Rail Pass Question

Adam, you have bumped into the downside of having a Eurail pass. For the most part, you pay reservation fees on the best and faster trains. It has gotten better with many of the fees coming down. Still, the international runs still have some steep fees. The Thalys train is still one of them. I see a 26E reservation fee from Paris to Brussels for holders of a global pass.

That $35 seat is probably a promotional, advance purchase, train specific, non-refundable offer. These are offered in limited quantities, and the price goes up when the lower priced ones sell out. You have to buy them well in advance to get that price.

Full fare would be more than $100.

With your railpass, at popular times, you still might have to reserve a few days in advance. Passholder fares are also limited in quantities, but at most times you can just pay the surcharge (reservation fee) and ride. Using your railpass with the passholder fee works more like full fare.

There are probably slower Intercity trains (IC) which you can ride with just the rail pass and a couple of Euro for an optional seat reservation.

Is it a Thalys train? High-speed trains like Thalys charge a (comparatively) steap reservation fee for pass holders, because it is a "premium" train and your pass does not cover the whole cost. Like Lee said, the $35 fare you are seeing is a special fare that is for a specific train at a specific time and is non-refundable. This might make the rail pass seem like a good idea, but keep in mind that some of these trains have a limited number of reservations for pass holders, so you might be forced to be locked in to buying a reservation early thereby negating any convenience of the pass.

Rail passes used to be an economic and convenient way for tourists to travel, but times have changed, and they are in many cases no longer the bargain they once were. Unless you are going to do a lot of train travel, as others have said, you can probably do it cheaper by just buying regular tickets in advance on the railroads' websites.

The Thalys is an expensive train, unless you get a cheap, advanced purchase fare. I took it from Paris to Amsterdam last December for only 25 Euros (second class), but the full fare can be over $100.

The trip from Paris to Brussels on the Thalys is quite short -- about an hour and 20 minutes. If you do get a pass, you might consider taking a somewhat slower train for which you don't have to pay that expensive seat reservation fee.

It is a Thalys train but if I were to take a non high speed train I would have to pay $11 for go to lille and then it's free from there to brussels, which would add hours of time. They have no non-high speed trains that go directly from Pairs to Brussels.

Thanks for all of your responces