Eurostar London to Paris: booking questions for summer 2018

I've always booked on the Eurostar site.

What site are you using to see only 9 seats left?

Does your credit card have foreign transaction fees? If not, just book in GBP. To do that, when asked for you country just put UK.

If I select my dates and number of travellers here: https://ricksteves.raileurope.com/us/rail/point_to_point/triprequest.htm I see only nine seats left. Other trips on the same day show eight seats, and also no message (which I'm assuming means a relative bounty of seats.) Thing is, I can't book directly through Eurostar.com for at least a month, from the looks of it.

Why not try phoning?

+44 (0) 3432 186 186

Dani, Always buy from Eurostar website ( https://www.eurostar.com ). This will give you the "real price" resellers like Raileurope are just getting in the way and costing you more. They present a "US-friendly" site (back-to-front dates, times in am/pm, prices in US$) because this attracts less confident US-Americans. No other site can sell tickets if Eurostar has not released them, they are just taking your money and sitting on it until ticket sales open.

If you book tickets with the default seats, it will always give you a group of seats together, so long as the train still has room. With Eurostar you can pick your own seats, a block of 4 (2 facing 2 across a table) plus an odd seat on the other side of the aisle.

I guess what your "but only nine seats left!" message really means is that there are only 9 seats left at that price, then the price goes up. You often see that message on the Eurostar site. There are always seats left, up to the last minute, if you are prepared to pay enough (excluding special cases like Christmes Eve). Business travellers don't book months in advance, they book 1 day in advance and pay for the privilege!

Eurostar will let you pay in £ or €. Whether you credit card converts this in one hop or two is up to the card company.

No need to phone. Wait for the tickets to be available on Eurostar, and don't buy from a reseller -- and don't let them scare you!! You're on top of this way in advance.

There's no need to panic, and no need to go through a 3rd party reseller. Just wait and book when the seats open up for the day you want. The Eurostar trains are long ones, with a lot of capacity. And they run almost hourly. Do you really think the average train traveller is anxiously booking their travel more than 6 months out in fear that the train will be full? You should have no problem getting seats together (as described in a previous post) when you book next month.

Currency exchange: The financial balls-in-the-air manipulations will be handled by your Canadian credit card. Some banks's cards will indeed convert through US to Canadian but you won't notice it until your statement arrives and the final cost won't be much or any different. Anyhow there's no way around it. A credit card allows you to buy in advance and save big money. Canadian cards are almost all chip-and-PIN now which gives extra security. The Royal, Canada's biggest, doesn't even require advance notice of your itinerary.

PS: Trust Seat 61; buy through Eurostar when the tickets become available and reserve your seats. RailEurope is to be avoided, although the Steves website uses its service.

Brilliant advice - this forum really is wonderful. Thanks so much to all, I will happily keep clicking on the Eurostar.com calendar opens up my date for booking.

Merry Christmas to those celebrating and happy weekend to the rest of you.

I see the problem. You think you're booking on this site. You're not. You are being taken to RailEurope for tickets. RS gets a commission for selling tickets on that site. (RS used to be one of the biggest sellers of Eurail passes but they are not very popular anymore.)

However, those of us who have traveled far and wide will you tell RailEurope is one of the worst places to buy a train ticket. They don't display all trains, they are known to charge more, and if there is a problem you have to deal with RailEurope.

Buy direct--especially for Eurostar.

Here are some suggestions based on our Eurostar London to Paris experience:
1) Buy the economy seat tickets. The seats in economy are plenty comfortable. Save the money and put it towards a nice meal when you arrive in Paris.
2)Download and use the Eurostar app. You can put your electronic ticket on your smartphone.

3)Arrive in plenty of time at St. Pancras. There's plenty to do and places to eat at the station. They open the gates to the platform about an hour before departure. It takes 30 minutes to go through customs, then they allow boarding to start 30 minutes before departure.
4)If at all possible, take the Metro from Gare du Nord after you arrive. Taxi service is horrible from Gare du Nord. You will be competing with all the other passengers who came from London. We stood in the queue for 50 minutes before we got a taxi. We could have gotten on the Metro directly and been at our B&B in 20 minutes. Download the Metro app. You'll find using the Metro super easy. Be sure to buy a pass for the time you'll be in Paris. This is the cheapest way to get around the city.

You will have a wonderful time! I'm sure your kids will fall in love with London and Paris. I highly recommend Alcove and Agape for accommodations. This is so much better than staying in a hotel. You can find a place to stay for a reasonable price in any section of the city. Our hosts, Dominique and Erik, were wonderful. We loved getting to know them and they were a treasure of information. Staying with them was the highlight of our time in Paris!

The Passe Navigo Decouverte for the week in Paris only makes sense if you're arriving in Paris on a certain day of the week (it's valid from Monday morning through Sunday night)-- so, if for example you're there Thursday to Wednesday it wouldn't make much sense as you'd need to buy two consecutive weeks of Navigo passes to make it through your time there.

If the timing of your trip doesn't work for the pass, don't worry, just buy a carnet (kar-NAY) of 10 tickets that you can share among family members (each member needs their own ticket for each journey). Go ahead and buy 2-3 carnets at once. (children 4- 9 receive a discount - a half-priced ticket).

The quote that you originally included from Seat61 means that you can't change a booking at www.eurostar.com if you made it elsewhere; the other agents would have their own procedures. Changes always incur fees as well as paying any price increase in the tickets available at the time of exchange, so that shouldn't be your plan going in. (Business travelers who pay higher rates are the most likely to use the exchange options.)

The time when exchange rate issues become most obvious would be if you do have to change/rebook a ticket. That usually requires a refund and recharge and the amount that the bank refunds to your credit card is never the same as what they charged originally. Rail Europe does offer a Canadian booking site, if you want it. (My computer doesn't let me see it, so I don't know how the Canadian prices differ from the $61 US starting rate for an adult.)

Eurostar started in 1994, so you could have used it then, and it was still expensive. I booked at the last minute, thereby paying full fare, and also getting stuck with the last 2nd-class seat, in the smoking section! Luckily, the smoking section is a thing of the past and online booking much easier.

We've just returned from using the London to Paris Eurostar. We've always found that the taxi service from Gare du Nord is not horrible as some have posted. There is a taxi rank and those at the end of the line might have to wait a bit. Never accept a taxi offer from those that approach you in the station. Luggage on the metro can be a test of patience and a test of strength so we always use a taxi. We have learned to book a carriage (train car) at the front of the train, seats facing forward in the direction of travel, and usually right behind the first class carriages. That means you will have a long hike to get to your carriage on departure but you will be the first off upon arrival. That also means you will be nearly first in line at the taxi rank at Gare du Nord. Last week we got to the taxi rank and were immediately into a taxi and on our way. With a larger party, the director at the taxi rank will see to it that you have a larger vehicle to accommodate your larger party. Be sure and purchase your tickets from the Eurostar website and they go on sale 6 months prior to your date of travel. Do some research on the Eurostar site to learn the seating chart, seats with a window view, and four seats around a table if that's what you want.