Different operator's tickets all in one place

• www.raileurope.com is one of the best places to buy European train tickets for multiple operators around much of western Europe, in plain English, with overseas credit cards accepted, in £, € or $, in multiple languages.

• It connects to multiple train operator ticketing systems including the British, French, German, Spanish, Italian & Austrian Railways.

  You can book direct with the relevant train operator without a booking fee, but that means struggling with multiple transactions on multiple websites, sometimes with poor or confusing English translations, and some train operator sites struggle with overseas credit cards.

You can use www.raileurope.com wherever you live - Europe, America, Asia, Africa

• You can use www.raileurope.com wherever you live, overseas credit cards no problem, you can book in £, € or $, ticket delivery is usually show-on-phone, print-at-home or collect-at-station.  It's available in several languages.

• Tip:  Wherever you live, select United Kingdom as your country, so that the UK flag appears top right.

  You should use www.raileurope.com with United Kingdom selected as that gets you the best prices.  For example, SNCF isn't yet licensed to sell all operator's tickets in all countries, so the ability to book (say) train tickets in Austria via SNCF's connection to ÖBB Austrian Railways at ÖBB's cheap prices may mysteriously disappear if you select United States.  So select United Kingdom, even if you live in Australia or India or the USA.  It makes no difference to you.

Who are Rail Europe?

• Going back to the early 2000s, there used to be 4 completely different Rail Europes, all owned by SNCF (French Railways), but separate companies with different staff and different histories selling tickets in different parts of the world:

  1.  Raileurope Limited was a UK company with offices and a call centre in West Malling and a travel centre on Regents Street in London, all now closed down.

  2.  Raileurope Inc. was a U.S. company based in White Plains New York, also owned by SNCF.  Until 2020 they operated two websites, the original raileurope.com & raileurope.ca, selling to people living in the USA & Canada.

  3.  Rail Europe 4A was based in Paris and also owned by SNCF.  Rail Europe 4A operated many different websites including www.raileurope.com.au, raileurope-world.com, raileurope.co.in, .co.sg, .co.nz etc., selling to residents of Australasia, Asia, Africa & South America (hence '4A').

• The Rail Europe you see today started life as Loco2.com, an excellent European rail booking engine started by Jamie and Kate Andrews, two British entrepreneurs who wanted to make train booking easier.  They developed a booking engine connected to multiple train operators (French, German, Italian, Spanish, Austrian, British) so you could book a range of European trains in the same place, in plain English.  It's a great system and I have been supporting it since it started.

• Loco2.com was bought by SNCF (French Railways) in 2017.  A booking fee was added.

• In November 2019, SNCF changed the URL to raileurope.co.uk, replacing the former raileurope.co.uk.

• In July 2020 SNCF changed the URL again, to www.raileurope.com, serving all markets worldwide and completely replacing all other Rail Europe companies and websites including the former US-based Raileurope.com, Raileurope.ca, Raileurope.com.au, Raileurope-world.com and all the others.

• SNCF has now sold www.raileurope.com and it's a stand-alone company.

• Incidentally, when you read comments on Tripadvisor, usually the poster has no idea that there were several different Rail Europes, and the comments often relate to the US-based one.  Many comments will relate to the period before the current 2020 reorganisation, when the same excellent Loco2 booking technology was rolled out for everyone on one site.

Raileurope.com is connected to:

• British national rail.  It sells train tickets for all operators in Great Britain, although with a significant booking fee added.  It also sells SailRail tickets to & from Ireland.

• SNCF French Railways:  It connects directly to SNCF's ticketing system to sell French train tickets and trains to and from France, at the same prices as French Railways www.sncf-connect.com themselves (but cannot sell lo-cost Ouigo trains, as SNCF considers Ouigo a separate company).

• DB German Railways:  It connects to the same system that drives DB's own site bahn.de, to sell train tickets to, from and within Germany, as DB's own prices with DB's own print-at-home tickets and no booking fees.  Note that the datafeed provided by DB can't do sleeper trains, but many of these overnight services can be sold through the connection to ÖBB.

• Renfe Spanish Railways:  It connects to Renfe to sell all Renfe's cheap tickets with Renfe's print-at-home ticket delivery.  The system can also sell the international sleeper trains from Madrid and the French border to Lisbon in Portugal.  Given that Renfe's own site has a reputation for quirky translations and rejecting a significant proportion of overseas credit cards, Raileurope.com (or Thetrainline.com) is the best way to book Spanish tickets with no fuss.

• SBB Swiss Railways:  It connects to SBB's system to sell Swiss domestic tickets including SBB's cheap Supersaver fares.

• Trenitalia Italian Railways:  It also connects to Trenitalia, to sell Italian train tickets at the same price as Trenitalia, with payment in £ or €, and either collect-at-station tickets or for fast trains, it's ticketless - you just quote the booking reference on board the train.

• Italo:  It also connect directly to Italo, the privately-owned high-speed operator in Italy competing with State-owned Trenitalia on the Milan-Florence-Rome-Naples & Venice-Florence-Rome routes.

• ÖBB Austrian Railways:  It also connects to ÖBB so can now sell tickets through the Austrian Railways system including ÖBB's nightjet & railjet trains, other trains to, from & within Austria, and Nightjet partner routes such as Munich-Budapest.  Note that it cannot do tickets which require collection at an ÖBB station, such as Vienna-Kyiv.

• Using these systems, they can sell through journeys that involve multiple operators.  For example, Paris to Florence, sourcing the Paris-Turin TGV from the French SNCF system and Turin-Florence train from the Trenitalia system, ensuring you get the cheapest price for each leg and the operator's own print-at-home ticketing.

So is Raileurope.com good for every train route?

• No, because Raileurope.com is not yet connected to the Swedish, Norwegian, Finnish, Portuguese, Polish, Czech, Slovakian, Slovenian, Croatian, Hungarian, Bulgarian, Romanian, Turkish, Russian or Ukrainian ticketing systems.  It also can't sell Ouigo trains in France, for example, or privately-owned Westbahn trains in Austria.

  Raileurope can book international journeys to or from many of these countries if the route in question can be booked using the French, German, Austrian or Spanish ticketing systems (for example, Berlin to Stockholm using the German system or Vienna to Zagreb using the Austrian system), but for journeys within or between those countries you should use the relevant national train operator's own website.

• On seat61.com I recommend the best site or sites to book the specific journey in question.  That's the whole point!

Tips

• Booking fee

  Raileurope.com charge a booking fee of €6.95 (at the time I write this).  Just the one €6.95 booking fee is added to the total value of your basket when you check out, however many tickets or journeys are in that basket.  If you buy one ticket, check out & pay, then buy another ticket, check out & pay, you'll pay TWO fees. So it makes sense to buy all your tickets together as one transaction, not multiple transactions.

  You can of course void paying any fee by using the train operator's own website, although this often means buying different tickets from different websites and sometimes battling with quirky translations or even payment systems that are fussy with overseas cards.  I'll try to show a no-fee booking option as well, it's then your call.

• When does booking open?

  It varies by route and train operator.  You'll find info about that here!

• One-way or round trip?

  If you're making a round trip, Eurostar (London-Paris, London-Brussels) is best booked as a return journey because Eurostar return fares are significantly cheaper than two one-ways.  However, for most continental journeys beyond Paris or Brussels, a round trip is simply two one-ways so you may find it easier to book one way at a time and add to basket, it makes no difference to the price.

• How to specify a route or stopover

  If you click More options you can add a via station, with optional stopover duration.  This is useful for specifying a particular route, for example London to the South of France via Lille rather than Paris, or Brussels to Switzerland via Cologne rather than Paris.  Also useful to stop for lunch in Paris, as you can specify via Paris with a 2h30 stopover, for example.

  In most cases, the effect of specifying a stopover is to split the ticket at that point - sometimes if the system struggles to find an option, specify an obvious routing point and it finds a journey!  Or if you want to see if Paris-Barcelona is cheaper with a split-ticket at Perpignan, simply enter Perpignan as a stopover.

• Connections between trains

  Like all journey planners, Raileurope allows the minimum time at interchange stations, as specified by train operators.  It'll always be possible to make the connection in that time if the first train is on time, and that might be fine if you're connecting into a local train where if you miss it, you catch the next one half an hour later.  But what if, say, you're connecting into a sleeper train, with a separate non-refundable train-specific ticket where if you miss it you're screwed?  Like all journey planners, it will not allow for delay!   I therefore recommend you use the suggested connections given on seat61.com, as I show realistic connections with an allowance for delay given the likelihood & consequences of a missed connection.  If necessary, book each train separately and add to basket.  More about connections.  More about your rights when connections are missed.

  In particular, SNCF French Railways allows cross-Paris journeys to be offered with as little as 42 minutes between trains, when I would never allow less than 60 minutes, and would ideally like longer if going to (say) Spain or Italy where the connection in Paris is mission-critical.

  Use the More options feature to specify a 1 hour (or longer) stop in Paris, or simply book each train separately either side of Paris, adding each to your basket and ensuring 60+ minutes between trains.

  Incidentally, it's often difficult to see if you're being offered a through ticket for your whole journey or a string of separate tickets one for each train.  In most cases, for a long-distance multi-train journey, it'll be the latter.  Relatively few through tickets exist these days.

• "Sorry, we haven't found any tickets..."

  - All or part of the journey might not yet be open for booking, see more info about when bookings open.

  Solution:  You can sometimes book part of the journey if you break it down.  For example, Paris to Seville means a Paris-Barcelona TGV which opens 120 days ahead then a Barcelona-Seville AVE which opens 40-60 days ahead.  If your Paris-Seville enquiry fails, try Paris-Barcelona, as that part of the trip may be open  for sale.

  - The logic that joins up separate operators/trains may have a glitch...

  Solution:  Help it to find an answer like this:  Click More options and specify a suitable via station, this being the place where you have to change trains (yes, that means using the info on this site, or making an educated guess).  For example, at the time I write this Munich to Florence always produces a Sorry, we haven't found any tickets message (except for the direct sleeper train), but if you help it by entering Verona (any station) as a via station it magically finds the German/Austrian train from Munich to Verona and onward Trenitalia trains from Verona to Florence.  It just needed prompting!

  - It may not be able to book one component of the journey.

  For example, it'll book the sleeper train from Munich to Zagreb as that is a Nightjet partner route and it can book it through its connection to ÖBB.  But a Munich to Split enquiry will produce a Sorry, we haven't found any tickets error message, because the onward Zagreb-Split train is a domestic Croatian journey held on the Croatian Railways ticketing system, to which Raileurope.com has no connection.

  Solution:  Break the journey down!  Book Munich-Zagreb at raileurope.com and add Zagreb-Split at the Croatian Railways website hzpp.hr.  Easy when you know!

 Raileurope.com or Thetrainline.com?

• These are the two best pan-European train ticketing sites. I recommend both sites.  But which has the edge?

  It almost comes down to personal preference - or sometimes one handling a particular multi-operator route better than the other.  Both sites are good, both allow you to book multiple train operators' tickets across much of western Europe, in plain English, in multiple currencies, with no card payment problems.  As both sites source fares from the same operator ticketing systems, prices should be the same.

• Both sites connect to the French, German, Spanish, Swiss, Italian, Austrian ticketing systems, and to Italo.  Neither site yet connects to the Swedish, Norwegian, Portuguese, Czech, Hungarian, Romanian, Slovenian, Croatian, Bulgarian, Turkish, Russian, etc., ticketing systems.

  However, Trainline has marginally more connectivity, as it also connects to the Benelux & Westbahn systems and it'll also sell French lo-cost Ouigo trains which Raileurope won't.

• Thetrainline.com charges a 3% booking fee on the value of each ticket, Raileurope adds a flat €6.95 fee to the value of your whole basket when you check out.  That makes Thetrainline cheaper for small transactions, it also means you can book a multi-train trip in stages without penalty, paying 3% on each transaction, whereas with Raileurope's flat €6.95 fee, buying in multiple stages would mean paying multiple fees.  On the other hand, Raileurope's flat €6.95 fee might be cheaper for a big trip than paying Trainline's 3%.