Hi,
My wife and I plan to visit Germany, Belgium and The Netherlands in Apr-May. We already made a reservation for Thalys (Cologne-Brussels) with quite a good deal, but are a bit amazed at ticket price from Brussels-Amsterdam. We plan to take train on May 1 and when I looked at any website (www.b-europe.com, www.tgv-europe.com), it turned out that the cheapest ticket price for 2 from Brussels-Amsterdam is EUR90 by Thalys (non-flex) and EUR80.80 by IC (full-flex). That's more than double our cost for Cologne-Brussels.
I tried to change departure city from Brussels to Paris instead, and it came out that the cheapest ticket (Paris-Amsterdam) is EUR70 (non-flex) by Thalys (8.25AM train)! How come? Since Paris-Amsterdam is 3.20 hrs. trip, while Brussels-Amsterdam is less than 2 hrs. trip.
Normally, is there any promotion ticket available for Brussels-Amsterdam route as usually occur in Germany or France cities in DB or SNCB website? Or there've never been promotion ticket for this route
Thank you all much in advance.

Have you looked at the official Thalys website?
http://www.thalys.com

Yes, and the result is the same EUR90

It's May Day. What day of the week is it? As with other forms of transport you might be familiar with, it's the good old law of supply and demand. Perhaps there is quite a big of demand on that day and so there are fewer discount tickets available; also as you may or may not be familiar with airline tickets say in the USA, it's often cheaper to buy a ticket from New York to Los Angeles with a stop over in St. Louis and pay less for the ticket than you might with a simple New York-St. Louis ticket (of course then if you understand the system yu might try the supposed illegal hidden city trick but I wouldn't want to teach you anything illegal) but you're getting on in the middle so the hidden city trick would not apply.

You will probably find the cheapest tickets on thalys.com. Now that I've passed the magic age of 60, I do well with senior tickets sometimes; other ties say like this past summer by booking in advance for a Sunday around noon I got a Rotterdam-Paris coming off a cruise for €39 at noon on a Sunday!

You're still a ways out. Again if you understand the dynamic pricing that transport ocmpanies use now, perhaps if they are not moving seats for that day as quickly as their omputrs suggest based on previous years, they might make more discount tickets available. But you never know.

You will not get cheaper than buying direct.
The route from AMS to BUR. is far more popoular than the route from Germany.
A little tip.
Take the normal Intercity train and it will cost less. Almost the same travelling time.
http://www.ns.nl/en/travellers/home

Mayday has nothing to do with it. The Dutch don't celebrate Mayday, though the Belgians do. We have April 30th off for Queen's Day.
€45 pp seems to be right for Thalys around that date. It is a very popular route and the small number of cheap tickets sell out fast, however it might be worth checking back later in the month, or even in March to see what they have on offer then.

The Dutch company http://www.nshispeed.nl are usually a safe bet for finding discount fares on trains to and within the Netherlands. They offer a €25 offer from Amsterdam to Brussels, but not, it seems, the other direction.

I reckon the Brussels-Cologne ticket you got was a Europa-Spezial offered on the ICE train. There isn't as far as I'm aware an equivalent special offer on your route. If anyone knows of one I'd love to hear about it.

Thanks a lot, all. Seems like we'd better try Eurolines for this route Its promotion ticket is only EUR9.

But Eurolines is a bus, and really not brilliant. Plus it takes you not to the centre of Amsterdam but to the RAI which is a bit out of Amsterdam, and you will still need to get into the centre. Not easy if you don't have a chipcard for public transport. A taxi will cost quite a lot, and it is a long walk with luggage.

<i>hetismij2 on Feb 4, 12 at 7:52am
But Eurolines is a bus, and really not brilliant.</i>

You can underscore that statement. I rode Eurolines in the Baltic countries where train service was basically zero. Eurolines has big buses but the seats are cramped.

If you can change your itinerary be in Amsterdam on April 29. As hetismij2 says May Day is not a holiday in Holland. It is hangover day because April 30 is the BIG day in the Netherlands. See http://tinyurl.com/yln3hrp. Best party in Europe. I expect to be there again this year.