Thursday, June 2, 2011

Cheap travel between Holland and England

I have to get to the UK periodically from Maastricht and, as the summer travel season approaches, the fares are shuffling.  So, the best deals may not be the usual alternatives, and I’m finding that a little digging can save a lot.

Here are the methods I’m following; I’d be interested in other ideas?

   Note: I have not been solicited nor compensated for this essay: it contains my own research and opinions.

EurostarTrain: The Eurostar runs from Brussels Midi to London St. Pancras for around £90 one way, leaving every couple of hours and arriving in two hours later.

However, if I go from any Dutch Station directly up to Cambridge, the price inexplicably drops to £67.   This is all inclusive: from any Dutch station through London and onward, saving both the 25 euro fare to Brussels and the £34 fare up from London, plus there are no added fees if you use a debit card to pay. I can’t explain it, but I could only find it on the Eurostar website, not through RailEurope or eRail.

Here’s the fine print – it’s also nice that you can use the Dutch ticket up to a day in advance, giving time to enjoy Brussels.

Train

Ferry:  Day ferries to Dover leave from Dunkirk or Calais and take an hour and a half to cross.  I like Norfolkline and P&O (less fond of SeaFrance): all are comfortable alternatives to flying (in good weather), and new boats, better food, and free WiFi are coming online (ah, competition).  Fares are 30 euro one-way, including two people and a car and are best booked at least 3 days in advance.

Prices were 66% less when booking Dover-Calais-Dover than Calais-Dover-Calais on the same day last time I purchased.  Buying multi-trip ticket books can also drop the price dramatically, and a coupon search will occasionally turn up a code for 10% off.  The lines allow some flexibility if you miss the boat, the car travel from Maatricht to the French docks takes 4 hours, and another 2 up to Stansted (the Dartford Crossing on the M25 Orbital is a killer either way), so this is a day trip, with about 100 euro in gas.

I’ve never used it, but there are also  “Rail and Sail” discount packages that use Stena lines overnight ferries between Hoek van Holland to Harwich, connecting to NS and National Rail trains at either end.

DSC04107Flights: I usually make the trip by air, an hour’s flight with either Ryanair (from Eindhoven) or EasyJet (from Amsterdam). There is talk that a Maastricht service may start; I haven’t been able to find the rumored cheap alternatives from Koln or Brussels. Skyscanner is a good one-stop spot for comparing fares and has nice tools for seeing ‘by country’ at a glance and ‘by day’ for a month. One-way fares are generally around £40 if I book at least a week ahead and don’t check a bag, so total fare is about £70 with train / bus connections to the airport.

So, at the moment, the train is looking both fast and cheap.  Can anyone else do better?

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5 Comments:

Blogger Ashley said...

Well... There are many ways to reach the destination. To complete the journey, i prefer the cheap ferry which is comfortable and amended.

June 7, 2011 at 12:13 PM  
Blogger Textual Healer said...

I opt for the car and ferry these days. For me its not about cheapest cost - but acceptable cost (100 Euro each way is acceptable). I stopped using Euro Star when they stopped using Waterloo - it added two connections to my journey across London. Before I used to fly BMI to London -I usually booked just a day or two ahead for about 60 pounds (Fridays are an exception). Having a car in England is a great benefit as the public transport outside London is so hit and miss (and expensive).

June 8, 2011 at 12:42 PM  
Blogger Dave Hampton said...

Thanks, Ashley and Nick - I usually opt for the ferry, and agree that having a car in the UK is a huge benefit (it's not so necessary in the Netherlands).

Further, the trip from Maastricht to Cambridge yesterday via Eurostar did not go well. The initial Dutch-Belgium train was cancelled, so a later train got me into Brussels with 20 minutes to spare. Too late for Eurostar, though, so a bunch of us had to take a later train, now overcrowded, to London. Late arrival further delayed me onto a local National Rail train out of Kings Cross going north. 'Finally got to Cambridge about 11 pm. Bleagh.

I'm going to look into what the Traveller Compensation program provides now, since the trains I ended up on are 12 gbp cheaper than the ones I booked for. But this certainly takes the shine off the fare.

June 10, 2011 at 1:21 PM  
Blogger Dave Hampton said...

A follow-up note: Traveller Compensation initially said that since the fault was in a Belgian train failure, not a Eurostar failure, they would not provide compensation. But they did agree to refund the 13 GBP difference, much appreciated!

June 29, 2011 at 9:43 AM  
Blogger Dave Hampton said...

This post attracted spam, so I've cleaned up the comments. Please note: this site does not take advertising and is actively monitored and maintained. thanks, Dave

September 10, 2011 at 12:37 PM  

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