Can anyone explain the Eurostar website for me? When I enter www.eurostar.com, I sometimes get fares in British pounds and sometimes in US dollars. I enter the same information each time so can't determine why. The fare in dollars was much better last time it showed up and now that I want to book it, all I'm getting is the fare in pounds. Thanks.

The site stores your nationality/currency in a cookie. If your browser is set to not accept cookies, you can tell it you're from a different country each time and it will believe you.

Close your browser, restart it, and tell it you're a yank.

The first time you go to the web site, it asks you where you are located. If you say the USA, it re directs you to rail Europe which is the agent in the USA. Everytime you go to the web site thereafter, if you have cookies enabled, you will automatically go to rail Europe.

For the most part, I have found better fares on the UK web site so I entered located in the UK...but sometimes the rail Europe fares can be better so after getting a quote on the UK web site, I separately check out the same booking on the rail Europe web site by going there directly.

The best fare I have found for the last little bit is a £59 return fare..which is something like $103 at current exchange rates. They post the tickets to the USA for free if you are far enough out in advance. I believe, as I remember, they also allow you to have the tickets booked in US dollars but the rate isn't as good as having the credit card company do the conversion (which is the way dynamic currency conversion is supposed to work)...rail Europe tacks on a charge to ship the tickets to you via Fed ex and a sneaky other charge for reserving a seat but they do run specials from time to time and I get some good fares from them on Thalys trains from Amsterdam to Paris better than Thalus' own web site or the Dutch or French national railroads.

So it does pay to be a bit flexible and not lose the ability (you can get rid of that cookie as explain in some other thread) and check out both the UK and US web sites.

When I booked tickets on eurostar.com last month, I booked tickets directly from Eurostar in US dollars. It never redirected me to raileurope. Now, it's only showing me fares in pounds for some reason.

I cleared my cookies and re-selected my country. Now it's in dollars again. Still no automatic redirect to raileurope, so I'm not sure how you got that.

There's obviously something wrong with their website (it thinks I selected that I'm from the UK when I actually selected that I was from the US.)

Do what I did -- clear your browser cookies -- and it should go back to normal.

Just set your browser to block eurostar.com cookies. When you do, the site will always ask you for your nationality when you call up the default page.

I don't know...I'm not questioning what you said certainly but I just went in there, said I was from the UK, and got the fares in £. Just out of curiosity, did you ever say in response to a question you were from the US or ask to have fares quoted in USD because it sounds to me like there is some sort of cookie (I know you said you took them out) directing the currency to be quoted in USD (question - are you in the Eurostar web site as before I learned the importance of not saying I am from the US a year or two ago, my browser was always directed to rail europe and I had to get rid of that cookie..maybe times have changed. It does seem strange however (again not questioning what you're saying).

Hi,

Maybe they directed people to raileurope before and only recently started allowing Americans to book tickets directly through Eurostar.

When you visit eurostar.com and it can't find a eurostar.com cookie on your computer, it brings up a menu asking you which country you're from and which language you speak. I selected that I was from the USA in this menu. It then quoted me prices in dollars.

If you book tickets like this, you'll have to bring the credit card you used to book them to the station and pick them up there. My sister did this once and said the lines to pick the tickets up and check in were quite long, so arriving early is a must!

Hope this helps