Buying a ticket Bournemouth - ansterdam

every February I go to Amsterdam for a trade show and I usually fly

A few weeks ago I thought “I wonder if I can do it by train?” I had a quick google and found a site with through tickets from £200ish to less than £50, although not yet available for feb. Foolishly I didn’t note the website!

Now I’m looking again with the intention of forming up my plans, I can’t find any site that will do a through ticket from Bournemouth (for any date) let alone such a bargain price.

Any ideas, anyone?


Thanks!

Eurostar.com ? Not many sites do the through tickets from provincial stations

- See screenshot below from Trainline.

- See advice from Seat61

One site is www.raileurope.co.uk. (until just recently known as loco2).
For some reason, though, they don't seem to be able to offer the return leg even in January, despite the fact that Eurostar bookings are open. Eurostar.com don't want to either.

To get around this: book your Eurostar ticket (from £35 each way - obviously more if you're travelling Sunday or Friday afternoons), then, with booking reference to hand, call at Bournemouth station booking office and ask for a ticket to London International CIV.
This will cost you £68-odd return but has no time restrictions, except that is only valid on the day of your ES trip or one day before/after. You can in theory buy this just before boarding your train to London, but you might prefer to do it in advance. Unfortunately it can AFAIK only be done by personal call.
Alternatively, raileurope can sell these fares online with your ES ticket, but you'll have to wait till the fares are loaded.
The cheapest total return fare will therefore be £140-odd.
In theory, Eurostar themselves can sell you an even cheaper add-on from Bournemouth on their website, but chances are you'll get an error message

The cheapest way is to book two separate tickets: one for Bournemouth to London (SWR, Advance Single, Standard class), and one from London to Amsterdam (Eurostar.com, Standard Class).

The SWR Tickets start at € 14, the Eurostar tickets at € 40. To this, you'll have to add the price for a transfer across London (unless you prefer to walk, of course).

Do note that if you book two separate tickets you formally don't have any protection in case when things go wrong (e.g. if your train from Bournemouth is horribly late), but Eurostar are known for being lenient when they do. Make sure to inform them in advance when things do, so they can make a note of it.

30907 said:

One site is www.raileurope.co.uk. (until just recently known as loco2).
For some reason, though, they don't seem to be able to offer the return leg even in January, despite the fact that Eurostar bookings are open. Eurostar.com don't want to either.

Click to expand...

This could be because Eurostar doesn't yet operate (public) through services from Amsterdam to London because of a lack of agreement re security arrangements.

I know when I spoke to Eurostar about a group booking to/from Amsterdam in the summer, the lack of direct Eurostar trains in the return direction caused some anomalies as to what sort of tickets they could sell.

“Trough tickets” would involve fare & tickets for London metro rides I suppose?

AlexNL said:

The cheapest way is to book two separate tickets: one for Bournemouth to London (SWR, Advance Single, Standard class), and one from London to Amsterdam (Eurostar.com, Standard Class).

The SWR Tickets start at € 14, the Eurostar tickets at € 40. To this, you'll have to add the price for a transfer across London (unless you prefer to walk, of course).

Do note that if you book two separate tickets you formally don't have any protection in case when things go wrong (e.g. if your train from Bournemouth is horribly late), but Eurostar are known for being lenient when they do. Make sure to inform them in advance when things do, so they can make a note of it.

Click to expand...

That is not completely true: if you hold a ticket to London International bought with your Eurostar ticket, then you have some protection. It is usually more expensive than a train company advance purchase, though. See seat61 for the latest on how to buy them because either rules have changed or some ticket offices have told me wrong things.

€* Through trains FROm AMS should be open from possibly jan '20 or more likely ''spring''20'', in effect this only means when British border Forces will finally staff the long time since finished premises for all the checks pre-boarding as they do in BRussel now also in AMS and RTM. At least, that is what €* is busy telling us here in NL in about any newsppr willing to as they approach their 25y. jubilee and hope to merge with Thalys soon as ''GreenSpeed''. Cross thumbs if that may already apply for your feb. trip.
€* is also now promising to double the nr of LON-AMS through trains to 6 from current 3 ASAP, during 2020.
Also check happyrail.com for possibly lower combined through fares.

30740 said:

every February I go to Amsterdam for a trade show and I usually fly

A few weeks ago I thought “I wonder if I can do it by train?” I had a quick google and found a site with through tickets from £200ish to less than £50, although not yet available for feb. Foolishly I didn’t note the website!

Now I’m looking again with the intention of forming up my plans, I can’t find any site that will do a through ticket from Bournemouth (for any date) let alone such a bargain price.

Any ideas, anyone?


Thanks!

Click to expand...

Eurostar can do this £46.50 right now on eurostar.com.

Mainline421 said:

Eurostar can do this £46.50 right now on eurostar.com.

Click to expand...

Excellent news - they were obviously slow loading fares.