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Editorial
The quaint, behind-the-times folk of “Old Europe” still travel by train. Electric speedsters move 1,400 people at 200 mph (320 kph) with a crew of three, generating the greenhouse gasses of 11 automobiles or a 10th of an airplane. New York to Boston would take 90 minutes and cost $60 US on the French TGV. Delightfully archaic, n’est-ce pas? Thank goodness such nonsense is confined to Europe!
If you think a train is just a long bus, with more room for screaming children, it’s time to reassess. European trains are fast, reliable, comfortable (many offer on-board dining or café facilities), offer city-center convenience, and are more spacious than cars or planes.... Plus, you’re not strapped in, so you can flee the screaming children.
The contrast with flying is especially sharp. It takes longer to get from downtown Paris to Paris’s Beauvais Airport than it does to get all the way to Brussels by train (and longer to price and purchase a plane ticket than to do either)! Add in the flight check-in time, and the train would have you in central London. If you count the time spent taxiing, you can train from Paris to 5 foreign countries before your plane would even manage to take off! On other plains (get it?):
- In the last year for which we have figures, the three major European low-cost carriers combined for a flight cancellation rate approaching 15% (while at the same time vaunting their “on-time” statistics — turns out a cancelled flight is not considered “late”).
- Since autumn of ‘04, at least eleven carriers have gone bankrupt and suddenly ceased operation. Seven stranded their passengers totally, without refunding tickets, while the other four refunded tickets, but offered no alternate travel arrangements (not much consolation when you paid 30€ for the ticket, and must now buy a replacement on a full-service carrier for 400€...).
When it comes to planes, Old Europe looks a lot like the Wild West.
Factoring in city-to-airport trips, daylight trains are time-competitive for trips of up to 5 hours when compared with a “full service” carrier, 7 when compared with a “low cost.” And they let you enjoy the scenery en route. Night trains waste even less of your time (and are time-competitive for even longer trips): you sleep the trip away in a bed, buying an extra vacation day that would have been lost to travel, and saving a hotel night.
Regardless, why go to an exotic place you don’t know and then spin around up in the air? Clouds look the same as the ones at home. Villages and vineyards don’t.
To be clear, it is in an average New World (or British) traveller’s interest to adjust his / her travel paradigm: you fly in continental Europe when you really can’t afford to do otherwise; when the air ticket, plus ground costs, are so much less expensive than going by train (or the trip time is vastly different, as for a trip from Athens to Amsterdam) that you are willing to suffer the discomfort, take your chances on the reliability, and forgo the pleasure of the trip. But make sure you are pretty well-compensated before you put yourself through it!
General Discussion of Train Travel Costs
More Editorial
Now for the bad news. Emulating worst industry practice, the European railways have made it almost as complex to purchase rail tickets as it is to buy air tickets (at least there is only one railroad to check). No two seats on the train are sold at the same price, and each comes with a mosaic of restrictions concerning changes and refunds.
Information provision is awful. Web sites are full of gross errors. The French site is probably the worst: the info software was designed by a division of American Airlines. It would be charitable to say that they understood zero of the world of train travel. We actually suspect that they were trying to sabatoge the process. Routings and fares can approach science-fiction for complex trips.
But the Spanish site gives the French a run for their money. It is actually incapable of showing most journeys which require a change of train. And the Portuguese site sometimes requires that you know the brand name of the train you wish to ride to find its schedule!
Station agents seem to have never set foot on the trains going by outside their windows. And printed timetables are a thing of the past for all but the most professional operators....
One other conceptual point gives trouble: train tickets (which can be used on a variety of different trains), and reservations for space aboard a given train, are sold separately. Railpasses are a type of ticket, and do not automatically provide reservations or guarantee space aboard a train. But at least reservation costs are reasonable and predictable. They are outlined in the next section.
With all of this, shopping for the lowest fares is a tedious job, and you have no way of knowing when you have completed it. And the potential savings are minor on what are already relatively low-cost tickets.
So... instead of spending the three hours it takes to figure out what discount ticket to buy, you would rationally get a job as a Wal-Mart greeter, work for three hours, and resign. Then use your pay check for a full-fare ticket. You’d be financially ahead. As with plane tickets, people often spend longer on the purchase process than they do on the trip. But human nature is what it is, and you naturally resent spending more than the guy next to you for exactly the same seat.
We don’t have a silver bullet for any of this, but we can cut through some of it for you....
First, it may help you to accept your fate if you realize that even full-fare tickets are not terribly expensive for most European train travel, and so the time you spend looking for bargains should be limited. Or you should enjoy the search as you would a hobby, like stamp collecting.
Second, we have a simple formula for issuing discount tickets. It will rarely produce the lowest price on the train, but it will get close. It ensures that you do not pay much more than the lowest fare, and avoids administrative hurdles like having to set up a European residence, or proving that you have a siamese twin. See the section on Single Tickets for Long Journeys, below.
Reservations: What Are They, When Do I Need One, How Much Does It Cost?
- What Are They?
Tickets / railpasses do not guarantee seats, beds, or cycle spaces on board trains: reservations do.
A train ticket (or a railpass) buys travel from A to B. But not on any particular train: tickets are “open.” Guaranteed seats or beds (or cycle spaces) on particular trains are secured by “reservations,” bought separately.
Some trains require that you have a reservation to board. Passengers not holding a reserved seat will not be allowed to board the train (think airplane).
Others offer the option of reserving a space, but also allow you to board without. You then occupy any unreserved seat on a first-come-first-served basis. If all seats are taken, you stand. Short-distance and local trains usually do not offer reservations.
Reservations guarantee you a preassigned seat or bed. You may select a window or aisle. If you are reserving a berth in a multi-person cabin, you may select an upper or lower.
- “When do I Need One?”
On some trains, you must make a reservation in order to board. Reservations may be made until minutes before departure if space is available. These are:
- Most high-speed (220 kph or faster) trains: French TGVs, “Eurostars” to and from London, “Thalys” trains between Paris, Belgium, & Holland or Germany, X 2000 trains in Sweden.
- All Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Norwegian and Greek express trains, and most express trains in France.
- Overnight trains.
On other trains, they are optional. They provide the luxury of a guaranteed seat (as opposed to sitting in the aisle on your suitcase), but you are not required to have one to board the train.
Like planes, daylight trains can overbook. But, unlike planes, you will never get bumped off. You can always make your trip. If you are among the last to reserve a seat on a train which requires seat reservations, you will receive a boarding pass without a seat assignment, and will occupy a “no-show” seat once the train pulls out of the station. If no seats are available, you sit in the café, or on a fold-out seat at the end of the car.
If you are travelling with a bicycle on any sort of fast train, it is generally necessary to reserve a space for your bicycle, even when reserving a passenger seat is optional.
- “If I Don’t Need a Reservation, Should I Make One Anyway?”
Perhaps. We would suggest it for long trips, for scenic trips where a window is important to your enjoyment of the ride, or for any trip on a Friday or a Sunday afternoon (unless you don’t mind sitting on your suitcase). More generally, if you aren't too close to the funds, seat reservations can avoid unpleasant surprises (a logically off-peak train is packed-and-standing with people heading to some convention, or because an airport is closed, or whatever).
Reservations on trains which do not require them can be made until the day before the train’s departure, but not generally on the departure date (so, once you see the Shriners on the platform, it is too late to run back to the ticket office and block the seat).
- How Much Do Seat / Bicycle Reservations Cost?
If you choose (or are obligated) to make a reservation for a particular train before you arrive in Europe, the railroad usually charges about 10€ per person per train, irrespective of class of service or distance. If you must take several trains to reach your destination, each seat reservation is charged separately.
Reservations usually cost closer to 5€ if made locally in Europe (some exceptions are mentioned below). But when you have stood on line for 2 hours in the swealtering heat of an Italian summer to book a seat on a train that departs while you wait, you may wish you had spent the extra 5€.
There are some notable exceptions: reservation charges are higher on all trains in Spain, on fast trains in Italy (“Eurostar Italia”), and on trains operating between Paris and Belgium, Holland or Germany (“Thalys”). Reservation costs on these range from 15 to 30€ (the high end of the range is for trains which offer a “free” onboard meal). Alternate services, slower and less comfortable, but with lower or no reservation charges, are available in all cases outside of Spain. Spain just rips off railpass holders no matter how you slice it.
In addition, unless you make your reservation directly with the railroad, there will be an agency charge.
If you make your reservation through us, we can sometimes avoid our own agency charge by booking your reservation in Europe, and charging you the North American rates. We keep the difference as payment for our work, and still give you the lowest price available outside of Europe.
Bicycle reservations (on trains which carry cycles — not all do) generally cost around 10€. Space for cycles is very limited, and often sells out. Cycle reservations can only be made in Europe (or through us — our fees are additional, however).
On Night Trains, What Sleeping Accommodation is Available, and How Much Does it Cost?
The basic offering is the couchette. Couchettes are berths in spartan and somewhat claustrophobic cabins, generally mixed-sex (and mixed sex cabins are always available), though female-only cabins are offered on some routes. Regular couchettes are 6 to a cabin, “Comfort” couchettes are 4 to a cabin.
Sleeping cars are offered on some routes, and are more luxurious. They offer more spacious single-sex cabins (any gender mix can occupy a cabin, provided the group buys all the berths in the cabin), for 1 - 4 people, with incorporated wash stands, beds with mattresses, and sometimes room service. “Deluxe” single and double cabins, available on some routes, include ensuite showers.
We are big fans of sleeping cars. They offer the comfort needed for a night’s rest, and thus supply a hotel night and an additional vacation day, combined. You actually spend fewer waking hours on travel than if you fly, and savings can be substantial if you factor in the saved hotel night and city-to-airport transfers. While couchettes have the substantial merit of economy, sleeping cars are better compared to the costs of flying: they are fun, comfortable, effectively faster, at roughly equivalent cost.
Berth costs vary by route, but not by distance travelled. Approximate prices for berths purchased outside of Europe are:
- 26€ for a regular couchette.
- 40€ for a “Comfort Couchette.”
- 50€ for a more comfortable bed in a more spacious single-sex, 3- or 4-person cabin (the entire cabin can be reserved by a group of 3 or 4, regardless of gender)
- 65€ for a berth in a double cabin
- 95€ to 150€ for the range of private cabin.
- “Deluxe” cabins (w/ private shower), cost around 50€ additional for a double cabin, 40€ additional for a single.
To convert these to your currency, you can use this tool: http://www.xe.com/ucc/
Bed charges are lower on most domestic services (trains operating within one European country), and, curiously, in Germany and Scandinavia. They are higher on trains between Spain and all other countries (“Hotel Trains”). A first class ticket or railpass is additionally required to occupy all single and most “Deluxe” double cabins.
In addition, unless you book your sleeping accommodation directly with the railroad, there may be an agency charge (which it may well be in your interest to pay: understanding the offerings of any given night train is well beyond the ability of railroad ticket agents not working with their home networks, and they are not explained on railroad web sites, where it is assumed that you understand what a “T-2” means).
“What Type of Ticket(s) Should I Use for My Pre- / Post-Trip Travel?”
- If you are making only one or two trips, or if all of your trips are less than 200 miles / 300 kilometers, you should probably buy individual tickets: separate, point-to-point tickets for each journey made. The only advantage of a railpass is ease of use, and only on routes where reservations are not required (no waiting on ticket lines, just climb on the train and ride).
- If you are planning to make several trips, including at least one of 200 miles / 300 kilometers or more, a railpass may offer substantial savings in 1st class, and smaller savings in 2nd.
Railpasses (see below) are good for the number of days of travel you choose (you pay per travel day, not per trip), irrespective of distance or destination. The price of each travel day is digressive, with the first day costing by far the most. So at least one long trip is necessary to get that first day to pay for itself, and the more trains you take, and the longer the distances involved, the greater the savings.
- You may also want or need a seat (or bed) reservation for some trips. For details, see Reservations, above.
Railpasses
We issue railpasses fee-free. And, by using them in conjunction with our cycle trips, we may be able to offer options not available to the general public, or discounted prices. If you are on one of our cycle trips, passes purchased through us may reduce the cost of your “Access Packages,” provide free 1st class upgrades, or both.
A railpass is an open ticket valid on trains anywhere in the country(ies) for which it is purchased. That means: reservations must be additionally secured for trains which require them.
Passes are good for a pre-selected number of not-necessarily-consecutive days’ travel (from 2 to 15) in a period of 2 months. The more days you buy, the less the per-day cost of the pass.
Passes can be purchased for travel in 1 country, or in 2 or more adjoining countries (20 participate in the program). Cost rises slightly per country added to the pass. The Benelux countries (Belgium, the Netherlands, and Luxemburg), are offered as one country, and some of the Balkans group themselves in the same manner (Slovenia with Croatia, Serbia with Bulgaria and Montenegro).
If you need general railway information, concerning travel times, service frequencies, or ticket prices, we suggest Rail Europe’s website:
http://www.raileurope.com/us/rail/fares_schedules/index.htm.
However, if you wish to buy any sort of rail pass, we encourage you to do so through us. We save you money (at the least, the Rail Europe “handling fee”), and provide you with some useful hints in passing.
- We quickly analyze your travel plans to tell you which pass is best suited to them, if indeed any is.
- We warn of routes on which reservations are required for travel, and we can also help you to make those reservations if your plans are set.
- We can sometimes arrange to use your pass on the bike trip, and thus offer a discount.
- We can help you make your reservations. Reservations made through us with sufficient advance notice are modifiable in Europe, unlike those booked through other non-European outlets, including Rail Europe.
- We can reserve bicycle spaces on trains which carry cycles — such reservations are not otherwise available outside of Europe.
- We are experts at getting our passengers on board “sold out” trains. This is a complex service that we only offer to holders of railpasses we have issued. Which leads to a degree of resentment every year on the part of people who bought their passes elsewhere, or on line, and who stay on the platform as their train leaves the station. Warning: sales pitch ahead. There is an obvious solution: buy your pass through us. It is the only way for us to get paid for our work (starting with this document)!
Railpass prices can be found on Rail Europe’s web site. But don’t buy your pass there: you will be better off if you get it through us (and it is a way of thanking us for all these helpful hints). Discounts are available to 2 or more people travelling together at all times, in 1st class, and also to passengers under 26 years old on their first day of travel, in 2nd class.
Single Tickets for Long Journeys (typically 300 kilometers / 180 miles or more), Sleeping Car Reservations
If you book at least 21 days in advance of your date of travel (2 weeks if you are willing to pick up your tickets in our Paris office), and are willing to accept tickets (or sleeping car reservations) which are not refundable or exchangeable, we may be able to get you a lower fare by buying your tickets through local sources in Europe.
The farther in advance you book, the more likely this is to be true, and the greater the discounts potentially available.
If we find a fare that is cheaper than that available outside of Europe, we split the difference with you. For example, if Rail Europe’s announced fare is $100, and we find a local market restricted ticket for the € equivalent of $50, we charge you $75. If we do not produce a savings to you of at least 10% over an unrestricted ticket bought outside of Europe, we ask you what you wish to do before issuing a restricted ticket. Typical savings are 20%, and sometimes more, especially if you are travelling in 1st class, or are under 26 years old.
Some of our discount rates are the fruit of special negotiations between Blue Marble and European railway companies. Some may only be available to participants in our cycle tours. Some may be the result of the clever (and unorthodox, but perfectly legitimate) use of a railpass. We have lots of tricks, as you may have started to suspect by now.
If no advantageous local market ticket (or sleeping car reservation) is available, but the unrestricted ticket available in Europe is no more expensive than the ticket bought through Rail Europe (including all costs) we may nonetheless issue it in Europe. In this case, we will charge the Rail Europe price, but waive our agency fee.
This is to your advantage. Beyond saving our usual dossier fee, you get a ticket which can be modified in Europe, which is not generally the case for tickets issued outside of Europe.
See below for our standard agency fees, which are addtional.
Warning: modification or refund charges apply even to full fare train tickets in Europe, and they may be substantial or total on discount tickets. Some, like discount airline tickets, are train-specific: neither refundable nor changeable. Bottom line: despite the advance-purchase advantages, you should order discount tickets only once your travel plans are reasonably certain.
Tickets for Shorter Journeys
If you are only making short trips, we offer unrestricted tickets (changeable, and refundable less a service fee not surpassing 20% of ticket cost) at published, Rail Europe prices. These can be consulted at http://www.raileurope.com/us/rail/fares_schedules/index.htm.
Discounts: if you book at least 21 days in advance of your date of travel (2 weeks if you are willing to pick up your tickets in our Paris office), and tell us at the time of booking that you are willing to accept tickets which are not refundable or exchangeable, we may be able to get you a lower fare by buying your tickets through local sources in Europe. The farther in advance you book, the more likely this is to be true, and the greater the discounts potentially available.
In this case, we split the difference with you: if the outside-of-Europe published fare is the equivalent of 50€, and we find a local market restricted ticket for 24€, we get it for you and charge you 37€. If we do not produce a savings to you of at least 10€ / ticket (or the rough equivalent in your currency) over an unrestricted ticket bought outside of Europe, we issue an unrestricted ticket unless you have previously told us otherwise. This is because the miniscule savings are not worth the risk of a change in plans or a missed train.
When we have sufficient advance notice to not charge you for international shipping, we issue even full price, unrestricted tickets (changeable, and refundable less a service fee not surpassing 20% of ticket cost) in Europe. Tickets issued in Europe can be exchanged or modified locally, while tickets issued in other currencies must generally be replaced and refunded. In this case, we will charge you the amount you see on Rail Europe’s web site for that ticket, regardless of its European price, and use any difference to help with the shipping costs.
We can also reserve seats for you if you so wish - see “Reservations,” above.
Pricing Your Trip: Tickets or a Railpass?
If you need a price quote on a given trip or trips in order to make your plans, or in order to decide whether or not you are better off with a railpass, start by ascertaining the “regular” fare for the trip you are contemplating, available at the European railways’ web site:
http://www.raileurope.com/us/rail/fares_schedules/index.htm.
Once you have a quote on a given itinerary, we may be able to offer you a cheaper railpass option (to preserve flexibility), in conjunction with your cycle trip or not, or restricted tickets at lower fares.
For Passengers on our Cycle Trips: Upgrades, to 1st Class or Sleeping Car
Consider upgrading your class of travel for “Access Package” train journeys, and for train rides included in our long trips. Our steep discounts allow luxurious travel at reasonable prices. Upgrades provide different things on day and overnight trains.
Upgrading on Daylight Trains
What You Get: our trips and “Access Packages” include 2nd class rail tickets. Upgrading puts you in 1st class instead: comfortable, spacious (±40% more room per passenger), and vinyl-free. It smells better, and seats may be available on trains sold out in 2nd class. The added comfort is welcome after a night flight, or on cramped high-speed trains.
1st class does not generally include meals: food is sold separately on continental European trains. Exceptions are “Eurostar” trains between London and Paris or Brussels; Spanish express trains under their plethoric and incomprehensible brand names (“AVE,” “Euromed,” “Altara,” etc.); and “Thalys” trains between Paris and Belgium, Holland, or north Germany. On all these services, at-seat meals are provided as part of the ticket cost in 1st class.
The cost of upgrading to 1st class varies by distance, but is always far lower than comparable upgrades on planes. You can usually travel in 1st class on a train for less than the cost of the overhead bin on a plane. This despite the fact that you benefit from your comfort for a longer trip (plane upgrades do not help you on the journey to or from the airport, which can take longer than the flight itself).
Upgrading on Overnight Trains
What You Get: our overnight train prices include at least a couchette (a summary berth in a mixed-sex cabin). Upgrading moves you to a “comfort” couchette (a 4-pers. cabin instead of the usual 6), or to a “real” sleeping car. “Real” sleeping cars offer more spacious single-sex cabins, for 1 - 4 people, with incorporated wash stands, beds with mattresses, and sometimes room service. “Deluxe” single and double cabins, available on some routes, include ensuite showers.
The cost of upgrading varies with accommodation chosen, the route, the underlying fare code used to upgrade your ticket. So these €uro prices are approximate. They correspond to the additional amount that you must pay to upgrade from the tickets already included in our “Access Packages” or our cycle trips. They are not the whole cost prices of the respective berths.
- “Comfort Couchette.” Around 28€ per berth.
- 3- or 4-Person “Tourist” Sleeping Car Cabin. 35€ per berth. Mixed-gender couples cannot take berths in the same cabin, but a mixed-gender group occupying all beds can reserve an entire “family” cabin.
- 2-Person Cabin. 50€ per berth.
Single berths cannot be purchased in double cabins on trains within Spain.
- Private Single Cabin. 85 - 140€. These prices include the required upgrade of the underlying ticket to 1st class.
- “Deluxe” Cabins, where available. 40€ over the cost of a regular single, 28€ per berth over the cost of a regular double.
On international trains serving Spain, deluxe cabins on many routes include rather elaborate multi-course meals in the train’s dining car, and can thus be slightly more expensive.
We are big fans of “real” sleeping cars. They offer the comfort needed for a night’s rest, and thus supply a hotel night and an additional vacation day, combined. You actually spend fewer waking hours on travel than if you fly, and savings can be substantial if you factor in the saved hotel night and city-to-airport transfers. While couchettes have the substantial merit of economy, sleeping cars are more rationally compared to flying: fun, comfortable, effectively faster, all at roughly equivalent cost.
Getting Bicycles on Trains
This is a domain of particular expertise for us. We will either “consult” (just tell you how to do it, line by line, and let you do it yourself), or we can actually reserve cycle spaces for you along with your rail tickets.
For information on our “consulting service,” please see our page on self-guided travel, and in particular the section concerning getting bikes on trains. Otherwise, see reservations, above, and / or fees, below.
Obtaining Further Information
Upon request, and on a fee basis, we provide detailed quotes, travel itineraries, comparative studies of different route or fare options.... See our fee schedule, below.
For those who have already purchased their tickets or railpasses through us, we offer a range of support services in our Paris office (whether or not you are on one of our cycle trips). These include:
- Provision of general train information (frequency, travel time), at no charge.
- Railpass seat or bed reservations, or single ticket seat / bed reservations on trains where they are optional. On trains where they are required, they are quoted as part of the ticket cost. Agency charge: 10€ for 1st seat, 2€ for additional seats on the same train. Connecting trains can be reserved for 4€ / 1st seat, 2€ / additional seat.
- Detailed English-language schedule and itinerary preparation, showing departure and arrival times of the train or trains necessary to complete the trip, connection points and times, accommodation and catering services available on board. 15€ per itinerary (agency charges related to reservations, if any, are deductable from this fee).
The dispensing of information is costly, and hard to charge for. This is especially true for the type of expertise we have (cabin types on night trains, luggage movement, the relative quality of train catering...). Our apologies to passengers who did not purchase their tickets or railpasses through us: please address questions to the agency through which you purchase your ticket or pass (which presumably received a commission on the sale), or to the railroad directly if the pass is bought through Rail Europe. Neither will be able to answer accurately, but there is nothing we can do to knock their heads together. Until we can get the European railways to put us on retainer, we can only answer questions for our own guests.
If desired, we offer a travel consulting service which can help you with itinerary creation, charging for the service on an hourly basis. But it is an expensive service for rather intangible advantages, and most of our clients for it are travel agencies, organizing “high-end” or group trips....
Our Fees
These are agency fees, designed to pay us for our work. They are in addition to charges levied by the railroad.
- We issue railpasses in our U.S. office fee-free (shipping charges are additional — see below).
- We issue single-trip tickets (not a railpass), or make seat / bed reservations for holders of railpasses purchased through us, for a 10€ / $15 US or C agency fee per journey (the railroad’s charges for the tickets / reservations themselves are, of course, additional).
- This fee applies regardless of the number of travellers using the same fare. If, however, we can apply a more steeply discounted fare to some passengers than to others, a dossier fee will apply for each fare used. Obviously, if the savings do not equal the additional dossier fee, we won’t apply it....
- The dossier fee may be higher for particularly complex journeys involving multiple connections, or involving trains which cannot normally be booked outside of Europe. If this is the case for your trip, we will tell you prior to making your arrangements, and give you a chance to refuse our services.
- The dossier fee applies per invoice. So, two families travelling together but paying separately are subject to two fees.
- It is waived for parties of 2 or more reserving couchettes from outside of Europe, at least 4 weeks in advance. In this case, we will issue (less expensive) local market couchettes, and charge the Rail Europe price, keeping the difference as payment for our service. You avoid the dossier fee, and get couchettes that will be exchangeable locally, and refundable through our Paris office until one week prior to travel (couchettes issued outside of Europe are not refundable).
- If you already hold a railpass or a ticket purchased elsewhere, and wish only seat reservations through us, a 20€ / $30 US or C agency charge applies, in addition to the cost of the reservations.
- If you wish a price quote in advance of booking, a fee of 10€ / $15 US or C applies.
You may, of course, obtain your own prices through Rail Europe’s web site, http://www.raileurope.com/us/rail/fares_schedules/index.htm. While this is an imperfect vehicle, as many city pairs are not loaded to their data base, it can give you a price within a couple of percentage points.... Getting precise (and accurate) prices, especially for discount tickets, in advance of actual ticket issuance, can be an elaborate affair: hence our charge. Our suggestion: get your best quote, and then set us that upper limit, and tell us where you saw it. Or just get the quote from the Rail Europe web site. We will get the ticket for less, or will come back to you for further instruction.
- Bicycle reservations cost our standard fee, 10€ / $15 US or C for the first bicycle space, half off for additional spaces up to 4. For groups of over 4 on the same train, the full fee applies to all passengers, since reservations for groups larger than 4 must be specially negotiated, and are difficult to obtain.
The railroad’s charge for cycle spaces is additional. It varies, but is never more than 12€ per cycle.
- Domestic shipping charges:
- Within the US, $10 for traceable USPS Priority Mail, $16 for 2nd-business-day delivery, $28 for overnight.
- Within France: 10€ for a lettre recommandée, 26€ for overnight Chronoposte.
- Within Canada: $14 C for traceable mail, $38 C for guaranteed delivery services.
International charges are higher, and vary with the nature and speed of the shipment.
We regret that we cannot guarantee the services of organizations like the Post Office, Fedex, or UPS. If your tickets are delivered late or misdelivered, you must take the issue up with them directly.
- Refund charges are 15€ / $22 US or C per order, in addition to any assessed by the railroad. Tickets issued in Europe (printed in other than English) must be returned to our Paris office, tickets issued in North America (printed in English) must be returned to our US office.
- See also the previous topic, “Obtaining Further Information.”
Payment
Rail passes and tickets issued through Rail Europe (in North America) can be paid for by credit card (Visa, MC, Amex), with no penalty.
If your tickets must be issued in Europe (or are issued there in your economic interest), use of a credit card incurs an additional 3% charge, as we must debit your card and pay the railroad ourselves. We would thus lose the credit card “discount rate” on your tickets, and must pass this charge on to you.
If you wish to pay for rail tickets by credit card, you may fill out and fax this authorization form. If you prefer, you may transmit your card details by phone or by e.mail. However, since we do not have a secure e.mail shopping cart, we suggest that you send the card info in two successive e.mails: the first should contain the first 12 numbers of the card, and the second should contain the final numbers, expiration date, and the zip or postal code of your billing address (this foils computer programs that scan random internet transmissions for recognizable credit card numbers).
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