Are their prices the same as if I booked the ticket in person in Europe? Is there any advantage to booking now online? Is it OK to just buy the ticket at each station upon arrival? I need three tickets:
Brussels to Bruge
Bruge to Amsterdam
Amsterdam to Paris

Rail Europe is SNCF's US agent; I guess you are from the US. Therefore, practically all of us here agree that RE has a high markup. It'll be cheaper to buy tickets in Europe. Or you can check www.sncf.com. They don't deliver to US addresses. Either you can print your tickets online (discounted, non-refundable tickets)or you can pay online (enter France as your country) and pick up your tickets at any SNCF station/boutique.

generally, no, the prices are not the same. It's not the actual railroad but a travel agent, so to speak. You'd have to compare prices to see how much higher. I think they are usually around 10-25 pct higher on the ticket price itself, but some may vary.

The advantage is to save time buying tickets at the station in Europe, and to get a reserved seat on some trains that could be full. That would depend on the time and day, probably. In your schedule, I would think the local trains would be no problem getting a ticket on site, they usually aren't. The one that could be full is Amsterdam to Paris, I'd speculate. I don't know that train route, though, and the likelihood of that.

I do have a general predisposition against paying Raileurope's markup (and not even that so much, but the added service or delivery fees). However, a couple times I have bought on the national railroad's site to save money, and then you have to pick up the tickets at the station, of course. IN two cases, that took up so much time (I like to have it ahead of the trip to be sure, so also spent time out of my regular vacation days going to the station) that I wished I had just paid the markup as it wasn't worth the couple of hours I spent on that to save about US$25.

I wouldn't ever use Raileurope for small, local runs, though.

A couple of years ago I reserved seats and made arrangements through Deutsche Bahn
http://www.bahn.de/-S:-ptVOZ9:[email protected]_guests.shtml
which worked out very well. They mailed the tickets to me and it was cheaper than using Rail Europe.As the previous writer indicated you can also use SNCF but the difference I had was that I was able to get the tickets mailed in advance.
I was even able to get a refund when we didn't use one of the tickets.
Bon Voyage!

Christo, did you book tickets for the same journeys as vivi's? I like Swiss Rail, but they won't book tickets unless Switzerland is involved.

I booked through RailEurope, for overnight private sleeper for two, Paris to Rome. Why?Had frustrating probs trying to book on the SNCF site, which never worked properly. For small amout of extr $ (I compared their price to SNCF's, it was well worth the time saved , and the possible loss of the kind of car we wanted, when we wanted it.

I think you can get everything you need IN Europe, 2-48 hours before you plan to trael.

I have been fairly vocal, for some time, here on this forum about the "bad deal"/high markup of RailEurope....

<i><b>however</b></i>... see http://www.fodors.com/forums/threads...p;tid=34620735

The markup might be less now than it used to be, and you have some other options. Search &quot;euraide&quot; here also - - has been recommended by the venerable Mr. Ben Haines.

Best wishes,

Rex

For those particular itineraries I would not use RailEurope or any other agency. Travel agency or not, RailEurope is wholly owned by a European railroad consortium, mainly SNCF and the Swiss National Railroads.

By buying in Europe after you get there you will avoid any shipping and handling fees as well as highly marked-up seat reservation charges.

Technically, you should be able to buy all of these tickets at the same time at the railroad station in Brussels.

Hi vivi,

For Brussels/Bruge and Bruge/Amsterdam, I suggest that you buy your tickets at the Brussels train station on arrival or from a local TA.

Trains leave for Brugge every 1/2 hr.

Trains leave for Amsterdam every hour.

For Amsterdam/Paris you can buy your tickets online from www.sncf.com as early as 60 days in advance.

I used them last year when I was buying a 3 country rail pass for the 5 of us and our Channel Tunnel tickets. I did buy my venice-florence, florence-rome tickets while I was in Europe though. I found RE to be helpful (on the phone) when I had many questions about my pass. Next time, I will probably not use them, now that I have a better understanding of how things work.