kdoughboy

My girlfriend and I are taking a trip to Europe in June and will be making 5 train trips as we travel from Paris to Amsterdam. The trips are as follows:

1. Paris to Amiens on a Monday
2. Amiens to Lille on a Tuesday
3. Lille to Brussels on a Wednesday
4. Brussels to Antwerp on a Friday
5. Antwerp to Amsterdam on a Sunday

I have done some research into timetables, product (ie regional vs. high-speed), and fares, and have come up with the following:

Trip 1: Paris (Nord) to Amiens is an Intercités train that does NOT require a reservation. We can simply show up to the station, purchase our ticket, and get on board. NOTE: tgv-europe.com shows a TER train available for purchase right now for approximately double what comparable Intercités trains are showing in May. Currently I am planning to wait until the Intercités timetable opens up for June, and expect it to be comparable to the May fares I am seeing.

Trip 2: Amiens to Lille (Flandres) is a TER train, again without a requirement to reserve in advance. It appears I may be able to purchase in advance, however. Should I bother with the advance purchase, or just buy the ticket the morning of? If I don't buy in advance, is there a possibility the fare could increase?

Trip 3: Lille (Europe) to Brussels (Midi) is a TGV high-speed train that will require advance purchase AND reservation. I should buy this ticket as soon as possible--90 days in advance? Currently, tgv-europe.com will allow me to purchase a Eurostar ticket for this route, but the 90€ fare is more than the 58€ fare I am finding for comparable TGV trains in May.

Trip 4: Brussels (Nord) to Antwerp (Centraal) is an InterCity train that does NOT require a reservation nor advance purchase. Show up morning of, buy ticket, and board.

Trip 5: Antwerp (Centraal) to Amsterdam (Centraal) is a high-speed Thalys train requiring advance purchase and reservation. Buy this as soon as possible--again, 90 days in advance?

I would VERY much appreciate if it anyone could confirm or refute anything I have mentioned above. I'd like to have all my ducks in a row so that, when the 90 day advance-purchase window rolls around, I am ready to buy whatever tickets I'll need to buy. I'd also appreciate any advance regarding whether or not to buy in advance for trips that don't require a reservation (i.e. Paris to Amiens), especially if it will save me money.

Thanks very much for your help!

stut

You can pre-book a non-refundable "Prem's" fare for €10, but these only a couple of months out. The €21.60 is what you'll pay for a walk-up fare, regardless of the train.

No, that's just a walk-up fare. You can save a few € by taking a bus to the middle-of-nowhere TGV stop ("the beetroot station"), but it's really, really not worth it. There are some weekend excursion fares, but they're pretty hard to locate.

Correct. You should be able to get fares around €29 at the right time. However, it's not the only mode of travel - you could equally travel on the Intercity trains via Tournai (€5.50 + €14.50, one change, 1h45) or take a stopover in rather lovely Ghent (1h06, €16.60 + 0h36, €8.70). All these latter fares are walk-up.

Correct. Most rail travel in Belgium is walk-up and cheap.

Well, that depends. There is supposed to be a second high-speed service (the Fyra) operating on this route, to replace the long-standing and popular InterCity service from Brussels to Amsterdam. However, there have been all sorts of problems getting it running.

When the Fyra starts running, it will be compulsory reservations anway, with cheaper advance fares. At the moment, however, you can get a €26 walk-up IC routing via Rotterdam easily enough, but this will take 2h vs Thalys' 1h11.

kdoughboy

Thanks for the reply, stut. Based on your reply, I'll do the following:

1. Paris to Amiens: buy Intercités ticket at station on day of travel
2. Amiens to Lille: buy TER ticket at station on day of travel
3. Lille to Brussels: buy/reserve TGV ticket 90 days in advance
4. Brussels to Antwerp: buy InterCity ticket at station on day of travel
5. Antwerp to Amsterdam: buy/reserve Thalys ticket 90 days in advance

Unless, of course, somebody has some objection or suggestion of a way to make this even easier than it already is.

stut

Sounds good!

For Paris to Amiens, you could book the Intercités ticket in advance and save some money, if you're willing to commit to a particular train.

For Lille to Brussels, you could book the Eurostar earlier than 90 days out - the TGV is arguably easier.

Do be aware that there are two stations in Lille - Lille Flandres, the original station, where the train from Amiens will arrive, and Lille Europe, where Eurostar and through TGV services call. The latter is slightly further from the city centre, but walkable (and has its own metro stop).

kdoughboy

Perhaps I will do this--we are on a budget so every little bit helps, and I don't mind committing to a particular train, since we have to be out of the hotel by a certain time anyway.

Eurostar is currently bookable for this trip, but it's only available in 1st class for €90. I'll wait until the TGV schedule loads so I can save a few euros.

Any suggestions on which websites to book the trips through? I assume tgv-europe.com for the Paris-Amiens and Lille-Brussels trips (selecting "Canada" as my country)? I should then be able to print the Paris-Amiens tickets here at home, and pick-up the Lille-Brussels tickets at the station on the day of travel, correct?

How about for the Thalys ticket from Antwerp to Amsterdam? Belgianrail.be and thalys.com are both pretty user unfriendly, so are there any alternatives? Also, I think it's thalys.com that doesn't let me select Amsterdam as a destination when selecting Antwerp as city of departure... am I doing something wrong here?

stut

I generally go for the rule of thumb of going to source with trin bookings, and use voyages-sncf.com for France, sncb.be for Belgium and thalys.com for the Thalys. But then I do speak French. Oh, and for the SNCF site, you can select France as the ticket delivery country - it stops you getting redirected.

One other option for the last leg is to use nshispeed.nl, which will give you all options between Antwerp and Amsterdam.

kdoughboy

Stut, again, thank you for your help! ^

voyages-sncf.com redirects to tgv-europe.com when I selected and english-language site. I could always use the translate feature in chrome to buy on voyages-sncf.com, but tgv-europe.com seems to show the same prices. And I will select France as the ticket collection country, since that is where I will indeed collect the tickets.

Just out of curiosity, which of these trips will have the nicest scenery to watch out the window?

stut

In that case, tgv-Europe should be fine. You may get the option of print-at-home tickets for the fixed-train tickets, which could be worth doing - cards without chip & PIN are often not accepted at ticket machines, and the counters can have quite a queue.

For card tickets in France, don't forget to stamp ("composter") your tickets before boarding, or they will not be valid.

I have to say, none of the journeys are especially scenic. None are unpleasant, but it's a fairly flat, agricultural landscape most of the way.

Paris to Amiens is a slightly odd journey. You'll be in 1970s/80s carriages, on the old mainline. Don't be put off by your arrival into Longueau and Amiens - the brown concrete of the station and station square is not representative of the rest of the city!

Picardy is famous for vast fields of root vegetables, and that's what the scenery will be for much of that journey and the Amiens-Lille one. The trains on Amiens-Lille are new, very comfortable double-deckers, and you can see some of the WW1 heritage from upstairs, not least the famous "golden virgin".

The area around Lille is quite industrial. However, as you head into the Netherlands, you start to see the characteristic canals and drained land, making for quite a charming landscape.

kdoughboy

I will definitely print at home whenever possible, but my understanding is that print-at-home is not an option for international tickets, so I'll probably have to pick those up once I'm there. For the Lille-Brussels trip, I'll probably just pop into one of the SNCF stores in Paris, rather than dealing with the queue in the Lille Europe station. For the Thalys trip Antwerp-Amsterdam, I'll make sure I get there early enough to deal with a queue if necessary. As far as picking up the tickets from a machine, I have a Chip+Signature card that will hopefully work.

Another question: I'm a little confused by the "All Belgian Stations" option that Thalys has. Is there any way to incorporate a day trip to Bruges from either Brussels or Antwerp into my Thalys ticket from Antwerp to Amsterdam using the "ABS" option?

stut

Sounds like a good plan. However, Lille Europe is a pretty quiet station (as most of the journeys from there are by TGV and Eurostar, and hence bought in advance).

You could wangle a trip to Bruges on an ABS ticket, but it's barely worth it. Intra-Belgian travel is ridiculously cheap.

Koby

All my TGV tickets are international (Spain <> France and Belgium <> France), and I have been printing them at home for a while already - up to about a month ago. I have always used the tgv-europe sites (or sncf.fr) for this.

Since a few weeks my tickets are automatically linked to my SNCF Voyageur card, so I haven't had to print any tickets lately. But I assume it still works.

I have also done home printing for Thalys tickets (Brussel - Paris, but it should be the same to Amsterdam).

kdoughboy

Wow, that would be great if I could print them all at home, but I just tried to do a dummy booking for Lille-Brussels and the only options were pick-up or mail. This was using voyages.sncf.com with Chrome translating French to English for me, so it's basically what a French person would see. Any idea how I can get it to allow me to print at home?

stut

IIRC, the restriction isn't whether it's international, it's whether or not the fare is flexible. With a flexible fare, the idea is that you can change it up until the last minute - either by stamping the ticket or entering it into a machine to reissue - neither of which are things you can do with a print-at-home ticket.

The TGV fare from Lille to Brussels seems to be all flexible.

KQ321

That logic would make sense - but I'm not sure it's correct. I've had both a fully flexible TGV Lyria ticket, and a fully flexible Thalys ticket in the past couple of years, that were issued as online self-print tickets (both for international journeys). Admittedly, for SNCF the cancellation conditions seem to be slightly different for 'fully flexible' online tickets (I think maximum 1 hour after departure, while other forms of issuing the ticket give a longer post-departure cancellation period) but they're still flexible before departure.

And I realise it's a different system, but of course DB can manage to issue fully flexible online self-print tickets.

What type of credit card are you trying to use? I can't remember the details, but I am fairly sure that www.voyages-sncf.com offers different (ie: more restrictive) ticketing options for Amex, as opposed to Visa/Mastercard.

kdoughboy

I didn't even get to the purchase stage. Before it asked for any payment info, it wanted me to choose among machine pick-up, station/store pick-up, or mail. There was no self-print option, which would be nice to have but is by no means a big deal.