As the Covid crisis is not over, some airlines, such as Air France or Transavia, are maintaining cancellation and refund conditions for their tickets that are very advantageous to customers.
Passengers are reassured and this helps carriers gain market share.
This is not the case of Eurostar which, from the top of its splendor and its quasi-monopoly on the Paris-London line, has reinstated draconian restrictions for changing or canceling a ticket.
For example, it is impossible to cancel on almost all of its range of prices and, in the 7 days preceding departure, the price readjustment is coupled with an exorbitant modification penalty (up to 50 euros for the sole penalty).
The "
leniency
" shown by Eurostar, which consists in not applying the penalty but only the fare readjustment, only concerns passengers who modify their journey more than 7 days before the initial departure.
In other words, a minority of them.
Because, before the crisis, it was considered that in Europe, half of the passengers bought their ticket at least 7 days before their departure, both by train and by medium-haul plane.
This average has changed a lot with the health crisis.
Now, the vast majority of ticket purchases are made in the week before departure, for the simple reason that passengers no longer risk planning their journey far in advance because of uncertainties regarding traffic restrictions.
Read alsoGare du Nord against Saint-Pancras: the Eurostar match
Fewer trains, higher fares
Eurostar has not abandoned its quality as a premium train, its prices remain high.
Before the crisis, according to our information, there were some 7,000 daily passengers, with peaks of 15,000 during certain holidays.
By January 2022, that number had dropped to around 1,000, with Eurostar often operating only two trains a day.
(Figures that the company does not wish to confirm.) According to our tests, by booking a fortnight in advance for a trip during the week of February 1 to 4, it was necessary to count between 269 and 314 € for a one-way -return in second (called “Standard” at Eurostar) and €389 for a return trip in first (“Standard premier”).
By way of comparison, Air France offered tickets for the same dates at €150 return in economy class.
But surprised,
trains were added a few days before departure, which had the effect of dropping prices to €259 in first.
Too bad for passengers who bought their tickets in advance!
"
As our pricing is dynamic - as with airlines - our prices are subject to change if a particular service sells out faster than another.
When we add new trains at short notice - as is the case now - these have therefore been open for booking for a very short time.
It is therefore possible that their entry prices start lower than a train that has been on sale for a longer time,
” explains a spokesperson.
A very surprising practice on the part of the leaders of Eurostar who usually take refuge behind the same formula: “
low prices for tickets purchased in advance
”.
In addition to the price level, it is the very structure of the price range that raises questions.
Quite surprisingly, the price of the ticket is not written on the ticket and obliges the passenger to search for proof on the Eurostar site:
"The prices do not appear on the tickets because our distributors are free to sell our tickets at the price they want”,
Eurostar is limply justified.
ON VIDEO - We tested the "Business Premier" on the Eurostar
Longer travel time
There is, for example, no ticket that can be modified without penalty and refundable in second or first.
Only round-trip “business premier” class tickets (€620) can be modified, exchanged and refunded free of charge.
What if a passenger was unable to travel after contracting Covid?
"
Regarding the possibility of a traveler having a positive Covid test less than 7 days before departure, we offer e-vouchers on a case-by-case basis
", explains the company.
In practice, you have to arrive about two hours before the departure of the train (like to take a plane) which reduces the gain of high speed by the same amount.
To make the trip, Siemens e320 trains are used and can carry up to 894 passengers, 20% more than the original Alstom trains due to what is called distributed motorization.
Namely, Alstom trains have powerful locomotives at the front and rear of the train while Siemens trains have smaller engines distributed on the bogies along the train.
They are equipped in three classes “Business premier”, “Business standard” (first) and “Standard” (second).
Attention if you travel in first, you will have three out of four chances of
Passport control is done in the city of departure, so in Paris Nord, you first go through the French border police counter and then in front of the British officials.
It should be noted that the English have installed an automated passport control system much more efficient than that set up by the Ministry of the Interior at Roissy and Orly.
The English system rejects far fewer passports and above all it takes an official to control 10 gates at the same time when for the French it takes one official for four airlocks.
Baggage control is curiously carried out by customs, therefore taken over by the State, which represents a distortion of competition with the plane where it is the passenger who bears the cost of security checks.
Read alsoTrain and plane tickets: favorable cancellation conditions, but until when?
A complex tariff range
The loyalty program is unique.
"
To date we do not share our loyalty program with other rail operators,
" confirms Eurostar.
Thus a SNCF "Grand Voyageur le club" could go to a Deutsche Bahn lounge in Cologne, to the ÖBB lounge in Vienna... but not to the Eurostar lounge at the Gare du Nord in Paris.
As a reminder, 55% of the capital of the Eurostar railway company belongs to… the SNCF.
As for wanting to change trains at the last minute on the day of departure, it is necessary to count, still according to our test of February 4, an additional cost of approximately 180 euros in first (50 euros of penalty and 130 of tariff readjustment).
And this, even though the trains were not full!
It would indeed seem that Eurostar's
yield management
, this secret algorithm which makes prices fluctuate, is based above all on the departure date and not on the filling of the train to increase prices.
This pricing is furiously similar to that practiced by Renfe in Spain for its high-speed AVE trains, and which had thus rolled out a red carpet to the SNCF and its new Ouigo, more chic than those used in France.
Their low prices and ease of use have made them a huge success on the Madrid-Barcelona axis.
Would competition therefore be open on the Paris-London link?
Nothing is less certain if we consider the problem of equipment: there are no trains on the market approved by France, Great Britain and the Channel Tunnel.
Only the SNCF has them and obviously does not intend to sell them.
The Paris-London monopoly in 2h30 still has a bright future ahead of it.