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Interrail Home Country\Eurostar questions

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lancededcena

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Joined
28 Aug 2013
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93
Location
Colchester, Essex
Hey everyone,

A few points regarding Interrail being valid on journeys within home country and the best ticket to catch the Eurostar from London.

My inbound journey is planned to be outside my Interrail travel period so I understand I would need to get a separate Eurostar and National Rail ticket
However, my outbound journey is within the Interrail travel period (will be going from Berlin to Brussels and then the 20:50 to London from Brussel-Zuid)
  • On the interrail terms and conditions, I am allowed one journey outbound and inbound, am I able to use my Interrail pass to get a connecting service from London St Pancras to Colchester as well as the Eurostar from Brussels. I heard that you can but others say you can't use it for more than one train in your country so I am a bit confused. I would imagine I would have to pay for the Tube to Liverpool Street though as that is not an NR service.
  • If I am allowed to use my interrail pass from London to Colchester, what is the likelihood of gateline staff understanding the interrail pass? I see there is a barcode similar to an e-Ticket code for barriers in Italy\NL etc, would this work with a UK barrier?
  • Since I brought a Eurostar ticket separately (by mistake, see below), if it is a requirement to use only one journey in the home country, am I able to travel from London to Colchester with it and use that as my home journey leg?
Also:
  • Has anyone had experience reserving the Eurostar for the same month as the travel date (in this case I will be in Europe from the 15th-26th August), the reason I say this is because I am still undecided if I want to spend an extra day in the Netherlands and get a Holland Travel Ticket for the day or use my interrail in the Netherlands (I was a bit silly and booked a Eurostar, then found out that Interrail allowed travel to\from the country after I brought my ticket! I have an original return ticket dated 25th but the ticket change made it not worth it to change the original ticket, not to mention I have a first-class Interrail pass as well!).
Hope this makes sense to you all! Thanks.
 
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biko

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Joined
8 Mar 2020
Messages
487
Location
Overijssel, the Netherlands
On the interrail terms and conditions, I am allowed one journey outbound and inbound, am I able to use my Interrail pass to get a connecting service from London St Pancras to Colchester as well as the Eurostar from Brussels. I heard that you can but others say you can't use it for more than one train in your country so I am a bit confused. I would imagine I would have to pay for the Tube to Liverpool Street though as that is not an NR service.
You can make one journey to a port or border outbound and one journey from a port or border inbound. This journey may consist of as many legs as you need so if you need to change it’s no problem as long as it’s the same day. The tube is indeed not included.
If I am allowed to use my interrail pass from London to Colchester, what is the likelihood of gateline staff understanding the interrail pass? I see there is a barcode similar to an e-Ticket code for barriers in Italy\NL etc, would this work with a UK barrier?
My experience in 2019 was that most gateline staff just let me through, but I encountered gatelines only at major stations. I don’t believe the Dutch QR code is readable outside the Netherlands. You need to be let through manually in the UK.
Since I brought a Eurostar ticket separately (by mistake, see below), if it is a requirement to use only one journey in the home country, am I able to travel from London to Colchester with it and use that as my home journey leg?
You can use it between London and Colchester as long as you fill it out in the travel diary and note the day at ‘outbound’ or ‘inbound’
 

TAS

Member
Joined
16 Jul 2005
Messages
246
  • If I am allowed to use my interrail pass from London to Colchester, what is the likelihood of gateline staff understanding the interrail pass? I see there is a barcode similar to an e-Ticket code for barriers in Italy\NL etc, would this work with a UK barrier?
Backing up what Biko said above, I used an Interrail pass for precisely that journey less than a fortnight ago. I just waved it at the gateline staff and they let me through - they didn't even want to look at it properly. This was a physical pass, not a mobile one.
 

rvdborgt

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Joined
24 Feb 2022
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979
Location
Leuven
My experience in 2019 was that most gateline staff just let me through, but I encountered gatelines only at major stations. I don’t believe the Dutch QR code is readable outside the Netherlands.
According to the pass cover, it is also meant for France. It might also work in Italy.
 

30907

Veteran Member
Joined
30 Sep 2012
Messages
17,866
Location
Airedale
  • Has anyone had experience reserving the Eurostar for the same month as the travel date (in this case I will be in Europe from the 15th-26th August), the reason I say this is because I am still undecided if I want to spend an extra day in the Netherlands and get a Holland Travel Ticket for the day or use my interrail in the Netherlands (I was a bit silly and booked a Eurostar, then found out that Interrail allowed travel to\from the country after I brought my ticket! I have an original return ticket dated 25th but the ticket change made it not worth it to change the original ticket, not to mention I have a first-class Interrail pass as well!).
On the Friday before a UK bank holiday I would expect the passholder allocation to be limited - I have been looking myself a few weeks ahead, and busy services sell out. I suggest you look on the b-Europe site to get an idea of possibilities.
 

slowjoe

Member
Joined
30 May 2022
Messages
7
Location
Berlin
The Interrail mobile pass Aztec codes don't work UK barriers, for some reason. But I didn't experience any problems with gateline staff letting me through.
 

StephenHunter

Established Member
Joined
22 Jul 2017
Messages
2,118
Location
London
I wasn't sure either whether I could use it for c2c to get me to West Ham; they let me through, but I decided to tap the contactless anyway afterwards.
 

lachlan

Member
Joined
11 Aug 2019
Messages
783
I've had to leave booking my trains until the last minute and am now finding all Eurostar services appear to be not accepting Interrail ticket holders. The website is not very intuitive, are there any services still available and is there an easy way to see which days/trains have spaces without checking each one? Every single train I've checked does not accept Interrail.

EDIT: I have managed to find services with seats available in August
 

rvdborgt

Member
Joined
24 Feb 2022
Messages
979
Location
Leuven
I've had to leave booking my trains until the last minute and am now finding all Eurostar services appear to be not accepting Interrail ticket holders. The website is not very intuitive, are there any services still available and is there an easy way to see which days/trains have spaces without checking each one? Every single train I've checked does not accept Interrail.

EDIT: I have managed to find services with seats available in August
On the B-Europe website, keep clicking "Later trains" until you find something. And yes, it is hard to find seats.
 

lachlan

Member
Joined
11 Aug 2019
Messages
783
I'm setting off interrailling today. Looking at the app, I have to enable a journey as my inbound/outbound journey. I'm taking LNER then Eurostar. If I select LNER as my outbound journey, will the app then allow me to select Eurostar also as an outbound journey? I'm nervous that I'll invalidate the Eurostar ticket. Seat61 and above posters suggest you can have as many legs as you want for your outbound journey.

Edit: Although you can select individual journeys as inbound/outbound, you can also select a day. Which is what I've done now.
 
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rvdborgt

Member
Joined
24 Feb 2022
Messages
979
Location
Leuven
I'm setting off interrailling today. Looking at the app, I have to enable a journey as my inbound/outbound journey. I'm taking LNER then Eurostar. If I select LNER as my outbound journey, will the app then allow me to select Eurostar also as an outbound journey? I'm nervous that I'll invalidate the Eurostar ticket. Seat61 and above posters suggest you can have as many legs as you want for your outbound journey.

Edit: Although you can select individual journeys as inbound/outbound, you can also select a day. Which is what I've done now.
You don't select a certain train as your inbound or outbound journey, it always applies to a travel day. You can use as many trains for your inbound or outbound journey as you like, including in your country of residence. The app will ask you confirm to use an inbound/outbound journey if you want to add a journey to your pass that includes travel in your country of residence. After that, you can still add more trains in your country of residence, as long as they're on the same day.
 

AdamWW

Established Member
Joined
6 Nov 2012
Messages
3,599
The Interrail mobile pass Aztec codes don't work UK barriers, for some reason. But I didn't experience any problems with gateline staff letting me through.

This is a few years ago now, but I didn't have any trouble in the UK except for one member of gateline staff who seemed to partly remember their training and wanted to see the bit where I'd filled in that day's date. I couldn't because I didn't have a flexi-pass. But they gave in quite quickly when I explained.
 
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