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How to use an Interrail or Eurail Pass on the Eurostar

Over Easter, we visited Prague, Munich and Stuggart with Interrail. Our Eurail global pass trip even included an overnight sleeper train travelling from Amsterdam to Prague with the European Sleeper. The beginning of our adventure started when we caught the Eurostar out of St Pancreas. This article explains how we used and booked Eurostar trains with our Interrail or Eurail pass.

Table of Contents

What is the Eurail Global Pass?

As Great Britain is no longer part of Europe, we now travel on a Eurail pass which is designed for individuals that are not part of Europe. This is the same as the Interrail passes for those who have a country of residence in Europe. It allows you to travel on the train network across 33 different countries through mainland Europe. Giving access to high-speed trains, international trains, regional trains and overnight trains. Depending on the type of train you want to travel on there could be a booking fee.

We found that the high speed trains would have seat reservation fees. These are not covered by the Eurail/Interrail Global Pass. It is of course possible to book other trains without these additional fees. I have shared more information about planning an Interrailing trip for the first time here. This will give you details of how to get started. Since I found it quite overwhelming, to begin with. However now we have done it, I can not wait to do it again and explore even more of the places on my bucket list.

Booking your Eurostar ticket with Eurail

Above I mentioned making a train reservation for certain routes. When leaving the UK via the Eurostar this is one of those route. In order to travel on the Eurostar trains with your Eurail passes must have a seat reservation.

We had initially intended on travelling over the October half term but when we went to reserve our seats the price was significant. This is because there are only so many Eurail pass seats allocated to each train and once they have been used up you have to pay the standard fee. Eurostar tickets generally go on sale 180 days before departure. So we decided to go in Easter and booked our tickets as they went on sale.

How much did it cost?

We managed to secure tickets from London St Pancras to Amsterdam for 35€ each on the outbound journey. And 30€ each on the inbound journey back from Paris to London St Pancreas. Which was at around 10% if the price we were being quoted in October. There was also a one-off 4€ booking fee. So my one biggest tip is to make sure you book your tickets in and out of the U.K. as soon as they go on sale. Based on the figures we were being quoted in October our global passes would have paid for themselves.

You can either opt for a first class or second class pass. Although we did have first-class passes we made our seat reservations in second class for our Eurostar journey since the price differential was a lot.

You need to have your Eurail global pass when you book. Since you need to select this type of ticket when making the booking. You will need to enter the pass number during the booking process. By doing it this way I was not asked to provide evidence of the global passes during our journey.

The Interrail App

As well as making the seat reservations on the Eurostar website. You also need to record the journey in the rail planner app for the Eurail pass details of the app can be found on the Interrail website. Just search for your travel dates select the train time that you have booked for and then add this to your trip. Previously Interrail & Eurail used paper passes although I think these may still be avaliable we used a mobile pass without problems.

Eurail Global Pass Restrictions

Your pass will only allow you to have a set number of travel days. Although you can go on as many train journeys as you want during a travel day. Our passes allowed us to have 7 days of travel. In the app you need to attach your pass to your trip and it will count down the days as you go about your interrail trip. This is really important because if you do not do this then you may be fined for not having a ticket. Although our passes were not checked on the Eurostar routes we took. They were on every other train! You can read our full itinerary here – One Week Interrail Itinerary.

The other restriction with our global passes was that those 7 travel days needed to be used within one month. With only one in-and-out journey to your home country. Eurail Global passes are undated, meaning that the start date of your pass is when you take that first journey. Please note if you decide to purchase a one country pass which is cheaper, only the train networks in that single country are included. Therefore you would not be able to use the Eurostar as well. Top Tip – it is handy to have a Eurostar paper ticket for each person when travelling as a group. You will need to scan the train ticket to gain access to the Eurostar terminal.

Before you go on the Eurostar with your Interrail Pass

Around 24 hours before you travel you will receive an email asking you to complete API information. This includes passport number, date of birth, expiration date and country of issue for each of your party. This has got to be done ahead of your journey and is very similar to what needs to be completed when travelling on the Eurotunnel. You will also be able to see the coach layout and if there is the possibility change seats.

What happens when you arrive

This was the first time we had travelled on the Eurostar as a family and I wasn’t entirely sure what to expect. I had heard nightmares about going through security and so we arrived super early. I did not know if being Interrail pass holders meant that we had to certain things that we had to do. However, I need not have worried we sailed through on the English side and did not need to worry about showing the passes at all.

First of all, you are not allowed into the terminal until ninety minutes before your train departs. There are plenty of places to get food and drinks in the London St Pancras Station. I would suggest using these since options are limited once you go through security.

There are little blue signs up indicating which trains they are currently accepting passengers for and people managing that. Then you go through security before passport control. You need to go through both the English and French passport controls before entering the lounge.

One of the best things of train travel is that you are not limited by the same rules as when flying. Liquids do not have to 100ml and we also took filled kids water bottles through. Although luggage should be certain dimensions and the number of bags limited it did not look like this was enforced either.

Amenities through security on the Eurostar London Side

The lounge is a reasonable size and we managed to get some seats to wait. From what I could tell there should only ever be two trains of people in the lounge at one time unless there is a delay in one of the train services. As you would expect there are toilets and two places to get some food. Including a Pret, which has a water filling station next to it. Top Tip – If you are travelling with kids and have water bottles make sure you fill them before getting on the Eurostar train as they do not offer this on the train itself. Instead, they want you to buy bottled water.

There is also a duty-free and a bureau exchange. There are plenty of screens around so you can see when the platform is announced for your train which happens around twenty minutes before departure. We brought food in M&S before going through security since we were travelling with two fussy eaters.

Amenities through security on the Eurostar Paris Side

I wish I could say that our experience coming back into the country from Paris was as good as our way out. But alas it was not! Although they operate in the same way allowing only a couple of trains through the security and passport control at a time it is just not set up for the volume of travellers it has. It was frustrating, especially after a long journey from Stuttgart to Paris.

We ended up waiting almost an hour to get through, and then once we did get through there was not much time to get food ahead of travelling. Although there are plenty of places to get food, with more options than the UK side. There was no air conditioning when we travelled (it was 26 degrees outside) and the windows did not open. The terminal is long and narrow with indicators of where you should get onto the train depending on which coach you are in. Turns out it was a bit of a free-for-all.

That said it is a necessary evil.

Amenities on the Eurostar trains

The trains that run on the Eurostar services themselves vary. On the way out we had a newer train than on the way back. There are screens in each of the coaches giving you facts about the train and how fast it is going. As well as details of the stops. Although we came back direct from Paris. Our outbound journey meant that we also stopped in Lille, Brussels and Rotterdam.

Each set of seats comes with power sockets one U.K. and one European. There are also plenty of luggage racks positioned at the end of the coach along with the loos. On the way back we struggled to find toilets that were working. I assume this is because it was an older train.

There was also a bar coach which sold a selection of cold drinks, sweets and snacks. We found much better food options in some of the other direct trains we travelled on during our Interrailing adventure. On the way back the coach was lacking cold drinks, which would suggest that they do not stock up at the other end. Or that the refrigerator counter was broken. I am not sure which one it was so it is worth buying drinks ahead of getting on your Eurostar service.

Have you caught the Eurostar with a Eurail Pass before? I would love to hear your experiences in the comments below and let me know if there are any top tips I have missed. Since we will be interrailing again in the future.