Jennie

I have what I think is kind of a confusing question that I can't seem to find the answer to, no matter how hard I look!<BR><BR>I am planning to go to Europe next year with my family and some friends. Our plan is to fly in to London and go to Paris to Venice to Florence to Rome, and then fly home from Rome. We'll be gone 3.5 weeks. <BR><BR>In researching whether or not we should get a saverpass, I discovered that if we do get a pass, we would be eligible for a discount on the Eurostar from London to Paris. However, all the information I have seen says that, in order to get the discount, you must present a *validated* pass. Now, my understanding is that your pass can't be validated until the first time you use it and, since the trip on the Eurostar will be the first time we'll be traveling by train, we will not have yet had a chance to validate pass at the point we'd need to get the Eurostar ticket. Does that make sense? Basically I'm confused as to whether or not we can actually get the Eurostar discount with the saverpass if the trip on the Eurostar is the first time we're traveling by train. <BR><BR>It's important because, without the discount on the Eurostar, it's pretty much a wash between buying the pass and just buying individual train tickets.<BR><BR>If this makes any sense at all, I'd appreciate any advice you could give me. If it doesn't make sense, sorry. It's kind of a convoluted question, I know. <BR><BR>Many thanks in advance,<BR>Jennie<BR><BR>

greg

I have done something similar. The Raileurope says passholder, but what is a passholder? In may case I got discounted Eurostar ticket when I bought the Britrail.<BR><BR>Now the strange thing is the passholder discount is only good &quot;on Eurostar routes within the countries covered by the pass.&quot; But Britrail does not cover France, but Britrail is definitely on the list of the pass...<BR><BR>Regarding &quot;presenting&quot;; from the time I checked in at Waterloo and exiting Gare du Nord, I absolutely did not have to show my Britrail pass. So I am still puzzled.

Ira

Hi guys<BR> &quot;in order to get the discount, you must present a *validated* pass&quot;.<BR> When you get to London stop at the train station first chance you get and have your pass validated. This saves waiting in line on the day you want to take the train. Your pass is good from the day you have it validated. <BR><BR> &quot;Raileurope says passholder, but what is a passholder?&quot;<BR><BR> The passholder is the person whose name is on the pass. If you don't validate it you will be subject to a lot of hassle and, perhaps, a fine.<BR><BR> It is true that Britrail doesn't cover France, but the Chunnel train starts (or ends) in Britain.

Greg

Jennie,<BR><BR>Ira explained it pretty well. We did this same thing last year. We wanted to take the Chunnel train, but our pass was not validated at that time. If we would have &quot;validated&quot; our pass at that time, which we could have done even in the UK, that would have started our pass(We had a 15 day consecutive pass for two). Since we didn't want to do that, we just bought a ticket and got to Paris in 3 hours. <BR><BR>We have also taken the ferry across. It is about 1/3 the cost and twice the time (or more) to get to Paris. <BR><BR>Just remember &quot;passholder&quot; means &quot;validated passholder&quot;, have a good trip.<BR><BR>Greg<BR>

Patrick

Last summer four of us bought Benalux passes plus four reserved first class seats on Eurostar from Brussels to London. We bought them all at the same time from RailEurope so we got the passholder rate on the Eurostar at that time. If you know your dates, you can buy the Eurostar tickets along with your passes and don't need to worry about the passes already being validated.<BR>Normally I would not recommend doing advance tickets through RailEurope, but this is a different situation with a competitive rate. (But yes, I do realize with study and planning you could possibly get an even better rate on Eurostar.)

Jennie

Many, many thanks to everyone who responded. The information is very helpful and I appreciate you taking the time to write in. I'm thinking about doing as Patrick suggests and just buying everything I need through raileurope.com at the same time. This might not be the most inexpensive way to do it, but I think the peace of mind of having it done and out of the way beforehand would probably be worth the extra $$ I could save.<BR><BR>Thanks again,<BR>Jennie

greg

Patrick,<BR>You mentioned &quot;don't need to worry about the passes already being validated.&quot; As I wrote previously above that in practice, that was what happened, I had a Britrail pass with me but no one at Eurostar even asked if I had a Britrail pass, valid or not.<BR><BR>In practice, it appears that you get passholder rate two ways. 1. Either buy the pass and Eurostar at the same time from RailEurope or 2. Buy a pass then at later time, shows the validated pass to buy the Eurostar ticket. I do not find that if method 1 is used, valid pass need not be produced to ride the Eurostar? It appears that discount is ticket purchase point issue and once the Eurostar ticket is purchased, no one cares how you got them?<BR><BR>Point of interest, did you have to show your Beneluxpass to anyone when you rode Eurostar?

Patrick

As a matter of fact, yes we did have to show our Benelux passes when we checked in at Brussels for the Eurostar. In fact we had a few harried moments as two in our party thought they had already thrown out their Benelux passes since we were then finished with them. At the last minute one found the two passes in the bottom of her carryon. We had forgotten about the deal for the Eurostar. So yes, it must be accompanied by the pass. I can't swear that they will always ask to see the pass, but they sure did in our case.

Ira

Hey Jennie<BR>&quot;....I think the peace of mind of having it done and out of the way beforehand would probably be worth the extra $$ I could save&quot;.<BR><BR> Absolutely.<BR>

Tim

<BR>Jennie,<BR><BR>Ira's right...get it over with. Doing it all at the same time is less confusing for everybody.<BR><BR>Another reason to get at it sooner: Like an airplane, passholder-discounted seats are allocated -- the longer you wait, the better the chance is you'll get shut out of a train as a &quot;passholder,&quot; while the higher-priced seats are still available (in either class).<BR><BR>One good thing: the Passholder discount is worth $70-100 on EuroStar, yet you don't lose a day on your Pass.