If you’re on the lookout for cheap Eurostar tickets, you may have heard of Eurostar Snap.
This discounted booking service sells cheaper last-minute tickets – as long as you’re willing to wait until 48 hours before travel to receive your exact train departure time.
Eurostar’s Snap tickets claim they can save you up to 50 per cent on last minute fares – but does the reality match the promise?
You can book Eurostar Snap tickets between 14 days and 48 hours before your journey from London to Paris, Amsterdam, Brussels and Lille.
It’s a great way to save money – if you have flexibility.
It’s easy to do – you book through snap.eurostar.com/ and select your destination, travel dates and number of travellers. You then choose your preferred timeslot for travel, usually from around 6am-1pm and 1pm-8pm on the outbound leg.
Within 48 hours of travel, Eurostar will email to confirm the train times selected for you.
There are drawbacks, though. Snap tickets are non-exchangeable, non-refundable, non-transferable and non-cancellable.
Eurostar’s Snap tickets say they can provide up to 50 per cent off fares
Plus, there’s no guarantee you’ll be seated with other travellers you’ve booked with, and you can’t use Club Eurostar (free membership) flexibility benefits.
Eurostar says Snap tickets can offer savings of up to 50 per cent. But these discounts apply to last-minute fares, which are often more expensive from the get-go, according to Which?.
So the final cost of a Snap ticket could be more than booking a standard fare well in advance.
For example, when Which? checked the cost of tickets with Eurostar Snap from London to Paris departing on Friday, January 30 and returning on Monday, February 2, the cost on Snap was £120, down from £320 when booking on the regular Eurostar site.
It’s an incredible saving for last-minute travellers, but booking in advance can be even cheaper.
For example, if you were to go from London to Paris around the May bank holiday, it’s currently possible to find one-way fares between Thursday, April 30 for £39 and returns on Monday, May 4 for £49 – so those booking in advance could book a return for £88.
Research found one-way fares as low as £35 with Snap. And when a Snap fare was more expensive, its original price on the standard site was also more expensive.
The most expensive found – £180 – was for a return ticket from London to Paris, but the standard price was £320.
But are the train tickets worth it? They also have many other drawbacks
Which? has seen advance tickets for a tenth of that price – and sometimes even lower in Eurostar’s flash sales.
So it is better to plan further in advance if you can.
Kate Pasola, a Which? travel writer, said: ‘It’s clear that Eurostar Snap can save you money if you decide to travel last minute. We’ve heard positive reviews from those who have tried it, too.
‘One told us his experience with Snap was good despite his allotted 10pm outbound train, and 6am return for his three-day trip from London to Paris. He only paid £30 each way. Another told us that he would nearly always rather wake up early to get a train than pay an extra £70 or more.
‘These opinions came from students and freelance workers with flexible schedules, and who live in London.
‘If you need to commute to London to make your Eurostar, and therefore aren’t able to easily travel very early in the morning or late at night, Snap tickets might not feel quite so convenient – or cheap – if you have to factor in the cost of a hotel stay or a last-minute train ticket to get to London.
‘And even if you do live in London, if you are given a 6am outbound Eurostar slot, you might need to splash out on a taxi as tube lines might not run early enough.’
