I'm the man in charge of arranging much of our transportation, especially the UK coaching for things like our Christmas & New Year breaks, and especially, all our Eurostar requirements for tours like the Chateau Weekend.

One thing I've been looking at - exhaustively! - is trying to offer UK rail tickets when booking a Eurostar-based holiday. I'd like it that when you called up to book, my colleagues could say "can we offer you a Liverpool to London train ticket for £x" - and ideally this rate would be attractive vs a 'full fare' (if such a thing was possible!), plus we'd take away the hassle of doing it yourself. Added to that is, for those of you further away from London, you might want to travel down the day before and stay a night in a hotel convenient for St Pancras the next morning - something we already offer - so you'd have some flexibility on when the train tickets might be for and we could provide the 'package'.

Inevitably these things are simple in theory but once you look at the nitty gritty, then it opens a can of worms. :s Before I go down the process too far, I'd like to ask you all:

1) Are you interested in (more?) Eurostar based holidays (i.e. travel to your holiday is via rail)?

2) Is having to get to St Pancras via your own means (i.e. booking your own UK rail tickets) putting anyone off booking a Eurostar holiday with us?

3) With that in mind, if we could somehow offer UK rail tickets in conjunction with our Eurostar tours, would this make you more likely to book, or just remain the same?

Thanks for any replies. I'll remove this post in a few days as want to keep my work in progress from any competition! :)

Thanks

David - Logistics Man....

Good idea!!

Personally I have not been on any European holiday's with JY but do enjoy train journeys ( train geek). The railways of Switzerland have always intrested me so a holiday starting by train in the UK ( First class of course) then Eurostar to Paris then onto Switzerland by train would be excellent.

So the answers to your questions would be : 1. Yes. 2. Not really, would like to travel on same day without stop over. 3. Yes.

Regarding train journeys in Switzerland I believe Travelsphere do one at present. Did see the details a while back but cannot remember if they include UK / Eurostar travel.

Eric.

For what it's worth - I would be interested in more Eurostar-based holidays, particularly if they were city breaks. However I live just 20 minutes on the train from St Pancras so the ticket tie-in is not really of interest to me.

RM.

Cindy

Eric - thanks, we're looking a new ideas for rail tours all the time of course, so I'll pass your comments on to our "holiday creators", albeit we're already having to plan 2015, let alone 2014!

RosieMo - as with Eric, thanks for the comments. Any cities in particular?

Cindy - Can I ask, what puts you off travelling by train - thinking especially of Eurostar based holidays?

Free free to message me directly if not wishing to post more info on the board.

Anyone else - I'd still love to hear some more feedback. At the minute I've 1 yes for connecting UK rail tickets, 1 no, and 1 not interested in rail at all!

Thanks

David

of course you can ask.....the answer is while I am on the younger side..LOL!!!! I am concentrating on the long haul flight touring holidays! you know the ones where you need to sleep for a week when you arrive back home.

I MIGHT be tempted to go by train somewhere when my long haul days are over.....but I am not a good traveller so would opt for flight over train! but train would so be a much better option than boat..!!!!

This is why we are all different and why JY is so good you have so many different options for the so many different people out there that travel with you..

Cindy

Although I'm new to the community and solo holidays, I do have to travel by train for work sometimes and find the whole process of train times/ticket prices really time consuming.and confusing.

If you did offer travel from local stations as part of the holiday I would book!

Jan

More rail trips would be a good idea.

David

I agree with what Puer says that it can be really cheap if you plan ahead (plus some people have rail cards that get cheaper tickets), hence the option to book your own must stay.

The cheap options usually come online about 12 weeks before the journey and get more expensive as you get closer to the date. I use "east coast" to book my tickets butothers such as "trainline" offer the same deals.

I've not done eurostar but have seen posts on here from people looking for hotels near St Pancras, there certainly seems a lack of decent quality accomodation in the area without paying a small fortune. Many travellers like to stay over the night before (I often do at airports) and wonder if JY could negotiate hotel deals in the area.

Mick

If we did UK tickets for Eurostar holidays, it would be still optional. The main idea for us doing the tickets instead is based around simplicity for you and also that if we could brochure a simple, straightforward price, then you'd know your outlay up front.

The other benefit is that we would buy tickets to "London International". This station doesn't appear on TheTrainline, etc., (though it does appear on raileasy.co.uk) and means, should your UK train be late, then you're 'protected' by Eurostar on to the next available train. Same on the return, in saying if the Eurostar was late and you missed your UK connection, your UK rail supplier would still have to get you home.

As you can imagine then, it's proving less than easy to sort this out where we know we can offer you consistent prices!

Regarding the St Pancras hotels, we are in a position now to offer several in the area. We did previously just offer the Hilton, but it often came back at £200 for a night! We now can offer a range of hotels in the St Pancras/Kings Cross/Euston area (in fact, anywhere in London), and prices seem to come in circa £90-150 depending what you want (i.e. Comfort Inn, Jurys Inn, occasionally the Hilton comes out ok, etc).

Hope that's of help and answers some of the questions.

Kind regards

David

Never cosidered the protection part its certainly worth considering from that point of view if travelling down same day.

Coming from Yorkshire if i chose a eurostar holiday I'd arrive at Kings cross so handy for St Pancras.

The prices you quote for hotels back up what I say, a very expensive area for what you get, much cheaper at heathrow I've just booked a 4 star hotel night before i fly and parking for the week for £62.

Mick

Although I am rather older than Cindy, I try to do one long-haul each year (just come back from NZ) plus a shorter break. The previously-offered coach holidays were a nightmare with the time in transit so I would welcome more Eurostar holidays plus hotel packages. Train ticket booking would be helpful, but not exactly difficult on the web.

David