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| EurailPass BritrailPass and others 08/12/2009 at 14:21 #362 | |
nroberts
227 posts |
Gents and Ladies. The missus and I are *hoping* to be able to visit the UK next year sometime. Whilst we still don't have anything definite we are hoping to move around by train (obviously!). Quite some time back there was the Eurail Pass which was quite an interesting package to move around anywhere in Europe for X days for a fixed fee. I've been looking around the web and found that the Eurail Pass apparently doesn't include the UK. I did find the Britrail Pass which is quite more expensive (please let's not dredge up the 1000 quid thing again :/) which apparently includes the UK but nothing else. Where's the crux of the matter? Our idea is that maybe we'd fly to Madrid with my in-laws and stay a couple of days. From there take the AVE to Paris for another couple of days and then the Chunnel across to London. (Believe it or not, this last one is almost an obligation towards my wife :)). I have relatives in Scarborough as well as London and we'd like to see Cornwall, Wales and Scotland I think that the option of a pass would be convenient. Are there any further alternatives in travelling passes I should consider? Any ideas, suggestions? What would be the most convenient? Many thanks to all. ^o^o^o Nicholas Log in to reply |
| EurailPass BritrailPass and others 08/12/2009 at 14:21 #4919 | |
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nroberts
227 posts |
Gents and Ladies. The missus and I are *hoping* to be able to visit the UK next year sometime. Whilst we still don't have anything definite we are hoping to move around by train (obviously!). Quite some time back there was the Eurail Pass which was quite an interesting package to move around anywhere in Europe for X days for a fixed fee. I've been looking around the web and found that the Eurail Pass apparently doesn't include the UK. I did find the Britrail Pass which is quite more expensive (please let's not dredge up the 1000 quid thing again :/) which apparently includes the UK but nothing else. Where's the crux of the matter? Our idea is that maybe we'd fly to Madrid with my in-laws and stay a couple of days. From there take the AVE to Paris for another couple of days and then the Chunnel across to London. (Believe it or not, this last one is almost an obligation towards my wife :)). I have relatives in Scarborough as well as London and we'd like to see Cornwall, Wales and Scotland I think that the option of a pass would be convenient. Are there any further alternatives in travelling passes I should consider? Any ideas, suggestions? What would be the most convenient? Many thanks to all. ^o^o^o Nicholas Log in to reply |
| EurailPass BritrailPass and others 08/12/2009 at 14:41 #4920 | |
Peter Bennet
5357 posts |
Couple of years ago I did something called Inter-rail around Europe, I seem to recall it was valid in the UK too- with exception that it was not valid in your home country wherever that was. I don't know if it's still available. Peter I identify as half man half biscuit - crumbs! Log in to reply |
| EurailPass BritrailPass and others 08/12/2009 at 15:45 #4922 | |
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Peter Bennet
5357 posts |
Have just found 'inter-rail' and apparently it's only available to people who have resided within one of the countries referred to in the previous 6 months. However, it is not at all clear to me how you prove 'residency'. It does refer to passports but a passport does not prove residency. So you, presumably, have a British passport but have not been resident in any of the countries referred to for the past 6 months- because you live in Argentina. So prima facie you could get a Inter-rail ticket on production of your passport- however if that were a British passport that may preclude you from using it in the UK- but it must be the case that you could have been residing in one of the European couuntries in which it is valid so are not a British resident per se. My Sister-in-law is Dutch, has a Dutch passport but lives in Scotland- as far as I'm aware she is not required to have residencey documentation. It does seem rather a vague set of criteria and in a quick scan of the site I haven't found any real explanation of how it is applied in practice. Peter I identify as half man half biscuit - crumbs! Log in to reply |
| EurailPass BritrailPass and others 08/12/2009 at 16:13 #4923 | |
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nroberts
227 posts |
Thanks Peter. I hadn't found Inter-rail in my previous search. I do have a EU passport (horrible brown thing - I liked the black UK one better). However inter-rail appear to "check" your country of residence by where they send you the pass. Obviously if I ask for it to be posted to Argentina they will suspect I'm not a resident of Europe :: I guess however that residency is not necessarily registered in the passport. Here in Argentina you're expected to update your I.D. card with any change of addresses even if abroad :: and said card is taken as proof of residency or else an invoice or bill (such as electricity or water etc.). I guess in europe a self addressed envelope might suffice. I will however dig deeper with them and see what I can come up with. As I said the trip is still in an embryo stage and hopefully will come through. Who knows I might even manage to coincide with a SimSig Meet :D Once again thanks for the info. Nicholas Log in to reply |
| EurailPass BritrailPass and others 08/12/2009 at 21:32 #4927 | |
AnyFile
101 posts |
If you are not resident in Europe, you have to buy Eurail, instead. However it is is more expensive. Even if you were resident in Europe, if you are over 26 years old, InterRail may be rather expensive (unless you travel really a lot), so I argue that Eurail is expensive too. Usually the best deals are for local pass that just cover a rather small area. The InterRail does include the UK if you are not resident in UK (but in another EU country) and you buy it in a country different from UK. The interrail is valid in the country you are not resident. If you have looked on a web site targeted for an UK citizen/resident this is the reason why UK was not included. And the Eurail is surely valid in UK. If in Spain and France you are going to take just the two trains you have written about, you may find it cheaper to just buy this journey as a single ticket. (I do not know if it is possible to do it just in one ticket or if you need to do two tickets one from Madrid to Paris and another one from Paris to London). The interrail, eurail and other passes are valuable only if you make a lot and a lot of journey each day. (note that you would have to pay a supplement to travel on many fast trains) For pass inside Great Britain, you can see this page Tickets and passes For the UK, I can not find a Eurail pass for just the UK Eurail One Country Pass , and I can neither find a regional pass for UK. Actually on this site I never seen any reference to UK. I need to look at some other sites. After some searching I am starting to doubt that Eurail can include UK (While InterRail can). Log in to reply |
| EurailPass BritrailPass and others 16/12/2009 at 07:58 #5090 | |
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UKTrainMan
1803 posts |
For your journeys in the UK you might like to consider Rangers & Rovers*, you'll have to have a look through the differently named ones to find which is more suitable for you. *[sup] = At the time of typing this post, this page appears to be broken. National Rail Enquiries recently 'improved' their website and it appears that it wasn't ready for release so they've got all sorts of bugs left to fix.[/sup] However, if you can set your plans in stone and stick to them you may wish to consider advance booking all your train tickets, which can be done upto 3 months in advance of your travel date and could end up being extremely cheap for you. An example of this would be when I was looking at buying a ticket with National Express East Coast from London to York and I was offered two £8.25 singles so that's a mere £16.50...or even when I was looking at buying a ticket with National Express East Anglia from London to Sheringham (near Norwich) and was offered a ticket for £7.90! Even cheaper than that I was once looking at booking a single ticket with Chiltern Railways from London to Banbury (north Oxfordshire) and I was offered a shocking £3.30 for the ticket. Although I believe all three of those examples were specific trains, i.e: the ticket is only valid on one train only at a specific time (i.e: the £3.30 ticket would have only let me travel on the 13:37 train, for example). So if you're certain of all your arrangements then booking well in-advance could save you bucket loads! However, there is a serious downside and in-fact a risk to booking in advance and that is that if you're on a train that is delayed and you miss your connection (i.e: you're due to leave London on a 13:37 train and your train into the station is delayed but it eventually arrives at 13:38 instead of 13:30) then you're basically....screwed. The train will not wait for you except in very extreme circumstances and so the only way you'll get to catch is if it is delayed leaving! So if you do miss the train your ticket basically becomes invalid and you'll have lost your money (although you may be able to claim some financial compensation from the train company of the train which you were delayed on if the delay was over a certain length of time). Anyway once you've prebooked you may be able to have the tickets posted to you (or a friend or some relatives at a UK address) or you could arrange for collection from the station which requires you to have your [Chip and Pin enabled!] Credit or Debit Card with you plus a special 'passcode' (a unique but very important 8-character code formed of both letters and numbers) which you enter into the automatic ticket printing machine. I'll stop typing now before I post the longest ever post on the forum but if I can be of any further help at all please do not hesitate to contact me. Hope This Helps. Any views and / or opinions expressed by myself are from me personally and do not represent those of any company I either work for or am a consultant for. Log in to reply |