Train from Amsterdam to Brussels airport

You sleep in Amsterdam or you sleep in Brussels. Is Brussels that much more expensive?The train takes at least is 2 1/2 hrs . That's too far away for a day of transfer for my comfort. Especially with an expensive overseas flight on the line. All it takes is an accident or technical issue, and you're possibly up a creek. Of course you could take a morning train, which might allow time for a plan B if necessary.

I have to believe that there are no nonstop evening flights from Brussels to
Seattle (or any nonstop flights for that matter). So most likely any evening flight
is only to the European hub city from which you fly back to Seattle the next
morning, and you're on the hook for a hotel there anyways, most likely near the airport.

You might be able to catch an early morning train (~3 hrs as noted), for an afternoon
flight that connects thru London, but it has risks. The easiest and more optimal is
the original option of a night in Brussels if that is indeed the city you have to fly home
from.

John, there are many people who combine a visit to the Netherlands with a visit to Belgium. But BRU is not next door to Amsterdam.

You may get better advice if you sketch out your entire trip, including home city, first destination, and desired cities to visit. It would also be useful to know if you have been to Europe before, taken a train before, and whether you have preferred airlines. Do you ever use "public transportation" at home? BRU has 21 million passengers a year, AMS has 62 Million. I've been to a lot of United "bus gates" at BRU too, by the way.

I have the luxury of being near the NYC airports, but after years of avoiding connecting flghts, we are now visiting "secondary" cities in Europe, and the 2-segment connecting flight experience has been better than I expected. Because Lufthansa and United are "partners", we often fly (the same day) to cities like Cologne at no actual extra cost. It's not a big bonus to be forced to begin sightseeing at 8AM anyway! So arriving at noon or 1 isn't so bad. Do you know what "Multiple City" ticketing is?

For an evening flight out of Brussels it is perfectly doable to travel there form Amsterdam on the day.

Will take you about 3 hours. Which is fine. (This is what I need to get to my closest airport...)

Thanks, all. You offered some good warnings and suggestions. The risk of something going wrong on
the train to Brussels and missing the flight seems daunting of itself. But the day train and catching
an evening flight (if available) makes sense, if all goes well. While I have your attention, anyone have
suggestions on lodgings in Brussels and Amsterdam close to city center and the transit systems? Love how
you experts are free with good advice.

I’m afraid you’ll be in for an unpleasant surprise if you think that hotels in central Amsterdam will be cheaper than in Brussels. Amsterdam is a really expensive city when it comes to hotels.
Before anyone can give meaningful advice about hotels, you would at least need to provide some idea of a nightly budget. Preferably in Euro’s, not in terms of “reasonable”, “mid price” etc., because one person’s “reasonable” might be another person’s “ no way”

Things can of course always go wrong. But that is what you have travel insurance for. I don't know about yours, but if something happened that shut down all trains to the airport for half a day, and I ended up missing a flight my insurance would cover that.

On Amsterdam - Brussels there are actually three different train services (four actually if you add the old route), so the chance of you not getting there at all is low.