Best rail booking site for EU travel

[winks]

Pretty much looking to go from UK to Barcelona via train but which website is best for booking complete journey? I’ve found “RailEueope”
But don’t have any details on it

 

[bspahh]

Pretty much looking to go from UK to Barcelona via train but which website is best for booking complete journey? I’ve found “RailEueope”
But don’t have any details on it

The well respected seat61.com says

How to buy tickets

Raileurope.com (formerly Loco2.com) is the easiest way to buy tickets from London or any station in Britain to Barcelona or any station in Spain.

All your tickets can be booked in one place in plain English, at the cheapest prices with print-at-home or collect-at-station tickets, as www.raileurope.com connects to the British, French (SNCF) and Spanish (Renfe) ticketing systems. There's a small booking fee. Who are Raileurope.com?

Please take a moment read the tips below before starting to book...

...

Or book at Thetrainline.com

I also recommend www.thetrainline.com for the same reasons as Raileurope: It connects to the Eurostar, SNCF and Renfe ticketing systems so you can easily book all your tickets in one place, in plain English, in €, £ or $ with overseas credit cards no problem. Who are Thetrainline.com?

Some people prefer www.raileurope.com, others prefer www.thetrainline.com, both are good and should show the same prices, so use whichever you like best. One advantage of www.thetrainline.com is that when buying a 1st class ticket for the TGV it lets you choose a specific seat from a seat map, Raileurope doesn't.

Most of the same booking tips in the Raileurope advice above also apply, except that www.thetrainline.com can only sell journeys starting in London. But you can easily add a British domestic train ticket separately as explained here. If you want a stopover in Paris, simply book London-Paris and back separately from onward trains.

...

Or book at eurostar.com + sncf-connect.com + renfe.com
You can of course book each train separately on the relevant operator's website, and avoid paying any booking fee. It obviously takes more effort than using Raileurope.com or Thetrainline.com as you're making separate bookings on 2 or 3 different websites, these sites can be more fiddly to use, it doesn't usually make it any cheaper, the plus side is avoiding any booking fee.

 

[riceuten]

The well respected seat61.com says


...

...

One of the things I noticed on bahn.de and what was voyages-sncf.fr was that, for some international trains, each operator seemed to have a different allocation of tickets, and I could quite often get a €29 ticket on the SNCF website where only a €59 was available on DB...for the same train. When travelling to SW Germany for Xmas (where travelling by E* to Paris then TGV/ICE to Saarbruecken and then further on was the cheapest and easiest route to get home) they would release Xmas tickets at 5am on a day in October meaning having 2 sessions in different tabs open to book the train! The added frisson was that E* would release their allocation of London to Paris tickets on a different date, often meaning you had to buy one without being sure you could get the other. So check whether renfe.es or oui.sncf have the same prices and trains.

So the other thing to consider are booking deadlines and when tickets are released. I've never used raileurope or thetrainline, and one reason was that for shortish journeys, the fee they charge often seems quite steep. Additionally, what put me off loco2 was that, when booking the journey outlined above, the system would ALWAYS default to routing me either via Brussels, Cologne, and Trier (including memorably once proposing London-Paris-Brussels-Cologne-Trier-Saarbruecken!) or TGV from Paris to Luxembourg and CFL bus from there to Saarbruecken, even though there was (and still is) a direct Paris-Saarbuecken train).

I chatted with the owners once about it, and they said it was a glitch they planned to address, but it never happened.

 

[winks]

Thanks for the replies. I totally overlooked the trainline, but seems to be comparable with RailEurope

 

[telstarbox]

I used Rail Europe to book a series of journeys on different operators. It was easy to use and most of the tickets appeared as QR codes in their own app. The booking fee was worth it for me.

 

[riceuten]

I used Rail Europe to book a series of journeys on different operators. It was easy to use and most of the tickets appeared as QR codes in their own app. The booking fee was worth it for me.

Yes, I imagine for lots of people this works, bahn.de and the Renfe site can be hard work. One reason I prefer the national sites is being charged by them in euros rather than the dreadful rates that thetrainline and Raileurope give. It can often make £20-30s difference on a multi-leg trip.

Some tickets are also very hard to get hold of necessitating either using national websites, or local transport associations.

 

[AlbertBeale]

In my experience, if you feel confident using the websites of the various national rail operators, they're often best for ensuring good deals in/to/from their respective countries. But if you want one joined-up booking for a journey of several legs, with a reasonably friendly interface, then I use RailEurope. (Though I tend to double-check seat61, and also the latest ERT that I've got, to do my homework first in case I think I can tweak something preferable to whatever the RailEurope algorithm comes up with, or even what the national railway sites offer.) Also, once when a French train was delayed, RailEurope got me my "delay repay" sorted out and gave me my refund, to save me having to chase it directly. (Interestingly, back in Loco2 days - though I found them generally friendly, and was sorry they "sold out" to RailEueope - they weren't a helpful intermediary when I had some major delays on the German leg of a journey booked through them.)

And of course there's always the Swiss Railway ticket office in London which is part of the Swiss Tourist Office (if you're in London that is) - which seems to still exist, though it's moved since I last used them. In the past I've walked in and bought paper tickets (and not only for Switzerland, but various other countries too) over the counter, so I know exactly what I'm doing and can be sure I'm getting what I want.

 

[rvdborgt]

And of course there's always the Swiss Railway ticket office in London which is part of the Swiss Tourist Office (if you're in London that is) - which seems to still exist, though it's moved since I last used them. In the past I've walked in and bought paper tickets (and not only for Switzerland, but various other countries too) over the counter, so I know exactly what I'm doing and can be sure I'm getting what I want.

Interesting, sounds like they have a the regular Swiss ticket office equipment. Swiss ticket offices can sell a lot, including Spanish Interrail reservations.

 

[riceuten]

In my experience, if you feel confident using the websites of the various national rail operators, they're often best for ensuring good deals in/to/from their respective countries. But if you want one joined-up booking for a journey of several legs, with a reasonably friendly interface, then I use RailEurope. (Though I tend to double-check seat61, and also the latest ERT that I've got, to do my homework first in case I think I can tweak something preferable to whatever the RailEurope algorithm comes up with, or even what the national railway sites offer.) Also, once when a French train was delayed, RailEurope got me my "delay repay" sorted out and gave me my refund, to save me having to chase it directly. (Interestingly, back in Loco2 days - though I found them generally friendly, and was sorry they "sold out" to RailEueope - they weren't a helpful intermediary when I had some major delays on the German leg of a journey booked through them.)

And of course there's always the Swiss Railway ticket office in London which is part of the Swiss Tourist Office (if you're in London that is) - which seems to still exist, though it's moved since I last used them. In the past I've walked in and bought paper tickets (and not only for Switzerland, but various other countries too) over the counter, so I know exactly what I'm doing and can be sure I'm getting what I want.

Swiss Rail Passes | Switzerland Travel Centre

Buy Swiss rail passes online: Experience stress-free travelling with train connections through Switzerland – easy, fast and convenient!

switzerlandtravelcentre.com

They seem to sell Interrail tickets and Swiss passes.

And are here

STC Switzerland Travel Centre AG
30-33 Minories
London, EC3N 1DD

Email: [email protected]
Phone: +44 207 420 4900

 

[AlbertBeale]

Interesting, sounds like they have a the regular Swiss ticket office equipment. Swiss ticket offices can sell a lot, including Spanish Interrail reservations.

When I was last there, they had two different types of printers, and several types of ticket stock, so they could issue tickets easily recognisable in various places. Though I did once have "fun and games" with a ticket inspector who was bemused by the nature of the (valid) ticket (from the Swiss office in London) I presented; but all was well in the end and we ended up as best buddies...

 

[rvdborgt]

Swiss Rail Passes | Switzerland Travel Centre

Buy Swiss rail passes online: Experience stress-free travelling with train connections through Switzerland – easy, fast and convenient!

switzerlandtravelcentre.com

They seem to sell Interrail tickets and Swiss passes.

Interrail tickets would be interesting because SBB stopped selling paper Interrail tickets at the beginning of this year. Maybe that's why the link behind "Interrail passes" leads nowhere...

 

[WessexEclectic]

Thanks for the replies. I totally overlooked the trainline, but seems to be comparable with RailEurope

I've found Rail Europe better for booking seat reservations / sleeper berths. YMMV.

 

[riceuten]

Interrail tickets would be interesting because SBB stopped selling paper Interrail tickets at the beginning of this year. Maybe that's why the link behind "Interrail passes" leads nowhere...

Apologies that I didn't exhaustively check out their inventory.

 

[Richard Scott]

Sorry jumping on the back of this one, I used to use Canterbury Rail but despite the website still being available I get no response; have they stopped trading?

 

[Jamesrob637]

Omio can be good

 

[riceuten]

You must be using a cached version of the website

It now says

Rail Canterbury is Now Permanently Closed.​

Alternative contact​

Ffestiniog Travel on email:​

[email protected]​

​

 

[Richard Scott]

You must be using a cached version of the website

It now says

Rail Canterbury is Now Permanently Closed.​

Alternative contact​

Ffestiniog Travel on email:​

[email protected]​

​

Thank you, that's helpful.

 

[AlbertBeale]

I've found Rail Europe better for booking seat reservations / sleeper berths. YMMV.

YMMW??

 

[ainsworth74]

YMMW??

Your Mileage May Vary

 

[FormerBritInMe]

I had an interesting experience trying a test booking Oslo to Copenhagen with a change at Gothenburg. Neither RailEurope nor trainline would show any trains between these endpoints. I could book Oslo to Gothenburg but to get Gothenburg to Copenhagen I had to go to the Oresundstag site. I wonder why those trains don't show up on the other sites.

 

[bspahh]

I had an interesting experience trying a test booking Oslo to Copenhagen with a change at Gothenburg. Neither RailEurope nor trainline would show any trains between these endpoints. I could book Oslo to Gothenburg but to get Gothenburg to Copenhagen I had to go to the Oresundstag site. I wonder why those trains don't show up on the other sites.

The Seat61.com page for trains between Copenhagen and Oslo only mentions getting tickets from www.oresundstag.se, www.vy.no, entur.no and www.sj.se (where you can get cheap tickets if you use the filter to only use SJ trains).

 

[FormerBritInMe]

The Seat61.com page for trains between Copenhagen and Oslo only mentions getting tickets from www.oresundstag.se, www.vy.no, entur.no and www.sj.se (where you can get cheap tickets if you use the filter to only use SJ trains).

Strange that the booking sites don't handle these particular rail operators. Perhaps a better message to that effect than just reporting "no trains available between these endpoints". How would the average punter know that in these cases he/she has to go to the rail operators site? I would be lost of it weren't for sites like seat61 or this site.