ParisDoc

My daughter and I will be in London in early August and will then travel to Paris and then return out of Paris. I am trying to decide the best way to go. When I looked up Eurostar fares they shocked me...even looking at round trip fares(which I learned about on this website). One way was 239BP each and round trip was 139BP each! This is a longer way to go but we arrive in the heart of Paris at Gare du Nord, which I am familiar with. Airfare from London to Paris was $63 each arriving at CDG. Of course this is much faster travel in the air but I am thinking about all the time spent in transit to and from the airports and all the additional time gettin to and from the gates. So, I am hoping there is a less expensive Eurostar ticket that I can find. I am willing to pay a little more to avoid all the airport hassles but I have a hard time justifying over $500 for the 'chunnel' when airfare would be $126. I would appreciate any ideas or recommendations. Merci beaucoup!

m_kingdom2

I'd always fly, in fact I always do. I check-in online, arrive half an hour before my flight, so my entire journey takes under three hours - quicker and far more elegant than some train.

KE1TH

I just plugged in sample dates on the eurostar website and found standard class fares of 29.50bp each way (59bp rt) for Thurs 5 Aug return Mon 9 Aug. Fares for a day trip (return same day) were the same 29.50bp each way. Calculating the transit time to/from airports, the wait at the airport and the flight itself, I believe that the train would be MUCH faster. Plus you depart/arrive within the cities themselves.

I did a day trip from London this past May and used the Eurostar Chunnel and would recommend it to anyone. Plus it's kinda neat knowing you're travelling beneath the English Channel.

Keith

Target1

The trick is to buy a round trip. www.Eurostar.com site is showing a midweek fare of $90 for the round trip. Just make sure your return is at least 1 week later. Once bought, throw away the return ticket.

sempronia

Eurostar, no if's and's or but't about it. I live in Brussels and go quite a bit to London.

- you do not have to show up 2 hrs in advance on front end

- waste time collecting luggage on back end

- center-town to center-town and no need for extra travel out to CHD and/or Heathrow/Gatwick. Also no extra taxi/subway expense

- about the same trip duration

- also can smoke onboard (or used to be able to, now they are changing this), if you do smoke

- tickets are usually cheaper...I am surprised yours came out as much as it did; it usually comes out about 200- 300 euro BXL-LONDON, and, yes, it is cheaper if you reserve a roundtrip in advance. Have you thought about spending a day in Brussels? Arrive from London early morning and leave to Paris at night. It is about 3 hour ride (+- 1 hour, because of time change) and BXL-Paris is about an hour..So 4 hours of travel in all and it may be cheaper than the London-Paris line. Also, traveling on weekend is cheaper than traveling on a weekday (former catering to individuals and later to businesses)

Thalys, for example, has a weekender deal whereby going economy and returning first class BXL-PARIS is actually cheaper than 2 economy tickets roundtrip. You will not know until you ask....Also, if you go to Thalys website on Tuesday, they have a sale and reserving an advance purchase ticket costs anywhere from 40-60% less..

I am surprised with the 126 fare, but know that BMI has some really good deals. If it is cheaper, in the end, then go by airplane.....

Madison

Eurostar no longer has smoking cars. It's all smoke free.

WillTravel

This is how it worked for us.

Total one-way airfare, including all taxes and fees, for two people (mother and 17-year-old son) on BMI is 60.6 GBP (July 11).

No matter what I did, I couldn't get the trainfare to be less than 118 GBP for two. I looked at the option of a return trip and throwing half away and I tried different dates.

When we get to CDG, we will catch the Air France bus from the terminal and go straight to our hotel. If we were going by Eurostar, we'd have to take a taxi or metro. The Air France bus is more expensive than those options, but we are still saving about 50 pounds by flying rather than taking the train.

In addition, the night before we are staying at a hotel near Heathrow, and saved money as compared to a central London hotel.