Booking periods for International trains.

[STEVIEBOY1]

I hope to be travelling from London to Koln & perhaps Berlin too.

When do bookings open for Eurostar, Thalys & DB?

Many Thanks.

 

[pne]

Eurostar: 6 months (120 days), I believe.

DB: 3 months (91 days or some such).

Don’t know about Thalys.

If you want to travel to Berlin and save money, you’ll probably be best off with a DB London Spezial rather than buying from Eurostar + Thalys + DB separately; this would mean waiting until a bit closer to date of travel as DB bookings open later than Eurostar.

London Spezial does mean you can’t take Thalys from Brussels to Cologne as the Belgium–Germany border has to be crossed in a DB ICE train on that ticket.

You can enter dwell time when booking a ticket from DB, up to 48 hours I believe, so you might be able to get a €59 ticket (€109 in First Class) from London all the way to Berlin that lets you stay two days in Cologne en route. (Price varies subject to availability of price quotas, similar to Advance tickets; for example I was only shown €159 FC tickets for a particular trip last spring despite looking at a couple of minutes past midnight on the first day the booking opened.)

 

[radamfi]

http://www.seat61.com/thalys.htm says booking usually opens 92 days before departure.

 

[30907]

Worth saying that Eurostar do through tickets to Köln (and a couple of other German destinations) which seem to work to their booking horizon. You can take any ICE of your choice beyond Brussels, but with no seat reservation, so long as you complete the journey same day.
It's up to you to find the times out! Useful for Köln but expensive beyond....

 

[pne]

Worth saying that Eurostar do through tickets to Köln (and a couple of other German destinations) which seem to work to their booking horizon. You can take any ICE of your choice beyond Brussels, but with no seat reservation, so long as you complete the journey same day.

I think that if you book with Eurostar, you may also be able to take your choice of a Thalys or ICE train between Brussels and Cologne.

It's up to you to find the times out!

reiseauskunft.bahn.de is my go-to for that purpose. (I even use it for UK times sometimes )

 

[30907]

I think that if you book with Eurostar, you may also be able to take your choice of a Thalys or ICE train between Brussels and Cologne.

Correct, but Thalys is only bookable 3 months in advance as you require a reservation. ICE is bookable as soon as ES reservations open, whereas if you book on the DB site the usual 92 day rule applies. Sorry I didn't explain properly.

 

[pne]

Correct, but Thalys is only bookable 3 months in advance as you require a reservation. ICE is bookable as soon as ES reservations open, whereas if you book on the DB site the usual 92 day rule applies.

Ah, that makes sense. Thanks!

 

[duesselmartin]

I booked and now travelled with DB. By tinkering with the interchange times in
Brussels, ie extending it, I got a very good deal even less than 60 days
in advance!

 

[STEVIEBOY1]

Thank you for these replies and advice. I was going to use a free EST ticket I have, (Owing to a disrupted journey last year), but in view of these threads, it looks like it will be cheaper to do a through fare all the way from London to Berlin with stopover in Koln on the return journey.

 

[30907]

You could check out Brussels - Berlin (with the same stopover) if you want to use your free EST ticket, but it might be no cheaper - or even more expensive! )