€7 sneaky booking fee at Belgian stations

[tannedfrog]

Possibly inspired by the Easyjet €18.50 booking fee, I found out that staff at Belgian stations quietly charge a €7.00 or €3.50 booking fee for selling tickets to neighbouring countries.

This seems unfair as not everyone has a laptop and printer in their bag to be able to visit sncb.be. Furthermore their station ticket machines don't seem to sell any tickets to neighbouring countries, so this isn't a way of avoiding the fee.

I asked the SNCB guard whether I could have just bought onboard to avoid the fee, and he wasn't clear on this point. He suggested buying online! Next time I will probably try to buy on the train when using local trains and see whether I can avoid the fee.

 

[radamfi]

https://www.b-europe.com/Travel/Practical/Your tickets/Buying your tickets/Stations/Service Fee

This fee came in fairly recently, but shorter distance cross-border trips can still be bought without fee at the ticket office.

You can use the SNCB app to buy some tickets without fees so you don't necessarily need to print a ticket.

SNCB Europe aspires to provide the best possible service for the preparation of your international train journey on all occasions.

To substantiate that ambition, SNCB Europe is continuously investing in new technologies and qualified personnel:

Our switchboard ensures a fast access to a professional operator from our Contact Centre.

Our sales offices at the Brussels-Midi, Brussels Central, Antwerp Central and Liège-Guillemins stations have been renovated to provide you with the fasted and most efficient help possible.

Booking your international train ticket to many destinations in Europe, your train pass, travel insurance, hotel, rental car, etc., is simpler than ever on our website www.sncb-europe.com.

And in addition, for purchases at a distance we offer the possibility of printing your ticket at home or travelling without a ticket, making your travel preparations even easier.

Under the current developments involved in the liberalisation of international train traffic we endeavour to guarantee you optimum services at all times. Following trends in the worldwide travel market, SNCB Europe is therefore forced to charge a service fee for the purchase of international train tickets through the SNCB Europe Contact Center or at the SNCB Europe railway stations.

This service fee amounts (VAT included) to:
€ 7,00 for booking on high speed trains or overnight trains
€ 3,50 for buying tickets for conventional daytime trains
No service fee for short cross-border commuting trips

Good to know: Purchasing train tickets, train passes and other products through our website www.sncb-europe.com remains free of this additional charge.

The SNCB Europe team thanks you for your confidence and remain at your service, now more than ever.

 

[tannedfrog]

Thank you for shedding more light on this.

Under the current developments involved in the liberalisation of international train traffic we endeavour to guarantee you optimum services at all times. Following trends in the worldwide travel market, SNCB Europe is therefore forced to charge

hmmm

 

[johnnychips]

In #2, there is no definition of what is a 'short' cross-border commuting trip. Presumably there's a list somewhere.

 

[radamfi]

In #2, there is no definition of what is a 'short' cross-border commuting trip. Presumably there's a list somewhere.

The list is here:

https://www.b-europe.com/~/media/Files/Praktisch/Dossierkosten/BookingFeeExceptionNL.ashx?la=nl (Dutch)

https://www.b-europe.com/~/media/Files/Praktisch/Dossierkosten/BookingFeeExceptionFR.ashx?la=fr (French)

 

[317666]

I bought a ticket from Leuven to Aachen (not a particularly short distance) from a self-service machine in 2014, unless it's changed since then?

 

[David Goddard]

I asked the SNCB guard whether I could have just bought onboard to avoid the fee, and he wasn't clear on this point. He suggested buying online! Next time I will probably try to buy on the train when using local trains and see whether I can avoid the fee.

When we were in Belgium last year we got the impression that they have very strict rules about having a ticket before boarding (like our penalty fares system) so I would be wary of jumping on board and trying to buy a ticket in case you get clobbered with a fine.
This is purely based on observations, I have no knowledge of the actual rules.

 

[radamfi]

When we were in Belgium last year we got the impression that they have very strict rules about having a ticket before boarding (like our penalty fares system) so I would be wary of jumping on board and trying to buy a ticket in case you get clobbered with a fine.
This is purely based on observations, I have no knowledge of the actual rules.

They used to have a rule where you had to seek out the guard immediately and then you would be allowed to pay a surcharge, otherwise there would be a penalty. That was a bit ambiguous so now they have a compulsory surcharge of 7 euros if you pay on the train where there was a ticket office or machine available.

But if you already had a ticket and wanted another ticket for later in the day or another day, then maybe you can get it from the guard without any problem. I haven't tried that.

--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

I bought a ticket from Leuven to Aachen (not a particularly short distance) from a self-service machine in 2014, unless it's changed since then?

Aachen, Roosendaal and Maastricht are "pseudo-domestic" as there are special tickets called "TICKETS AACHEN", "TICKETS ROOSENDAAL" and "TICKETS MAASTRICHT" that can be bought from machines and to get them online you use the domestic website rather than SNCB Europe.

 

[Quakkerillo]

If you buy on the train, you automatically will be forced to pay a €7 surcharge if you board without a ticket. This is for national tickets, and probably also applies to Roosendaal, Maastricht, and Aachen.
Any other foreign destinations may come at higher charges.
If you do so on the international train Brussels - Antwerp - Rotterdam - Amsterdam (Intercity, not Thalys), the surcharge is €35.

 

[tannedfrog]

If you buy on the train, you automatically will be forced to pay a €7 surcharge if you board without a ticket. This is for national tickets, and probably also applies to Roosendaal, Maastricht, and Aachen.
Any other foreign destinations may come at higher charges.
If you do so on the international train Brussels - Antwerp - Rotterdam - Amsterdam (Intercity, not Thalys), the surcharge is €35.

Thank you for clarifying. I wonder if the €7 is instead of the counter fee? In which case I may as well buy onboard and even try to negotiate on the fee, playing the dumb tourist card!

 

[johnnychips]

From the list in #5, it seems there is no problem in buying tickets to Luxembourg, Aachen, Maastricht, Roosendaal or Lille Flanders as long as it is an 'ordinary' train. I can't think of any other cross-border journeys offhand.

I do remember the penalty for buying on a train used to be €1 about four years ago, if you could have bought it at the ticket office, so to €7 is a big jump.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

Thank you for clarifying. I wonder if the €7 is instead of the counter fee? In which case I may as well buy onboard and even try to negotiate on the fee, playing the dumb tourist card!

No, this applies even in Belgium by the sound of it. I had to pay the €1 fee a few years ago even though I had a valid reason (late incoming train) not to go to the office. Most Belgian guards speak excellent English, and in any case, why would you want to cheat a railway? If you don't like it, take another transport method.

 

[radamfi]

Train fares in Belgium are dirt cheap compared to anywhere else in western Europe and they give you lots of ways to buy tickets without going to the ticket office (app, print at home, machine, Rail Pass). I would rather have their cheap fares combined with mostly avoidable surcharges compared to the fares/ticket buying situation in Britain.

 

[tannedfrog]

why would you want to cheat a railway? If you don't like it, take another transport method.

Who's trying to cheat more? Me by trying to avoid a disproportionate fee or them by sneakily charging it at the counter?

 

[radamfi]

At least Belgian Railways still let you buy international tickets from their stations. Other than Eurostar or Calais or Ireland, in Britain that is no longer possible without going to specialised agencies, who also charge fees.

 

[Quakkerillo]

Thank you for clarifying. I wonder if the €7 is instead of the counter fee? In which case I may as well buy onboard and even try to negotiate on the fee, playing the dumb tourist card!

I can not really advise you to do that. I just remembered a friend of mine from Liverpool forgot to buy in advance the cheap ticket from Aachen to Brussels, and tried to do that on the train, as Aachen station doesn't sell these. The train guard then either couldn't, or wouldn't sell him the ticket, so he was forced to leave at Welkenraedt, and buy a ticket there.
Also, I don't know for sure if it's really €7 on the train for cross-border journeys. I've not found proof of it being anything else, but I can't promise it's not more!

 

[johnnychips]

Who's trying to cheat more? Me by trying to avoid a disproportionate fee or them by sneakily charging it at the counter?

Well, I don't think it's sneaky, as it has been announced in #2. It may not have been well publicised, but fare increases never are. If you think it's not proportionate, then it's your decision whether to patronise another transport method or not, or (as you are rightly doing here) complain about it. But l don't like the idea of playing the 'dumb Englishman' to the guard - it's just 'not cricket'. There you have two stereotypes in one sentence.

 

[Quakkerillo]

At least Belgian Railways still let you buy international tickets from their stations. Other than Eurostar or Calais or Ireland, in Britain that is no longer possible without going to specialised agencies, who also charge fees.

This is only true for the major stations; 28 stations in total. A further 53 allow collecting of pre-booked international tickets. All stations have ticket machines, which sell tickets to Roosendaal, Maastricht, and Aachen. Possibly as well to Luxembourg and Lille, but I've no experience with these 2 destinations.

 

[radamfi]

This is only true for the major stations; 28 stations in total. A further 53 allow collecting of pre-booked international tickets. All stations have ticket machines, which sell tickets to Roosendaal, Maastricht, and Aachen. Possibly as well to Luxembourg and Lille, but I've no experience with these 2 destinations.

In Britain we used to have "Travel Centres" in most major stations where you could get international tickets but they have all closed. Even then you had to travel to your nearest big station to get them.

Dutch ticket machines sell tickets to anywhere in Belgium and Luxembourg (and much of Germany). Is there a reason why Belgian machines can't do the same?

 

[Quakkerillo]

In Britain we used to have "Travel Centres" in most major stations where you could get international tickets but they have all closed. Even then you had to travel to your nearest big station to get them.

Dutch ticket machines sell tickets to anywhere in Belgium and Luxembourg (and much of Germany). Is there a reason why Belgian machines can't do the same?

They're vastly inferior machines anyway. The screen calibration is frequently off, and responding delayed. They sometimes stutter and go back to start. The card readers are regularly out of order.
And when they were first introduced, they only accepted "Bancontact", i.e. Belgian bank cards. Maestro? Credit cards? What are those?!

It's just a nice way to make sure people end up paying the surcharge, I guess.

 

[tannedfrog]

Dutch ticket machines sell tickets to anywhere in Belgium and Luxembourg (and much of Germany)

But only if you have enough euros in coins to pay for them!! Do they still refuse to accept banknotes and foreign cards?

Surprising that these countries at the heart of the EU seem quite insular in terms of cross-border tourist-friendly train travel.

 

[radamfi]

But only if you have enough euros in coins to pay for them!! Do they still refuse to accept banknotes and foreign cards?

Surprising that these countries at the heart of the EU seem quite insular in terms of cross-border tourist-friendly train travel.

No banknotes but Visa/Mastercard have been accepted for about 2 years now (0.50 fee). But again, I would rather have their ticket machines and lower fares with the odd 0.50 fee than what we have in Britain. Most British ticket machines will only issue tickets from that station. There are still many suburban and rural stations without any machine.

Banknotes are accepted for OV-Chipkaart top-ups at ticket offices for no fee.

 

[Bletchleyite]

No banknotes but Visa/Mastercard have been accepted for about 2 years now (0.50 fee). But again, I would rather have their ticket machines and lower fares with the odd 0.50 fee than what we have in Britain. Most British ticket machines will only issue tickets from that station.

That is a deliberate thing by some TOCs concerned about short-faring. GTR Southern, to name one, will do remote issues at all of their TVMs.

 

[radamfi]

That is a deliberate thing by some TOCs concerned about short-faring. GTR Southern, to name one, will do remote issues at all of their TVMs.

You can get around that using TOD but I suppose the thinking is that most short-farers would not know about that. It is bizarre though that some TOCs like Southern have allowed it for years and I expected it to be rolled out nationwide.

 

[Bletchleyite]

You can get around that using TOD but I suppose the thinking is that most short-farers would not know about that.

Or if you book online they have your name and address, not so if you pay cash at a TVM.

 

[anme]

As far as I know, it is no longer possible to buy tickets to Lille, Roosendaal, Aachen, etc from the NMBS/SNCB app. It used to be possible, even in a straightforward way. The option was then cunningly hidden - you had to enter your journey details, but instead of selecting a standard ticket, it was necessary to choose a ticket type with an obscure name from the bottom of a long list (something like "Std ticket dest Rsnl"). They've now stopped messing around with such customer friendly practices and withdrawn the facility of buying tickets to/from non-Belgian stations via the app altogether.

(BTW, it is still possible if you download the controversially-named SNCB Europe app.)

 

[Bookd]

As a stranger if you want a train from Gent to Lille you need to know what Lille is called in Flemish; If you return, on a train destined for Antwerpen, you need to know what that is called in french!

 

[Quakkerillo]

You don't. Employees can just type in the name in a different language, and the system will accept it. If they hassle, it's just because they want to be annoying.
On the ticket machines, you can change the language to "English" which will also accept both spellings.

 

[ejstubbs]

Dutch ticket machines sell tickets to anywhere in Belgium and Luxembourg (and much of Germany).

But only if you have enough euros in coins to pay for them!!

You sure about that?

I can clearly remember buying two return train tickets from Schiphol to Amsterdam Centraal using my UK credit card on 31st December 2001. I remember it so well because we had a long kickover at Schiphol that day, on the way home from Italy, and there were no ATMs working anywhere because they were being changed over to Euros ready for 1st January 2002. In fact we did the whole "lightning quick city break" on plastic: train tickets, lunch, souvenirs, everything. I did get lightly stung on the credit card company's sterling-guilder exchange rate, but that was vastly preferable to being stuck the airport for hours unable to even buy a sandwich!

 

[radamfi]

You sure about that?

I can clearly remember buying two return train tickets from Schiphol to Amsterdam Centraal using my UK credit card on 31st December 2001. I remember it so well because we had a long kickover at Schiphol that day, on the way home from Italy, and there were no ATMs working anywhere because they were being changed over to Euros ready for 1st January 2002. In fact we did the whole "lightning quick city break" on plastic: train tickets, lunch, souvenirs, everything. I did get lightly stung on the credit card company's sterling-guilder exchange rate, but that was vastly preferable to being stuck the airport for hours unable to even buy a sandwich!

Cards have been accepted at Dutch ticket machines ever since I started visiting, so since the mid 90s if not earlier. At that time, ticket machines in Britain were still the cash only Quickfare machines that only sold tickets to a few select places. The Dutch machines sold tickets to any station in the country by typing in the station's number.

The issue that vexed British tourists so much was the validity of British bankcards. Maestro cards were fine but the British banks that used Maestro changed over to Visa whereas most of Europe were (and are) still using Maestro. Dutch ticket machines at Schiphol and Amsterdam Centraal have accepted Visa/Mastercard for a long time. Other major stations followed later but nationwide roll-out was only complete about 2 years ago.

 

[Bletchleyite]

The issue that vexed British tourists so much was the validity of British bankcards. Maestro cards were fine but the British banks that used Maestro changed over to Visa

Not only that, but UK Maestro was (until very recently) just a remnant of the old Switch system that was incompatible with most other countries' Mastercard-based Maestro system.

German cards had similar issues for a time - they were really rebranded EC-Karten. And indeed the Dutch Pinpas was a closed system at one point (being the unusual system of magstripe+PIN).