Tuesday, March 27, 2012

Thalys Train Pass - Any Belgium Station - Help

I have booked a train from Cologne to Brussels and chose the pass with the %26quot;Any Belgian Station%26quot; add on. From what their website says, I can freely travel on any Belgium train line from 2 days after arriving in Brussels. Is this correct?





thalys.com/fr/…any-belgian-station







I would arrive in Brussels on (Dec 23), spend a night there, take a train to Ghent in the morn spend a few hours there, then go to Brugge spend the night (Dec 24) and the next day I would like to check out Antwerp for a few hours. From Antwerp, I would book another pass straight to Amsterdam.





So my question is, with my pass can I travel to Brugge, Ghent and Antwerp?





I have already booked my first pass (Cologne to Brussels, ANY BELGIUM STATION included) - any advice on what the next pass I should be booking to get to AMS?




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You do not have a pass, you have a ticket that allows you to travel from Cologne to ONE Belgian destination other than Brussels (e.g. Ghent), VIA Brussels, which means you can stopover in Brussels for no longer than 2 days (I believe this means you have to leave Brussels on the 2nd day, not the 3rd; usually stopovers are limited to 24hrs). It is all set out on the web page you quote, but have apparently misunderstood: note that it clearly refers to %26quot;a (= one!) train%26quot;, %26quot;1 journey%26quot; on the Belgian rail network, which means you would have used up this possibility by travelling to Ghent; and if you try to use the same ticket on another train AS WELL, you will be fined for not having a valid ticket!



So no, it is not true that you can travel freely around Belgium on any train you want for 2 days! You can use your Thalys ticket from Cologne to Brussels to continue, within 2 days, to Ghent OR Brugge OR Antwerp, not all 3.



You would therefore have to pay for the trips from Ghent to Brugge and Brugge to Antwerp (you can buy a ticket from Brugge to Antwerp VIA Ghent if you are stopping for less than 24 hrs in Ghent, but it does not save you anything) as well as Antwerp to Amsterdam. For the latter, you have the choice between normal IC (Belgian Railways) train, which does not have to be booked in advance, and Thalys, which does.

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