Eurostar's Discounted Ticket Service

Eurostar Snap is an official ticket booking platform launched by Eurostar, which offers flexible travellers exclusive opportunities to make significant savings, when travelling direct between Paris / London and other popular destinations.

The core idea is that Eurostar won't offer you a specific departure when booking, instead it will offer a time slot
The price will be assigned to a time slot and not a specific departure, so the price is what you will pay regardless of what train you ultimately end up travelling by.

So the steps to take are;

1. Select your departure and arrival locations; When you enter a departure station, you will see the choice of locations you can travel to with Eurostar Snap.
2. Choose a travel day; Bookings open from 14 days ahead.
3. Choose a departure time slot; from London the two slots are before 13:00/1pm and after 13:00; from Brussels, Lille and Paris the two slots are before 14:00/2pm and after 14:00, but from Amsterdam, Rotterdam and Cologne the slots in effect cover the day's departures.

Book more than 48 hours ahead and you will receive confirmation of which train you will be traveling by at least 48 hours before travel.
Though you can book up until midnight on the day before your travel date.

Though SMTJ's advice is to take a look at the main Eurostar booking service prior to booking Eurostar Snap, so that you can get an idea of the price comparison and decide if the more restrictive Snap tickets will be worth the saving.
You can also see the departure and arrival details of the trains which will be available in each time slot.

Eurostar Snap tickets are available on these routes:

• London to Amsterdam, Brussels, Lille, Paris and Rotterdam
• Paris to Amsterdam, Brussels, Cologne, London and Rotterdam
• Amsterdam to Paris and London
• Brussels to Paris and London
• Cologne to Paris and London
• Lille to London
• Rotterdam to Paris and London.

Note that journeys to and from Aachen, Antwerp, Liege, Schiphol Airport; and to/from destinations north of Cologne including Dusseldorf are not covered.

One way and return journeys can be booked - but the return journey needs to be within 14 days of the booking.

Eurostar Snap tickets cannot be exchanged to alternative dates / departures or refunded.
This is a difference to the core terms of booking Eurostar's typical tickets for travel in Standard Class, which are:

• The booked date and time can be exchanged to a different departure to the same destination up to one hour before departure time, but if the cost of your new ticket is more than the cost of your original ticket, you will be required to pay the difference;
• Refunds can be claimed pp to seven days or more before the date of departure you will need to pay a fee of £25 per person for a one way / single ticket and £50 per person for a two-way / return ticket - So you will only receive any sum you paid in excess of these sums.

Also a seat selection service will not be offered with Eurostar Snap tickets.

Note that up to four tickets can be booked simultaneously, each member of the travel party will be booked onto the same train(s), but you may not be sat together - even if a couple is making a booking.
You must then travel in the seat(s) you have been assigned, you cannot move through the train after departure.

The luggage rules (max two larger items + one piece of hand luggage), at seat facilities and the opportunity to make use of the on board Bistro will be no different to travelling with other tickets for travel in Standard Class.

Eurostar Snap tickets are only available for travel in Standard Class.

Also what can't be booked on the Eurostar Snap service are:

• Return day trips
• Child tickets for 4 to 11 year olds (because Adults need to be sat with children and this can't be guaranteed with Eurostar Snap).
• Wheelchair tickets (because they are cheaper than Snap tickets)
• Rail Pass reservations

See the Eurostar Snap FAQs for further information

Because Eurostar applies demand led pricing, its ticket costs aren't fixed by date or departure time, so the pricing of Snap tickets will also vary, as they are charged at around 50% of the cheapest price which will be available on the selected travel day.
So as with Eurostar's usual tickets, the Eurostar Snap prices will tend to be higher around school and national holidays, as well for travel on a Friday and after midday on a Sunday.

Hence these are examples of prices which could be found on Eurostar Snap, when booking 14 days ahead for a journey on a Thursday in late September

• London to Paris = from £40
• London to Amsterdam = from £35
• London to Brussels = from £35
• London to Lille = from £35
• Paris to Amsterdam = from £39
• Paris to Brussels = from £25
• Paris to Cologne = from £35
  Note that prices are in £s and not €s, as SMTJ is based in London the service is defaulting to showing me £s.

Similar prices were available for journeys in the opposite direction
However, these are guide prices, so the prices you will see on your travel date(s) may be cheaper or more expensive

The prices shown on Eurostar Snap will be at least 50% cheaper than the lowest cost that's available for travel within the time slot on the Eurostar main booking service.
These lower costs will only be available on certain departures on a travel day, so by looking at the main booking service you can get an idea of the train(s) you may ultimately be assigned.

So if you choose a before 13:00 slot from London, or a before 14:00 slot from Brussels, Lille and Paris, what's particularly worth checking are the timings of the first departures of the day on your travel day.
Also keep in mind the Eurostar check-in times, for example you should be at St Pancras or the Gare Du Nord 75 mins ahead of departure.

Conversely if you choose an after 13:00 slot from London, or an after 14:00 slot from Brussels, Lille and Paris, it's a good idea to confirm the latest possible arrival time at your destination.

If you will be travelling from Amsterdam, Rotterdam or Cologne, being aware of the timings of all the trains on your travel date is recommended.

The timings of the first departures of the day from London are usually:

• to Paris = around 07:00 on Monday to Friday; around 07:30 on Saturday and around 08:00 on Sunday
• to Brussels = before 06:15 on Monday to Friday, around 07:00 on a Saturday and around 08:15 on Sunday
• to Lille = around 07:00 on Monday to Saturday and around 09:00 on Sunday
• to Amsterdam and Rotterdam = before 06:15 on Monday to Friday and around 08:15 on Saturday and Sunday

The timings of the first departures of the day from Paris are usually:

• to London = before 07:15 on Monday to Saturday and before 08:15 on Sunday
• to Brussels, Rotterdam and Amsterdam, before 06:30 on Monday to Friday, before 07:15 on Saturday and before 08:15 on Sunday
• to Cologne = before 08:00 on Monday to Saturday and before 10:00 on Sunday

At face value booking Eurostar Plus tickets for a journey with onward connections doesn't seem to be the way to go, as the arrival time pre-onward travel from the transfer station won't be known until more than 48 hrs prior to departure.
By this time the cheapest tickets for onward specific same day departures by TGV InOui trains from Lille and Paris, or by the ICE trains on from Bruxelles will have sold out.

However tickets for rail journeys within Belgium and within The Netherlands aren't discounted, so when travelling from London to the likes of Antwerp, Bruges, Ghent, Liege, The Hague and Utrecht, you won't lose out if you book a Eurostar Plus ticket and an onward ticket on arrival in Brussels, Rotterdam or Amsterdam.

The reservation fee charged to Eurail and Interrail users for Standard Class journeys from and to London by Eurostar is €35, so you don't need to be a maths genius to work out that:

• if your travel day plans either solely include taking the Eurostar from or to London, or a journey between London and other locations in Belgium and The Netherlands
• you're happy to be flexible with timings
  then a Snap ticket is likely to be cheaper than the reservation fee + the cost of using a pass for the day.

Also be aware that you should still book either the rail pass reservation or a Snap ticket before your travel date.
Because if you were to be informed at the station that the rail pass reservation is sold out for your choice of train, you wouldn't then be able to book a Snap ticket instead, because they would have been taken off sale at the end of the previous day.