Eurostar: Non-use of outbound ticket - considered as two oneways!
 

I have a non-changeable return ticket for leisure travel next weekend. I have now been asked to travel out for a business meeting the day before. Do Eurostar follow airline practice and cancel return journeys if the outbound is not used? I need to know whether to just buy a new single for the outbound or whether I need a whole new ticket. Anyone know? There is nothing obvious in the Conditions of Carriage on their website, but given the snow disruption to Eurostar trains this morning, I don't fancy trying to call E* to check...

Can now confirm per Eurostar that they treat a return as two singles and so the return is not cancelled in the event that the outbound is not used.

Exellent Info to know about
Moderator, please move this information to a "general" knowledge type post

Morland - not that I doubt your experience on this ... but just wondering where confirmation on this can be found ?

I don't think there is any "official" confirmation but it is true. I have myself bought and sold second-hand non-refundable return tickets where only the return portion of the ticket will be used.

This subject has already been raised before and answered.

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/europ...rn-ticket.html

I've never used Eurostar, but have used TGV (reservations only) and other similar European rail services; for these, the conductor punches the ticket but does not scan it--how are ES tickets handled? If they do not scan them, then there would be NO way for them to know that your didn't ride on a particular trip.

ES tickets are scanned (barcode or magnetic strip depending on whether it's an e-ticket or card) at gates as you enter the terminal. If the gates fail or computer says no, there are booths to do this manually.

Not that they really care about the details of it - there's a healthy trade in resold unwanted ticket segments, regardless of name or sex!

I could not find any official confirmation on the website - my partner called ES and was told this (and had it supported by our journey). Conversely, there is nothing in the T&Cs which state that journeys have to be taken or have to be taken in order.

[QUOTE
Not that they really care about the details of it - there's a healthy trade in resold unwanted ticket segments, regardless of name or sex![/QUOTE]

any idea of a website where we can check for these kinda tickets willing to be sold by pther folks..culd be quite a deal so was interested to find out..
:rolleyes:

Aha.. this is only in french.. any english link for this available ?? is this site for tickets being sold by ppl who have not used some legs or for whom its useless now.. ??

It's a French site, so only available in French. While Eurostar is included, the primary use is for resale of SNCF "Prem's" tickets. And yes, it's for people who have bought inflexible tickets, but cannot use one or many legs.

There isn't a UK site - UK rail tickets are non-transferable (although they don't have your name on, so how people know, I've no idea), and the rail companies are quite hot in pursuing sites that allow them to be traded. There used to be a huge informal trade in universities, but I've no idea if that still goes on.

You could always run trocdestrain through http://translate.google.com/ but, of course, not everybody advertising there will speak English.