Eurostar abandoning trial of 180 days advance booking

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• Swiss says:

  7 Jul7 July 07:24

  Is there any benefit for booking with Eurostar points rather than Avios? Seems to be an equivalent number of points. But better to use their own loyalty scheme for any reason – e.g ease of booking, cancellation etc? About to book trip to Brussels and don’t currently have Eurostar account (any offers for signing up by the way – for me or anyone who refers?). Thanks.

  • Frenske says:

    7 Jul7 July 09:10

    The benfit would be that you can use up orphan Eurostar plus points. Additionally you would still earn Eurostar Plus points.

    There are no referral bonus as far as I know.

  • Rob says:

    7 Jul7 July 10:04

    Click search by category menu on the right under Eurostar and you will see articles from last year that compare the 3 ways of redeeming for Eurostar.

    Basically, using Avios the number of Avios needed is roughly what gets you 0.5p per point. Unless booking very quiet trains a long way ahead, you will use fewer Amex points for the same trip if converting into EFT.

    EFT also allows one way bookings and / or mixed classes. Using Avios you must book a return.

• Andrew says:

  7 Jul7 July 08:40

  Interestingly we travelled on the direct train to Disney in standard class and on the return journey, I was able to book us in a standard premier carriage (no food served obviously.) Apparently they sell so few seats in standard premier on the Disney service that many of the 2-1 seated carriages are used for standard class.

• Mark says:

  7 Jul7 July 08:50

  I must admit this is good news for me and I suspect the other people who don’t live in London. I attempted to purchase an advance ticket on Eurostar with their £69 promotion last month only to notice that all the good time cheap seats had gone. I say this as I was attempting to book my connecting train on Chiltern and I can only book this the standard 12 weeks in advance. This is compared to late 2012 when I was able to get the same type of tickets 12 weeks in advance with OK availability.

  • Lady London says:

    7 Jul7 July 12:13

    For Eurostar there have been times when making a through booking on Eurostar from a non-London station in the UK showed better pricing or availability than from London. The UK stations you can book from are on the pulldown list of starting points. I tested this out from York or Newcastle a while back. Although sadly I wasn’t going to be able to be in Yorkshire at that time to start the journey!

    • Robin says:

      7 Jul7 July 14:17

      I wonder if you’d need to? Does Eurostar cancel your reservation if you no-show for York-London? (as airlines would) I doubt it….

      • Trevor says:

        8 Jul8 July 10:23

        No, you don’t have to start at the start. They have no real way of connecting your bookings and knowing if you boarded the first train. This is a good way to get cheaper tickets too – you can book from a station like Roosendaal in southern Netherlands to London via http://www.nshispeed.nl/ which can be cheaper than a normal Brussels to London ticket, and then only get on at Brussels Midi anyway.

• Andrew S says:

  7 Jul7 July 10:42

  At least a good substantive reply from customer service…

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