BRU diabolo fee
 

So I assume most of you would know that travel from/to BRU airport requires the diabolo fee on certain fares. I just paid for my fee online and was issued a ticket in PDF with a barcode. Do I show this to attendant on the train? Or at the counter in exchange for a physical ticket? I just don't want to be kicked off the train or have to pay for the fee again as i won't have any cash on me at the time of travelling, hence why I need all this paid in advance.

Any experience/advices available on this matter would be much appreciated!

Just show this to the attendant on the train, this pdf is the surcharge ticket. Make sure you print it out though, they don't accept digital versions. Oh, and the fee applies to all tickets to/from BRU, not just some.
Also, I'll warn you now,the trains doing the airport runs between Brussels and the airport are old rustbuckets.
Edit: I assume you know you need the surcharge in combination with a regular ticket, right? Just the surcharge is not enough.
Edit 2: when are you arriving? I've heard rumours of a trainstrike starting thursday and ending on saturday (we just had one last wednesday)

Another strike? I knew about the wednesday strike. A friend has sent me his gopass 10 in the mail so ill use that in combination with the diabolo ticket. I have already printed it out. I have been on these trains before when i came vack in may and since that was first time riding trains in europe i had nothing worse or better to compare to. Unless they got worse than when i was there i think ill survive. I will be arriving the 30th of this month. If you know of another strike please keep me posted. I will be monitoring too.

Ah, I had no idea you've been to Belgium before, that's why I figured it'd warn you about it.
Also, I'll keep you up to date about strikes if/when they occur.

Yep. Thanks! I will be heading to Liege. If you wanna meet up at BRU on my return leg let me know. Also, do you think i can bring back beers as checked luggage? Will that cause any concerns with security? And how easy is it to withdraw money from the atm at the airport? Last time i arrived i had someone meet me there but this time i will be travelling solo. I'll take the train to leuven then transfer to liege-guillemins. Im pretty nervous about it since i don't speak french or dutch save a few words. I already looked up time tables and such but still trying to make back up plans in case something goes wrong. Any advice would ve appreciated?

I'm on the train to BRU right now, so I'll check up on the atm thing for you. Also, as far as I know bringing back beers as checked luggage is fine, just make sure they are properly wrapped in something like a towel to minimise the chance of the bottles breaking.
Generally speaking though, taking the train is fairly easy and if you're in doubt just ask someone (staff or not) for help in English, they will gladly do so.

Thanks!

Okay, so I checked the atm out, I'm not sure it will take American debit cards (or atleast non-EU), but it will take Visa, Mastercard, etc so I'm guessing that's ok?

My debit cards are either Visa or Mastercard. I do have a credit card with a chip in it that I can try to do a cash advance in case my debit doesn't work. Isn't it a Belfius ATM that's available at BRU?

I'm used to it being Dexia, but yes it's Belfius indeed.

http://www.brusselsairport.be/en/pas...sfer_exchange/
this bit of the BRU website also lists where the ATMs are in the airport.

And by debit card I referred to regular bank cards, since well, over here, Visa and Mastercard are credit cards.

Last time I stayed there the only ATM i was able to use my bankcard in was the BNP Paribas. It accepted the card but since my pin was longer than 4 digit it rejected it. I was hoping I'd have an easier time finding a usable ATM this trip. The friend I'm staying with uses Dexia/Belfius too, I'll try it and see what happens.

I don't think there's any atm here in Belgium which accepts a pin longer than 4 digits. This being because a 4-digit pin is the standard across Europe as far as I know.

Yeah I found that out the hard way :P I just contacted ING and asked if I could open a non-resident account. They said it would cost about 100 Euros per year to maintain. I might have to consider this offer if I plan on being back there often :)

That's quite steep. Then again if you're in Belgium quite often, it may be worth it.

Do you think I can get some sort of prepaid debit card like proton there without a higher fee?