Connecting with Eurostar

It's not particularly well known, but Eurostar has negotiated with rail companies throughout the UK so that you can buy a train ticket to get you to London to connect seamlessly with your Eurostar departure.

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There are two kinds of tickets:

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1. Through-fare ticket: when you initially buy your Eurostar ticket from Eurostar, you can also purchase your train ticket to London as a 'through-fare' ticket, which combines the price of the UK journey and the Eurostar ticket to Paris, Lille, Brussels (or in fact anywhere in Belgium). For instance, you could buy a train ticket from Manchester to Paris or Newcastle to Brussels. These tickets are available as long as you book less than 3 months before travel. If you need to change station in London to get to St Pancras, your National Rail tickets will be valid for transfers on the London Underground, plus all changes between trains are synchronised so that there are minimal transfer times.

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2. Add-on ticket: this is useful if you've already purchased a Eurostar ticket but haven't yet bought your train ticket to London as part of the through-fare ticket scheme (above) OR if you want to book your UK train ticket more than 3 months in advance before travel (not available for the through-fare ticket). You can purchase the initial leg of the journey to London at your local

train station (there are about 100 stations in the UK where you can do this).

Just take your Eurostar ticket with you to the station and ask to buy

the 'add-on' ticket to take the train to London to catch that Eurostar.

The reason why it is worth buying this Eurostar 'Add-on' ticket is that they'll give you what's known as a ticket to 'London CIV', which means that should your train to London be delayed and you miss the Eurostar connection, you can jump on the next available Eurostar. In practice, Eurostar will probably put you on the next available Eurostar anyway, but with this 'Add-on' ticket it is guaranteed.