Eurostar name change

[theageofthetra]

Is it possible to do a name change on a £69 E* fare? I won't now be able to travel due to starting a new job and was hoping that someone else could use my ticket.

 

[nickswift99]

All Eurostar tickets are non-transferable. See section 12 of their conditions of carriage:

12. You may not transfer your ticket to anyone else

Tickets already partly used, or made out in a passenger's name, are non-transferable and may only be used by the person for whom the ticket has been purchased. Tickets may not be offered for sale except by Eurostar International Limited or its authorised agents. If a ticket is resold or transferred for profit or other commercial gain, it will become invalid and the holder may be refused access to the Eurostar train.

The wording of this condition is a bit odd - especially the last sentence.

 

[maddeningcrowds]

The wording of this condition is a bit odd

Especially odd that "for profit or other commercial gain" is included since this would seem to EXCLUDE transferring a ticket for other reasons.

Can I change the name on my Eurostar booking?

All Eurostar tickets are non-transferable

Please refer to our conditions of carriage point 12 which can be seen on our web site at the bottom of each page.

Tickets are only valid for the person whose name appears printed on the ticket.
Please note: If you have made a minor spelling mistake to the names on your booking this does not generally cause problems when checking in for your journey.

http://www.eurostar.com/be-en/conta...w_question_value=&tid=All&page=2#.UeP9NkGcd8F

 

[gordonthemoron]

AFAIR DB London Spezial tickets do not have a named passenger

 

[OwlMan]

I have never had my name checked on a Eurostar ticket. The ticket goes through the barriers and passport control looks at your passports I have never had the two checked at the same time.

 

[sammyg901]

As above - no one would ever know anyway!

 

[matt]

I have never had my name checked on a Eurostar ticket. The ticket goes through the barriers and passport control looks at your passports I have never had the two checked at the same time.

I'm fairly sure I had to show both at the passport control last time I travelled.

 

[nickswift99]

If you're travelling on a train from Paris or Brussels with a domestic stop (e.g. Calais Frethun or Lille Europe) it is possible that your ticket may be checked more than once.

Typically the only time the passport and ticket might be checked together is if the UKBA decide to do secondary passport checks at St Pancras or other UK stations. But by then, you'll have already left the train.

 

[stut]

It's common, on the French side, to resell Eurostar tickets (despite being against T&Cs) and the consensus seems to be that they're very lenient

From my part, I've travelled on a ticket in a female name through multiple manual inspections, and nobody cared.

 

[cle]

Last week I travelled twice - the passport guy at St Pancras wanted the boarding card/print out the first time, but the second time I was late and rushed through security and passports. So perhaps that is the key - to hang back!

 

[dfurn]

AFAIR DB London Spezial tickets do not have a named passenger

Slightly off topic but my London Spezial ticket from March this year had my name on it. It was in the form of a PDF printed off from DB's site; maybe there's a paper version which does not. To be fair it didn't have names of my two traveling companions on though. I can't remember if the Eurostar check-in person who glared at it for ages checked my ID. The Germans certainly did though.

 

[Gerald Fiennes]

In effect, the last bit of Condition 12 is the enforcement route that ES can apply if the ticket is sold for 'profit or other commercial gain', ie. they reserve the right to withdraw it altogether without any further ado. All other kinds of transfer are prohibited, but in my reading there is no particular remedy envisaged in the Ts and Cs if you do break that rule, ie. in principle ES would have (legally) to sue you loss if you did violate the prohibition but couldn't withdraw the ticket.
Anyway, in practice the name point is not currently enforced so is moost. There have been various thoughts about moving ES over to the system where all the names of intending passengers are collected and reviewed by the Borders Agency first to increase the chance of them spotting potential problems in advance, given that they have comprehensive lists of UK passport holders available. But in practice today, when inbound to the UK, you will always be checked by the BA at the Continental station so there is already quite a strong safeguard in place to deter problem cases entering the UK.
Also in practice all ES tickets I have bought in BE, FR, NL, CH, AT and DE have never had a name on them, it's only when sold in the UK that they seem to request this.
The London Spezial and equivalent DB tickets have names when sold as print at home tickets and DB staff are pretty hot on checking that the name matches that on your Bahncard, Credit Card etc. This is more a fraud thing to prevent you photocopying your ticket and giving it to your mates. Also the DB inspectors will scan the ticket and deduct it from the on-train inventory of advance tickets sold such that if 'another' ticket with the same number is used it will be spotted instantly. It's simply not worth thinking about any ways to get round this one, DB are typically thorough about it....

 

[tsr]

Last time I used Group Tickets on Eurostar, none of the party's names were on the tickets, so you could effectively have had anyone holding the ticket. If they don't care about 10 or more people turning up unnamed (which they obviously don't, unless the procedure has changed since last year!), one wonders why they would think to care about individuals' names on tickets. I suppose the theft risk would be higher.

I don't think I have ever had my name checked on any E* journeys within the last few years. Indeed, when I had a ticket check onboard once recently, they were actually only looking at my passport, which was requested (as per usual) at the same time.

 

[grid56126]

The only reason the customs berts are interested in your ticket is to see where you have come from. They just look to see the origin, not your name. I was frequently pulled over when alone on the bash and as soon as there was any hint of Dutch travelling they became very erm - excited - suspecting a stash of drugs and porn.

Nowadays I tend to travel with my family and don't even get a glance. The reasonably recent introduction of but covering since some idiot journalist "exposed" a Schengen loophole is just a complete shambles and again, the name on your ticket is of total irrelevance, they just look for "Lille Loophole" stamps.

My ticket has failed gates at Waterloo, Paris and Brussel and all the gate line staff are interested in is getting you moving.

The only exception I have ever known was a short period when FIP tickets got barred at the gates and I was asked to show my staff ID. That was once in hundreds of trips and not relevant to this thread really.

Still, you could always claim on the travel insurance you obviously took out for trip?

Grid

 

[The Barlow Boy]

I'm fairly sure I had to show both at the passport control last time I travelled.

You might have offered both but the requirement to show both doesn't happen.

 

[The Barlow Boy]

The only reason the customs berts are interested in your ticket is to see where you have come from. They just look to see the origin, not your name. I was frequently pulled over when alone on the bash and as soon as there was any hint of Dutch travelling they became very erm - excited - suspecting a stash of drugs and porn.

Nowadays I tend to travel with my family and don't even get a glance. The reasonably recent introduction of but covering since some idiot journalist "exposed" a Schengen loophole is just a complete shambles and again, the name on your ticket is of total irrelevance, they just look for "Lille Loophole" stamps.

My ticket has failed gates at Waterloo, Paris and Brussel and all the gate line staff are interested in is getting you moving.

The only exception I have ever known was a short period when FIP tickets got barred at the gates and I was asked to show my staff ID. That was once in hundreds of trips and not relevant to this thread really.

Still, you could always claim on the travel insurance you obviously took out for trip?

Grid

The gate blocking is done occasionally for tickets with restrictions to ensure that the ticket holder is entitled. Names don't come into it unless it's a FIP ticket and then a lot of interest will be shown as to who the FIP card holder is. There are several other ticket fiddles that get pulled which I'm not prepared to discuss for obvious reasons but rest assured, names are so very low down the list as to be almost off the page.