Is Lille station included in Benelux-Germany rail pass?

While waiting for a definitive answer, you have options. I know in Switzerland, the Swiss pass is good to the first station outside of Switzerland. If the Benelux pass is the same, the first station outside of Belgium is Tourcoing, a suburb of Lille. So assuming Lille is not covered: 1. Buy a supplement before boarding in Brugge. or
2. Get off at Tourcoing and take the Transpole Subway line to either Lille Europe or Lille Flandres stations, both have TGV service to Paris. Single ride ticket is 1.40 euro.

Hi, If you know that Lille is the big city in northern France, why would your Pass be valid in France? That Pass is valid in Holland, Belgium, Luxembourg, and Germany. You need a separate ticket to cover the French portion of the ride if you use the Pass. I don't think the Benelux-Germany Pass is going to be financially worth it unless you do some long rides criss crossing Germany on the ICE trains and your is 5 weeks or more. From your intinerary your best bet is buying point to point tickets which you'll have a discount. On avoiding the hefty reservation fees on the Thalys especially, and the TGV with the Pass: You can do it provided you want to spend an extra day, say from Amsterdam to Paris. For that ride I'd do Amsterdam-Frankfurt direct on the ICE, no required reservations, (the Pass is valid). Stay a night in Frankfurt. Next day use the Pass for Frankfurt-Saarbrücken. From Saarbrücken to Paris buy a discounted ticket in advance where you're locked in to a specific train and date, thereby sacrificing flexibility for savings.

then a small reservation fee for the TGV train from Lille to Paris If you have a Benelux-Germany Railpass (maybe or maybe not a good idea) why do you think that you can ride from Lille to Paris for a small reservation fee for the TGV train from Lille to Paris both cities of which are in France? Your pass has no standing in France. The TGV can be reasonably inexpensive if booked several months ahead with non-changeable, non-refundable tickets. The TGV can be quite expensive is bought at the last minute. Otherwise you are looking at going around the sun to get to the moon to get a non-TGV to Paris, which will also require a proper ticket.

Hello Sam, Fred, and Nigel, I am getting the sense that, irrespective of whether the Germany-Benelux rail pass covers Lille-Flanders, it might not be cost-effective to have the pass for the following train trips: Frankfurt-Bacharach, KD Cruise down Rhine river, Bacharach to Amsterdam, Amsterdam to Bruges, and Bruges to Lille-Flanders (with a TGV from Lille-Flanders to Paris). Is this sentiment correct? When I did the math (using ricksteves.com's estimated train fares map), Point-to-point vs rail pass came out about even (the price somewhere between $250-$275) - given that a Point-to-point ticket requires that I make a purchase at each stop, is there any convenience factor in having a rail pass, in that I can just board a train whenever we end up at the train station? I'm a newbie to train travel in Europe (I used buses in Spain), so I appreciate your help. As for the Lille-Flanders station being in France, I fully recognize that it theoretically is not covered by a Germany-Benelux rail pass as a destination from Belgium. However, ricksteves.com's language from the "Belgium, Netherlands, & Luxembourg rail passes" webpage suggests something else: "To avoid Thalys fees when heading from Bruges or Brussels to Paris, you can take a little more time and connect in Lille to a TGV with cheaper (but limited) $11 seat reservations." This is where ambiguity enters in: can I get to Lille-Flanders on the Germany-Benelux rail pass? As for my language of "small reservation fee" in riding from Lille-Flanders to Paris, I am saying that I would purchase the reservation from TGV to make that train ride, rather than try to incorporate it into a rail pass that includes France - I recognize that this is a distinct purchase that I need to make. Thanks!

If you qualify for a youth pass, that may change the default math that most of us on this website know (which is, 3rd party rail passes almost never save any money). But the same answer applies- you really have to go on the websites of the national rail carriers (ie, not RailEurope or even Rick Steves) and investigate the price of point to point, 2nd class, advanced purchase discounts. Because domestic rail service in the Netherlands and Belgium is fairly inexpensive, I've never seen any 3rd party rail pass compare favorably. Just to provide more information as well, Belgian and Dutch rail do not offer advanced purchase discounts, so there's no need to buy in advanced, which sort of negates the whole "flexibility" factor in a rail pass for those countries. Deutsche Bahn (German rail) does offer substantial advanced purchase discounts, particularly for long distance trains.

I have never used a rail pass, and always bought advance nonrefundable tickets. I will admit that this may be limiting, but I always like to have a hotel reservation so I know where I am sleeping that night, therefore I know have to travel there, therefore I can live with having a definite train time and ticket. This may be somewhat restrictive, that's the price I pay. You really need to price your itinerary, day by day using the national railway websites. The RS guide book prices are just that, general estimates, and do not take into account Sparpreiss fares in Germany, advance special price Thalys and TGV tickets, which can be expensive or cheap depending on how far in advance and day and time of day.
If, after going through this excersize, you determine that the Benelux pass works for you, go for it. You can go to http://en.voyages-sncf.com/en/?DISTRIBUTED_COUNTRY=GB and find prices for the Lille-Paris leg. Just use France as the ticket collection country to get the real info and not get redirected to Raileurope. I see that looking at the month of July, you can get a reserved 2nd class seat most days for as low as 15 euro. That is todays price, it could change tomorrow.

Jon, Your Benelux pass is not valid for Lille. In any case, it is unlikely you will save money using a pass. You can travel between Bacharach and Amsterdam from up to € 29 (it requires a two changes in Koblenz and Köln where you take an ICE train). You can travel between Amsterdam and Antwerpen from up to € 25 on Thalys. You can travel between Brugge and Paris from up to € 39. Adding the other sectors (Frankfurt - Bacarach and Antwerpen - Brugge)will not add up to the cost of the pass - and you will get to Paris.

Thanks, Andre. I just finished about two hours of research and came up with something similar. Where did you find those ticket prices? And, more importantly, do any of those require reservations? Here's what I found, lowest price per person: Frankfurt airport- Bacharach: ~€14 (no clear indication from bahn.de, assume I will buy when I land, in person) KD Cruise on Rhine - €30 (from cruise site) Bacharach- Amsterdam: ~€39 (site: nshispeed.com, departure from St. Goar, which is close enough to serve as an estimate) Amsterdam-Antwerp: €16.90 (site: nshispeed.com) Antwerp- Bruges: €6 (for Go Pass 1, online only, site: belgianrail.be) Bruges-Lille: €18.40 (on Intercity, site: b-europe.com)
Lille- Paris: €25 (on TGV, site: en.voyages-sncf.com) - I assume this requires a reservation online. That's what I got, for a grand-total of ~€150pp. Thanks all for the help. I hope this itinerary work (and websites) helps someone else in the future. Do any of those (besides the Online Go Pass and the TGV to Paris) require a reservation or you think I should purchase ahead of time? Otherwise, to allow a little flexibility, I will show up at the ticket counter whenever we get there.

Hi, The price for Lille-Paris you list as 25 Euro. That must be the discounted price, since the regular price Arras-Paris (TGV) is 32 Euro and Lille is still further north. How many days is the Pass you have in mind? Then you can figure out its price as a Youth Pass in Euro. I use a Pass but would not with your itinerary as listed above.

Hi Fred, I found that searching on en.voyages-sncf.com as a Youth (under 25) on a specific date (which I won't reveal here) in mid-July. It gave me a PREM option for 25euro, per person; in addition, as a matter of fact, I could also get a First Class for 28euro. I think the math I did above clearly shows that a pass (200euro or more) is not worth it in my case. I would have selected the 5-day pass, since it has the fewest days that is for sale.