail).  Use the journey planner to bring up train departures for the route you want.

• In this case you need an Interrail or Eurail pass number even to run an enquiry, so you can't check availability before buying a pass, although if you have a pass it doesn't need to be activated.  Eurostar reservations are automated, the ticket is emailed to you in minutes.

• There's a small booking fee of €2 per person, so they are cheaper than b-europe.com if there's only one of you.  You can use b-europe to check availability before buying the pass, then buy the reservation at the Interrail/Eurail site after buying it.

• You can also make passholder bookings in the Interrail/Eurail Railplanner app on your phone - it's a useful app for offline timetable enquiries in any case, and mobile passes are displayed in this app.  Download it at www.eurail.com/en/plan-your-trip/rail-planner-app.

• Tip:  Booking usually opens 6 months ahead.  Eurostar sometimes opens up to 330 days ahead, but you may find there are no Interrail passholder places until less than 6 months before departure, so don't don't panic, just wait!

• Tip:  Once you've bought your passholder ticket, you can choose better seats from a Eurostar seat map following the instructions here.

Option 3, buy at the station or call Eurostar telesales

• Eurostar passholder fares are available directly from the Eurostar ticket offices at London St Pancras, Lille Europe, Paris Gare du Nord & Brussels Midi, or by phone from Eurostar telesales on 03432 186 186 (UK) or +44 1233 617575 (overseas) but there may be a phone booking fee.  You will need your pass number.

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