Eurostar reservations?

Eurostar tickets are available 6 months in advance, so you can book now for the first half of June. Prices only head in one direction.

You can wait until the day before you travel, but prices will be significantly more expensive and certain trains maybe full.

Before you buy the Eurail pass, check with https://www.seat61.com/ to see if passes are economically viable for your trip. Most travelers on these threads find that point to point tickets are generally cheaper than rail passes these days.

Ronica, you don't mention budget. Presumably you understand that Eurostar tickets get more and more expensive, reaching a Business Luxury level just before departure. Your "flexibility" is limited only by your budget, as long as you are willing to avoid peak business hours, when some trains might actually sell out. Are you prepared to sit separately, as well as expensively? It's your choice. I always buy Eurostar as soon as I possibly can. We're talking about a larger percentage range than many air tickets!

You may wish to read our host's Train suggestions (blue menu top left) to determine the wisdom of Eurail pass purchases. Don't forget that some trains require reservations, even for passes.

Be sure to book directly with the www.eurostar.com website. You can book to June 18 today and there are still fares available for $76 each. In contrast, if you were booking today for a train tomorrow you'd pay $269. BTW, with the train from Brussels, you can book either from Brussels or "Any Belgian Station" for a nominal additional fee. (Tomorrow is showing $279 from Any Belgium Station).

You'll need to get your lodging in London in place as well if you intend to stay there so you may have less flexibility during this part of your trip.

Do take the advice to do some reading (before you purchase) on whether a Eurail Pass will save you money. In some countries you'd need to purchase a mandatory reservation and in others you can get local daily passes inexpensively. Don't use Rick's chart for train fares as he gives walk up fare estimates instead of purchase ahead prices.

Thank you all so much for the replies! Looks like we will be solidifying this section of the journey more than the others. Budget was mentioned by one response--while we are not millionaires, we are willing to spend more for flexibility, but the difference is astronomical between buying now and later!!!

I will do more research on point-to-point verses passes. I am thinking that although passes might not be the most economical, so far they seem to allow the most flexibility at a decent price.

Again, thank you for your help and all of the great information on this forum!
Happy Holidays!

One thing to think about -- Eurostar does not convert fares between currencies, but rather has parallel pricing. In other words, for each price bucket in the reservations system, there is a euro, a pound and dollar fare, designed to be similar when originally set. Eurostar is not going to alter fares with daily moves of currency rates, but those daily shifts in the exchange rates can mean its cheaper to select the pound or euro fare over that of the dollar.

So for example the current ticket price for the 5:40am St Pancras to Gare du Nord on February 21 is £44, €50.50 and $61. At Monday's exchange rate the £44 fare would be $55.52 plus the 2% my bank charges for foreign conversion, while the €50.50 would be $57.26 +2%.

From the US you'll open the US version of website with fares displayed in dollars by default, just toggle between the US, UK or the Belgian in English versions of the Eurostar website.

I don't know if any of your travel willl take place in France, but please note if so that France requires expensive (and rather limited in #) seat reservations to be purchased separately from the pass for your specific train(s) (if you're taking the fast nice TGV trains), rather eating up any convenience and monetary savings intended by the pass.

What Pam said about purchasing Eurostar as far in advance as you're comfortable with for the best pricing.

Thank you for the tips Vap and Kim! Both very helpful!

The relative value of using a Eurail pass to cover Eurostar trains partly depends on whether you'll also use the pass for any further travel that day (sounds like you won't) and what other Eurostar discounts are still available when you're ready to reserve. The number of passholder tickets is limited, as is the number of tickets for any other particular deal, so a few days ahead might not be enough. See https://www.ricksteves.com/travel-help/rail-faq#eurostar.