Maximise your Avios, air miles and hotel points

Eurostar’s ‘no queue’ iProov.me check-in lane closes on 13th February

Links on Head for Points may support the site by paying a commission.  See here for all partner links.

For the last year or so, Eurostar has been quietly trialling iProov.me, otherwise known as SmartCheck, at London St Pancras.

It allows you bypass all queues at the terminal AND UK passport control. Despite the publicity circulated by Eurostar, which said that it was only accessible to Eurostar Premier and Carte Blanche / Etoile status customers, this was not true.

Anyone could use it, saving themselves a substantial wait at peak periods compared to the usual Eurostar Standard and Eurostar Plus queue times.

iProove.me will bite the dust on 13th February.

Eurostar's amazing iProov.me scheme ending

Whilst I am talking about iProov.me in the past tense below, you can still use it for the next three weeks if travelling on Eurostar.

What did iProov.me do?

iProov replaced UK passport control at St Pancras. It’s was like it didn’t exist.

It also replaced the pre-security ticket check.

How did iProov.me work?

You downloaded the iProov.me app onto your mobile phone. After doing this, you needed to do three things:

  • take a picture of the photo page of your passport
  • have the app ‘read’ the chip in your passport by holding your phone over the chip (you MUST have Bluetooth / NFC enabled)
  • have the app make a scan of your face

That was it. You could then input the booking reference of your Eurostar tickets.

On the day of travel, you had to reconfirm your trip in the iProov app. On arrival at St Pancras, you headed down to the Eurostar Premier check-in lanes and, next to them, was a lane marked ‘Smart Check’:

Eurostar's amazing iProov.me scheme ending

You walked towards the sliding doors and they opened

That was it. Your entire British passport check was replaced by walking through a door. The doors opened because facial recognition cameras saw you approaching, scanned your face, matched it to your iProov.me profile, saw that your passport information has been approved and saw that you had a valid ticket.

There was literally nothing to do. You didn’t break your stride. You didn’t stop to look into a camera. You didn’t get a photograph taken. You didn’t scan or show anyone your ticket. You didn’t show any UK official your passport. You simply walked towards the door at your normal pace and it opened. You had cleared UK passport control.

It got better ….

Beyond the door was an exclusive security lane for iProov.me customers. You were virtually certain to have this all to yourself.

When I say ‘to yourself’ I mean there would be no-one ahead of you and no-one would enter behind you. iProov only got used every couple of minutes at best.

Once you had cleared security, there was another perk. A member of staff let you (made you, actually) push in at the front of the queue for French passport control.

Eurostar's amazing iProov.me scheme ending

Why is iProov.me going away?

Why is such an amazing service going away? Brexit, of course, is the answer.

Soon (well, probably 2026 now after more delays) it will be a requirement for you to be fingerprinted and photographed when entering the EU in a similar way to how it operates when you enter the United States. You will also have to answer four questions, such as how long you intend to stay.

Fresh photographs and fingerprints will only need to be submitted every three years (sooner if you replace your passport) but your photograph will need to be verified on every trip and the four questions answered.

St Pancras was not designed to handle the queues that will build up. When iProov.me is removed, the security lane that is freed up will become an additional priority lane for Eurostar Premier, Carte Blanche and Etoile members. Extra ePassport gates and passport control booths will be added.

This should minimise delays for premium passengers when the new EU Entry / Exit System finally launches.

The only mitigation for non-premum passengers is a plan to turn the Benugo cafe into a pre-registration area, with no-one allowed into the main queue until they can show EES registration. There will be an additional pre-registration area for Eurostar Premier customers opposite the check-in area where the Premier ticket office is currently located.

If you are travelling on Eurostar by 13th February, in any cabin, do give iProov.me a try. It’s the future – but, oddly, it is going away.

PS. If you are not a regular Head for Points visitor, why not sign up for our FREE weekly or daily newsletters? They are full of the latest Avios, airline, hotel and credit card points news and will help you travel better. To join our 65,000 free subscribers, click the button below or visit this page of the site to find out more. Thank you.

How to get Club Eurostar points and lounge access from UK credit cards

How to get Club Eurostar points and lounge access from UK credit cards (April 2025)

Club Eurostar does not have a UK credit card.  However, you can earn Club Eurostar points by converting Membership Rewards points earned from selected UK American Express cards. 

Cards earning Membership Rewards points include:

SPECIAL OFFER: Until 27th May 2025, the sign-up bonus on the ‘free for a year’ American Express Preferred Rewards Gold card is increased from 20,000 Membership Rewards points to 30,000 points. Points convert 1:1 into Avios (30,000 Avios!) and many other programmes. Some people may see even higher personalised offers. Click here to apply.

SPECIAL OFFER: Until 27th May 2025, the sign-up bonus on American Express Platinum is increased from 50,000 Membership Rewards points to a huge 80,000 points. Points convert 1:1 into Avios (80,000 Avios!) and many other programmes. Some people may see even higher personalised offers. Click here to apply.

Membership Rewards points convert at 15:1 into Club Eurostar points.  The cards above all earn 1 Membership Rewards point per £1 spent on your card, so you will get the equivalent of 1 Club Eurostar point for every £15 you spend.

American Express Platinum comes with a great Eurostar benefit – Eurostar lounge access!  

You can enter any Eurostar lounge, irrespective of your ticket type, by showing The Platinum Card at the desk.  No guests are allowed but you can get entry for your partner by issuing them with a free supplementary Amex Platinum card on your account.

Category

Club Eurostar

Comments (99)

This article is closed to new comments. Feel free to ask your question in the HfP forums.

  • Jeff says:
    24 Jan24 January 03:43

    Any chance for a guest post from Nigel Evans on this matter? He must be in “deep shock” at the architects of the sorry state of affairs called Brexit.

    • Alex G says:
      24 Jan24 January 08:40

      When you live in a democracy, you will often find yourself disagreeing with the decisions of the voting majority.

      Alternative systems of government are available in other countries, many of which would welcome you should you want to leave the UK.

      • John says:
        24 Jan24 January 08:45

        *advisory decision

      • Dan Dodex says:
        24 Jan24 January 08:59

        Unfortunately, countries like Sweden which rank higher than the UK as “full democracies” will not welcome Brits as easily anymore due to Brexit.

        • Dan Dodex says:
          24 Jan24 January 09:07

          Interestingly, most European countries rank higher than us:
          https://www.democracymatrix.com/ranking

          • Charles Martel says:
            24 Jan24 January 09:50

            I count fifteen EU countries beneath us in that table, so most are worse than us.

          • RussellH says:
            24 Jan24 January 11:52

            Sadly, that dates back to 2020, and I think that were it to be drawn up now, there would be a number of significant shifts.
            Are we really better than France or Austria? I am surprised to see the UK graded as significantly better than Canada.
            Probably most concerning is the USA’s status as a “Deficient Democracy”. Probaly still true, though.

      • TGLoyalty says:
        24 Jan24 January 09:53

        Don’t let Turkeys vote for Christmas especially when they have no idea what Christmas actually is.

        • Tom says:
          24 Jan24 January 10:13

          Christmas means freedom for turkeys! Freedom from the shackles of the turkey coop!

          Sounds like a great choice to me.

  • Lumma says:
    24 Jan24 January 04:07

    Why do you need an exit passport check to use Eurostar? Is it basically the same as airlines checking your passport is valid?

    • Ross says:
      24 Jan24 January 07:32

      If you don’t know who leaves, you don’t know who overstays.

    • RussellH says:
      24 Jan24 January 12:01

      Airlines make a big fuss and make money out of people who misspell their names on their tickets – I assume that they can do this because they have responsibilities wrt passports.
      Eurostar, though, state they they do not care in the slightest if your name is misspelt; they say to “just turn up anyway”.
      Reading between the lines, that suggests that there is no link at all between the name on the ticket and the name on the passport.
      However, given that one still has to provide advance passport info, I do not know what actually happens when John Smith travels on Joan Smyth’s ticket.

  • Jingle says:
    24 Jan24 January 05:56

    Yet another Brexit benefit. The unwanted gift that keeps on giving!

    • mradey says:
      24 Jan24 January 06:13

      What is it? 2025. Time to give it up.

      • yonasl says:
        24 Jan24 January 06:15

        How should we give up when the benefits keep piling up year after year?

        • Charles Martel says:
          24 Jan24 January 07:19

          I voted remain but what are the benefits of rejoining, beyond marginally shorter queues at the Schengen border? In 2024 our GDP growth was higher at 1.1% than the EU (0.9%).

          • David says:
            24 Jan24 January 07:31

            That’s not the comparison, you need to look at what GDP growth could have been for the UK in that year without losing easy access to the biggest export market.

          • Charles Martel says:
            24 Jan24 January 08:17

            Our goods exports to the EU have shrunk by the same percentage as our exports to non-EU markets, this suggests we’re making less that people want to buy (possibly because our energy policy makes it uneconomic to manufacture here) rather than new barriers limiting trade.

            I guess I like stability, I voted remain because it was the status quo and now we’re out I don’t see a compelling reason to rejoin, it’s a slow growth economy. If we’re going to hitch our wagon to someone else’s star we should find something better than what’s going on in the EU.

          • Alex G says:
            24 Jan24 January 08:31

            The benefits of rejoining would be replacing GBP with the Euro and joining Schengen. No thanks.

          • John says:
            24 Jan24 January 08:52

            The choice for today is between staying out of the EU and joining the EU. It doesn’t matter what things “would have been” had we not left.

          • RussellH says:
            24 Jan24 January 10:08

            The benefits of rejoining would be replacing GBP with the Euro and joining Schengen. Yes please, please!
            In 1965 I needed to earn DM13,40 (= €6,33) to buy £1. Now I need just €1,18.
            Why on earth would I want to have to stick with a weak currency?
            And think of all the currency traders§ who would have to look for something productive to do, and the huge sums that businesses would not waste on FX transactions.

            § I do realise that we would still have to deal with $ and ¥ among others, but at least it would be step in the right direction

        • JDB says:
          24 Jan24 January 07:53

          Because most sensible people and businesses, whether they voted for or against are dealing with today and planning for the future rather than banging on about a past event voted for almost nine years that can’t be changed.

          There are also far greater current concerns for businesses. I guess you are probably attributing 3,000 job losses at Sainsbury’s and 8,000 at BP plus so many others to Brexit?

          • executiveclubber says:
            24 Jan24 January 08:14

            Still huge concern for import and export businesses

          • TGLoyalty says:
            24 Jan24 January 09:57

            Import export is now with friction and cost many would want that gone.

            Also the 8k jobs at BP global.

            Sainsburys seems to be far more about their business model than anything this is “get your skeletons out the closet” time. No doubt the cafe spaces being closed will be rented to a third party like my local Sainsbury’s cafe was a few years back.

    • Panda Mick says:
      24 Jan24 January 09:42

      Whilst you argue amongst yourselves, it is possible to join Schengen without joining the EU…

  • Phillip says:
    24 Jan24 January 06:00

    It feels like the loss of IRIS at Heathrow (and Gatwick)… I did lament!

  • Rich says:
    24 Jan24 January 06:13

    In truth, IProov only really saved a few seconds pretty passenger.

    The reason it was so good was the enjoy security lane and the queue-jumping for French passport control. Those aren’t a never if iProov really, just a benefit of the way they stream iProov passengers, and not sustainable in the long run.

    Now, if they could mash it together and get iProov to perform the EES process, or even most of it, that really would be something. Fingerprinting isn’t set in stone yet for EES, and they may yet plump for facial recognition

    • Chas says:
      24 Jan24 January 15:29

      It saved a LOT more than that unless you were travelling Business Premier, where there are virtually no queues at the Business Premier desks anyway. Even if travelling Standard Premier you still had to join the main queue which snaked all around the Eurostar area, and often up the side of the shops in the main part of St P. I will definitely miss the time saving (and enhanced customer experience) that iProov gave me.

  • supergraeme says:
    24 Jan24 January 06:23

    I’m am currently on the District Line en route to try this for the first (and now clearly last) time. Oh well!

  • t0m says:
    24 Jan24 January 06:27

    Gutted. I enjoyed the service while it lasted. Never had such a quick route through security and immigration.

  • meta says:
    24 Jan24 January 06:29

    What will happen to the EU passport holders at St Pancras? We do not need to be fingerprinted or scanned.

    • meta says:
      24 Jan24 January 06:29

      I meant photographed not scanned.

    • Dermot says:
      24 Jan24 January 07:18

      I was wondering about that too, since I am a dual national EU/UK passport holder.

    • Paul says:
      24 Jan24 January 07:22

      You will be processed faster. Probably via a dedicated lane just as you do now when arriving by air from non EU country.

      The stupidity of Brexit shows its self every day but the utter stupidity of the current governments position on rejoining is testament to the supine politicians we have elected. It’s all about them not about the country

    • TJ says:
      24 Jan24 January 08:18

      I’ll be travelling in March on dual UK/EU passports. Disappointed that iProov is being removed but it will be interesting to see if travelling with dual passports will save any time (as it does when flying).

      • meta says:
        24 Jan24 January 09:00

        If you don’t use Iproov.me, at the moment it sometimes it takes longer because more often than not they close the gates for EU passports and process manually. Happened to on so many occassions until Iproov was introduced.

      • John says:
        24 Jan24 January 09:01

        At some point (not imminently), having multiple passports will take longer because the UK will want to verify that you have been in the UK legally with your UK passport, and then you will enter Schengen on your EU passport. This situation is becoming increasingly common and there would need to be provision in airline and Eurostar bookings to store API of multiple passports.

        I flew Australia-Thailand / Thailand-UK recently on separate tickets. In the past I have always entered and exited Thailand on my British passport, but I had put my Australian passport into the AU-TH flight’s API as I didn’t think it would matter. In BKK the immigration officer insisted that I had to use my Australian passport to enter this time, but because my biometrics taken by Thailand were associated with my British passport, he still needed to spend 10 minutes of typing. When checking in to the UK-bound flight for some reason the check-in agent needed to verify I was in Thailand legally but since my UK passport was in the API and my entry permission was not associated with that now, a lot of typing was again required.

        • meta says:
          24 Jan24 January 13:06

          No you don’t know how to use your dual passport properly. With Eurostar on exit you go to UK immigrant present your UK passport, then switch to the EU passport and present it to the French officials. Same in reverse. That’s how it should be done.

          Regarding API, it’s EU passport on exit, UK on return. Had no issues with that.

          When flying is different because there are no exit checks in the UK, so you can put whichever on API on exit and UK o return. If UK introduces exit checks it will be the same process as for Eurostar.

          It should be the same for Australian passport.

      • RussellH says:
        24 Jan24 January 10:25

        It used to be quicker at St Pancras, but not recently. The last time I travelled, last month, all passports were being checked by the same set of French immigration staff.
        And the Schengen only e-Gates seem to have disappeared months ago.

        When flying, it seems to depend on where one is going. Over the last couple of years, at Frankfurt and Valencia I was through an e-Gate with no queues in seconds, while UK passport holders took another 10 – 15 mins.
        At Madeira they assumed that the vast majority of pax would be UK passport holders and they had three or four lanes for them, with just the one for Schengen.

        • meta says:
          24 Jan24 January 13:08

          Bulk of my Eurostar travels are May – June and September-October so have no recent experience as have been using Iproov.me since 2024.

        • NFH says:
          24 Jan24 January 17:30

          You mean EU/EEA/CH-only e-gates, not Schengen-only e-gates.

    • John says:
      24 Jan24 January 08:48

      Schengen passports (+ Ireland) are exempt from EES. The control applies to non-Schengen non-EU passports. We would have enjoyed the same exemption as Ireland had we remained.

      • NFH says:
        24 Jan24 January 17:31

        The exemption from EES is for all EU/EEA/CH nationals. It’s nothing to do with whether one’s country of citizenship is in Schengen.

This article is closed to new comments. Feel free to ask your question in the HfP forums.

New to Head for Points?

Welcome!  We’re the UK’s most-read source of business travel, Avios, frequent flyer and hotel loyalty news. Let us improve how you travel. Got any questions? Ask them in our forums.

Get 25,000 Avios with the Barclaycard Avios Plus Mastercard

GET A SIGN-UP BONUS OF 18,000 VIRGIN POINTS!

Latest Forum Posts

Get 80,000 bonus points (worth 80,000 Avios) and £400 of dining credit with The Platinum Card (Offer ends 27th May)

Check reward flight availability instantly for free!

See a whole year of reward seat availability on one page at SeatSpy.com

Get up to 10,000 bonus Hilton Honors points

Booking a luxury hotel?

Our luxury hotel booking service offers you GUARANTEED extra benefits over booking direct. Works with Four Seasons, Mandarin Oriental, The Ritz Carlton, St Regis and more. We've booked £1.7 million of rooms to date. Click for details.

SME? GET THE ONLY FREE SMALL BUSINESS CREDIT CARD WHICH CAN EARN AVIOS

Get points worth 30,000 Avios with 'first year free' American Express Gold (ends 27th May)

The UK's biggest frequent flyer website uses cookies, which you can block via your browser settings. Continuing implies your consent to this policy. Our privacy policy is here.

Got it!