How does Club Eurostar work?

This is our review of Club Eurostar, the Eurostar loyalty scheme.

We don’t give Club Eurostar much coverage on Head for Points, mainly because it doesn’t run many promotions and we are generally news-driven.

It remains a good scheme, however, and I will occasionally make Membership Rewards transfers from American Express in order to redeem for a ticket – although this is poorer value than it was.

Club Eurostar was relaunched in late 2023 after Eurostar merged with European high speed operator Thalys. A decision was taken to rebrand both companies as ‘Eurostar’ and with a new merged loyalty scheme.

The old Club Eurostar and the legacy Thalys programme each had 1 million members. However, each scheme had a different dynamic. The old Eurostar was an expensive rail service which directly competed with air. Thalys was a regional high speed operator, equivalent to Avanti West Coast or LNER, with relatively cheap tickets.

Merging the two loyalty schemes together was not easy. To meet in the middle, the old Club Eurostar programme was devalued, but the old Thalys scheme was revalued upwards.

The new programme had 3.96 million members at the end of 2024 and over 300 million points were redeemed last year.

Let’s look at how the new combined programme works.

How do you earn Club Eurostar points?

Club Eurostar is fully revenue based for earning, but not for redeeming.

You earn 1.2 Club Eurostar points per £1 spent. Tickets priced in Euro earn 1 point per €1 spent.

Elite members (details below) receive the following status bonuses:

• Avantage – 25%
• Carte Blanche – 50%
• Etoile – 75%

How do you spend Club Eurostar points?

You can redeem Club Eurostar points on ANY train as long as cash seats are available. This is a key benefit of the programme.

There are two pricing levels for reward tickets – ‘Value’ and ‘Anytime’. ‘Anytime’ pricing is higher and kicks in on peak trains and on other services when capacity reaches a certain level.

This is what you pay for a return trip to any destination:

• Eurostar Standard – 2,000 points return (Value) or 3,000 points return (Anytime)

• Eurostar Plus – 4,000 points return (Value) or 5,000 points return (Anytime)

• Eurostar Premier – 6,000 points return (only Anytime is available)

Eurostar Plus is the new name for Standard Premier. Eurostar Premier is the new name for Business Premier.

You can also use points for a discount on a cash ticket

If you don’t have enough Club Eurostar points for a free ticket, you can redeem your small pot for a discount on a cash ticket.

You are offered £5 per 200 points used. This is a weak deal compared to a one way upgrade for 600 points or 1,000 points for a free one-way Eurostar Standard ticket.

Oddly, you’d be better off transferring your points to hotel scheme Accor Live Limitless (see below) and using them for hotel credit. 1,200 Eurostar points would get you €48 off a room.

You can now redeem on Thalys too

Redemptions on ex-Thalys routes are now available for the same 2,000 points return in Standard class.

You CANNOT put a Eurostar and Thalys ticket together on the same booking for 2,000 points return. You would need to book two separate redemptions.

Here is the current ex-Thalys map:

You can upgrade using Club Eurostar points

Upgrades are a good use of your Club Eurostar points.

As long as seats are available for cash in Eurostar Plus, you can upgrade – this means that it is virtually always possible to do so.

A one-way upgrade from Eurostar Standard to Eurostar Plus is 600 points.

‘Taxes and charges’ are NOT added – free means free

It is worth remembering that ‘free means free’ when it comes to Club Eurostar redemptions.

Unlike frequent flyer redemptions, there are NO taxes or charges to pay when you spend Club Eurostar points.

What are Club Eurostar points worth?

Following the 2023 changes, I ran the maths on what Club Eurostar points are worth in this article.

I decided that Eurostar Standard redemptions got you around 10p per point, whilst Eurostar Plus redemptions got you 7p-8p per point.

Based on getting 1.2 points per £1 spent, you would be getting:

• 12% back on your spending if you redeem for Eurostar Standard

• 8.5% – 10% back on your spending if you redeem for Eurostar Plus

‘Points Pooling’ is available

Whilst Club Eurostar does not have family accounts, it has something even more flexible – points pooling.  You can transfer points to anyone you want, although transfers inwards do not count towards status.

I use this feature a lot. Whenever my wife takes Eurostar, I funnel her points into my account so we have a larger combined pot to redeem.

Here are the rules:

• You can share between 500 and 3,600 Club Eurostar points per transaction, in multiples of 100
• You can share a maximum of 7,500 points in each calendar year
• You can make up to four transfers to the same person in each calendar year
• You can receive a maximum of 7,500 points in each calendar year

What are the expiry rules for Club Eurostar points?

Your points will expire if you do not earn points for 24 consecutive months.

As well as points earned from travel, ‘activity’ also includes receiving a points transfer from another member, receiving points from a partner (Accor, Hertz, American Express) or receiving points as compensation for Eurostar service disruptions.

It appears that spending points does NOT reset the 24 month clock.

What are the Club Eurostar tier levels?

Membership years run from 1st October to 31st September.

Following the 2023 relaunch, Club Eurostar has three elite membership levels:

• ‘Avantage’ requires 500 points (£417 spend) in a membership year

• ‘Carte Blanche’ requires 2,900 points (£2,417 spend)

• The new ‘Etoile’ level requires 5,000 points (£4,170 spend)

The key benefits of Carte Blanche are access to Eurostar Premier lounges, which are the ones beyond passport control in London, Paris, Brussels and Amsterdam, and use of Fast Track check-in and security lanes.

Etoile members get extra benefits:

• 2-4-1 companion vouchers issued twice per year
• Invitations to events (Eurostar hosted a private view of the Chanel exhibition at the V&A last year, for example)
• Ability to guest two people into the lounge and through Fast Track (Carte Blanche allows one guest)

Avantage and Carte Blanche members benefit from ‘get another train’ benefits on ex-Thalys services in Europe. You can jump on the train immediately before or after your booked service with no fees or supplements. Etoile members can get any train on the same day.

Carte Blanche and Etoile members can access Railteam lounges when travelling on ex-Thalys services.

All elite members receive an annual upgrade voucher

As of mid January 2025, all elite members, from Avantage upwards, receive an annual upgrade voucher. The first one is already sitting in your account if you have status.

Each voucher lets you upgrade a one way Eurostar Standard ticket to Eurostar Plus. It is only valid on both cash bookings. Vouchers can also be used on ex-Thalys services in Europe.

Each upgrade voucher must be used in the membership year in which it is issued, but you receive a new one each year as long as you retain your status. If you go up a status tier during a membership year, you will receive an additional voucher.

American Express is a Club Eurostar transfer partner

You can transfer American Express Membership Rewards points to Club Eurostar at the rate of 15:1.

This has become poorer value since the 2023 relaunch. If we assume that you get 10p per Club Eurostar point by redeeming for Eurostar Standard, your Membership Rewards points are only worth (10/15) 0.67p. You can do a lot better than this by redeeming Amex points for Avios or certain other products, although you can also do a lot worse.

It’s a very poor deal if you want to redeem for Eurostar Plus. Assuming our 7p-8p valuation is right, you’re only getting 0.5p per Membership Rewards point.

If you are doing a transfer in order to upgrade a Eurostar ticket the maths may work. 9,000 American Express Membership Rewards points get you the 600 Club Eurostar points required to upgrade a one way ticket from Eurostar Standard to Eurostar Plus. If the cash difference is £75 to £90 then it’s a decent deal.

Amex Platinum cardholders get free access to Eurostar Premier lounges

Holders of The Platinum Card from American Express get FREE access to all Eurostar lounges, irrespective of ticket type.  This is restricted to UK, French and Belgian issued Platinum cards.

No guests are allowed, but if your partner has a free supplementary Platinum card then this will get them access.  At quiet times you may find the lounge staff allow you to bring in young children – we have got away with this in the past.

This offer is NOT available to holders of the American Express Business Platinum card.

Club Eurostar has an earn and burn partnership with Accor

Club Eurostar has a two-way partnership with Accor Live Limitless, the hotel loyalty chain covering Ibis, Novotel, Mercure, Sofitel, Pullman etc.

You can transfer Accor points into Club Eurostar, as well as transferring Club Eurostar points into Accor Live Limitless points.

Because Accor Live Limitless is revenue based, it is hard for the scheme to be too generous on transfers because it needs to make a profit both on transfers in and transfers out.

You can see what I mean by looking at the asymmetrical Accor rates to and from Club Eurostar:

• 500 Club Eurostar points gets you 1,000 Accor Live Limitless points
• 2,000 Accor Live Limitless points gets you 300 Club Eurostar points

Point transfers do NOT count towards status in either scheme.

Using our valuations of 10p per point if used in Eurostar Standard and 7p-8p per point if used in Eurostar Plus:

• 500 Eurostar points (value £35-£50) get you 1,000 Accor points (value €20 / £16.50)
• 2,000 Accor points (value €40 / £33) get you 300 Eurostar points (value £21-£30)

Moving from Eurostar to Accor is a weak deal however you want to look at it. It is marginal when moving Accor points TO Eurostar – you could lose about 1/3rd of the value but on a good day it might be acceptable.

This article explains the Eurostar / Accor partnership in detail.

How is the new Club Eurostar looking, 15 months on?

Members of the ‘original’ Club Eurostar programme took a big hit when the new merged scheme launched, with the cost of redemptions increasing sharply. However, with Eurostar cash ticket prices also rising sharply in recent years, the scheme still offers decent value.

The new annual upgrade vouchers are a decent perk, especially as you only need to spend just over £400 on Eurostar to earn Avantage status and receive one. First time Avantage members would actually receive two – one in the year they were promoted and one when their membership year rolls over.

More importantly, the ability to redeem for any train, any time – if cash seats are available – gives members a lot of confidence that they will be able to redeem for the seats they want. After all, loyalty points in any programme don’t have any real value until you spend them.

Full details of Club Eurostar can be found on the Eurostar website here.