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If you’re an avid reader of The Points Guy U.K., chances are you’ve already started your points and miles journey when it comes to flying — perhaps already an avid collector of Avios, an obsessive hoarder of Virgin Points, and clued up on the dozens of other airline loyalty programmes out there.
Of course, flying isn’t the only mode of transport you can take on your travels, and if you’re based in the U.K. it’s often possible to eschew flying altogether if you’re wanting to travel within Europe which has great rail options to reach the likes of Belgium, France and The Netherlands via the Eurostar from London.
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Travelling by rail in Europe can be an affordable way to hop between cities and even countries, with plenty of scenic routes to enjoy and overnight sleeper trains taking you swiftly from A to B without using up precious travel time, but did you know you can also earn points along the way?
Here, we take a quick look at some of the top European train loyalty schemes – from the Club Eurostar program to My Thalys World.
What’s the company? Eurostar
Where do Eurostar trains go? Eurostar travels to several countries: Belgium (Brussels), France (Paris, Lille), The Netherlands (Amsterdam , Rotterdam) and the U.K. (London).
Can U.K. residents join Club Eurostar? Yep, you can join regardless of where you live. Club Eurostar doesn’t mention any kind of restrictions around nationality or residency requirements in their online T&Cs.
How does Club Eurostar work? Once you join Club Eurostar, you’ll earn one point per £1 spent on train journeys or two points per £1 spent on hotel and train packages. You can also earn 50 points by renting a Hertz car through the specific Eurostar portal. Beyond this, you’re also able to transfer American Express Membership Rewards in increments of 1,500MR to 100 Club Eurostar points. As you earn points and take more journeys it’s possible to progress between three Elite tiers: Classique, Advantage and Carte Blanche.
You can learn more about Club Eurostar points and Elite status – and its perks – in TPG U.K.’s full guide.
What rewards does Club Eurostar offer? Club Eurostar points can be spent on discounted tickets, redeemed for reward tickets or to upgrade the class you travel in.
200 points will get you a £10 discount, though TPG contributor Tim Ramakers recommends hanging on for a free ticket – with a standard, one-way value ticket costing 500 points, or an anytime fare one-way costing 750 points. You can also upgrade from Standard to Business class from 500 points onwards.
As for the Elite tiers, you’ll automatically begin with Classique, rising to Advantage when you’ve earned 400 points in a year (or five return trips) or Carte Blanche when you’ve earned 1,800 points (or 24 return trips) in a single year.
Advantage status brings with it more opportunities to spend points, including on train journeys with Railteam partners — Cart Blanche adds lounge access and fast-track security checks to your perks. Alas, you’ll need to travel quite a lot with Eurostar to reach this status.
Related: What’s faster? Watch us race from London to Amsterdam by plane and train
What’s the company? Thalys is a French-Belgian train operator specialising in high-speed trains. In May 2022 it merged with Eurostar, and is now part of the Eurostar Group.
Where do Thalys trains go? Thalys travels to and from various cities in Belgium (Antwerp, Brussels, Liege), France (Paris), Germany (Aachen, Cologne, Dortmund, Duisburg, Dusseldorf) and The Netherlands (Amsterdam, Amsterdam Schiphol Airport, Rotterdam).
Can U.K. residents join My Thalys World? Yep. According to its T&Cs, “membership is open to any person aged 16 years and over (on the day of the request for membership).”
How does My Thalys World work? Sign up for an account with Thalys.com, and start earning member points and miles. Member Points are similar to British Airways Tier Points in that they determine the level of status that you hold. As you accrue more Member Points you’re able to progress through three status tiers: Explorer, Club and Club+. Once you attain status, it will last for 12 months, unless you meet the necessary threshold to requalify for the following year.
Earning Member Points correlates with the amount of money you’ve spent on Thalys tickets and passes, with €1 (85p) earning one member point.
Miles are separate from member points, in that they don’t determine your status and you have two years to redeem them on travel (more on this below). Your initial sign-up status, Explorer, earns you one mile per €1 spent, whereas you’ll earn two and three miles per €1 spent with Club and Club+ respectively. You’ll also earn bonus miles after your third, fifth and 10th Thalys train journeys, and by completing surveys for Thalys (if you want to).
The thresholds for each status level are:
What rewards does My Thayls World offer? Those with Explorer status can spend miles on discounted tickets (by transferring them into €5 (£4) or €10 (£8) e-vouchers. Each voucher is valid for four months and can be turned into a full ticket if you have enough. In exchange for 300 miles, you can get access to the Thalys lounges at Brussels-Midi and Paris-Nord train stations. You can also get discounted Europcar rentals.
Once you have 600 member points, you’ll reach Club status which has increased benefits, including flexible access to the train before or after your booked service if you miss yours, free access to the aforementioned lounges for you and two other travellers (along with solo access to various NS International, DB and Railteam lounges, when presenting your My Thalys card with your ticket). You’re also able to spend your Thalys miles to get completely free train tickets and a few other perks, mitigating the need to transfer your points into vouchers.
There’s a guide to how much a typical journey will cost you in miles online, and here are a few examples:
Standard class journey from Belgium to Germany: 1,500 miles
Standard class journey from Belgium to The Netherlands: 2,000 miles
Standard class journey from Paris to Belgium: 2,500 miles
Standard class journey from Paris to Germany: 3,000 miles
Comfort class journey from Paris to Belgium: 3,500 miles
Premium class journey from Paris to Belgium: 4,000 miles
If you reach Club+ status, you have access to all of the above, plus access for four guests to train station lounges, and flexible access to trains throughout the day if you miss you booked service. Both Club statuses get priority customer service, too.
Related: 11 of the most underrated destinations in France
What’s the company? London North Eastern Railway (LNER), owned by the U.K.’s Department for Transport.
Where do LNER trains go? LNER trains travel through East England and Scotland, with routes from London Kings Cross via Peterborough and Doncaster, to Leeds, Bradford or York. From York, you can reach Newcastle-upon-Tyne, Alnwick, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Aberdeen, Perth, Stirling or Inverness in the Scottish Highlands.
Can U.K. residents join LNER Perks? Yep. Any LNER customer aged 18 or over can join the loyalty scheme, as per the T&Cs.
How does LNER Perks work? Sign up to the LNER app, join Perks for free, and receive a kick-off bonus credit of £5 in your account. From there on, you’ll receive 2% back for every £1 you spend on LNER train tickets booked directly on its website or app (or by scanning LNER train tickets booked elsewhere), which you will then see under the ‘My LNER’ tab of the app under your ‘credit balance’.
What rewards does LNER Perks offer? Spent £80 on a return ticket? You’ll get £1.60 of that back as credit. Shelling out roughly £700 per year on trains? That’s £14 you’ll get back. While it’s not a huge amount of return on the surface, train tickets in the U.K. are generally pretty expensive, so if you use LNER frequently, that 2% back from each journey can add up – and be used to get money off future tickets.
Even if your train is delayed or cancelled due to something beyond your control, and you receive compensation via Delay Repay, you still keep your 2% credit, too. Perks members also get a range of discounts, including 10% off food and drink onboard and 10% off stays at Malmaison hotels. At the time of writing, the app also has a few other offers, including a free skincare kit (where you pay for postage only), cheaper weekend parking at LNER station car parks, and a free three-month trial of The Telegraph — though these will surely change over time.
Related: What you need to know about November’s U.K. rail strikes
What’s the company? Renfe, which is Spain’s state-owned train company.
Where do Renfe trains go? Its trains travel across Spain – including popular cities Seville, Malaga, Madrid, Valencia, Alicante, Barcelona, Girona and Léon — plus there are AVE high-speed connections to cities in France (Lyon, Marseille, Paris) in partnership with SNCF.
Can U.K. residents join Más Renfe? Yes. We signed up online just fine (looking for ‘Reino Unido’ as opposed to ‘United Kingdom’ or ‘Great Britain’ in the drop-down menu). The T&Cs say people over the age of 14 can join to start earning points.
However, those living in Spain (with a permanent address and a current account at a Spanish bank) can maximise their points earnings with the Renfe American Express Credit Card — which is fee-free for six months (€7/£6 after), comes with a 1,200 Renfe point bonus (worth €120/£120), and gives you 0.15 Renfe points for every €1 spent on the card, along with a range of other benefits. There are also three tiers of Renfe Mastercard, offering up to 1,000 Renfe points as a joining bonus, up to 0.15 Renfe points per €1 spent, and a 5% discount on all AVE and long-distance train ticket bookings.
How does Más Renfe work? Once you’ve signed up to Más Renfe (which essentially means ‘More Renfe’), you can start earning points by ensuring your card number is attached to any train ticket purchases you make – whether it’s online or at the station. For every €50 (£43) spent, you get varying points depending on which class you’re travelling in: 11 Renfe points for Essential, 15 for Choose, 19 for Choose Comfort and 23 for Premium.
What rewards does Más Renfe offer? 10 Renfe points = €1 to spend on train journeys, though you need to have the full value of the journey in points available to spend, as you can’t use your points to get a discount on a ticket. According to the company’s website, 127 Renfe points will get you from Madrid to Bilbao, 161 points from Barcelona to Seville, or 275 points can take you from Barcelona to Madrid, and so on.
Más Renfe card holders can also enjoy perks, or even earn or redeem points, with various Renfe partners — including hotel stays with Rusticae, Melia International Hotels and the Hard Rock Hotel Madrid, by renting a car with Avis or Europcar, or through insurance with Mutua Madrilena. You can find out what’s available by visiting the official website.
Related: Which first-class high-speed rail service between Milan and Paris is best?
RailEurope and Trainline are portals from which you can book trains in Europe – and you can still collect some loyalty points by booking through them as opposed to directly.
Trainline allows customers to earn points on most European rail loyalty schemes. You can book trains through the Trainline’s Europe portal , and add any relevant loyalty cards in the section where you select the number of passengers and add your railcards. A sample search for trains from Paris to Barcelona brought up a list of the loyalty programs you can earn points with, which included Club Eurostar, My Thalys World and Más Renfe.
As for RailEurope, you won’t miss out on Club Eurostar points when you book with them – however, you can’t collect them during the booking process, instead manually add your points afterwards via the Club Eurostar website using the ‘IV’ reference number on your ticket, up to 90 days after travel. (RailEurope notes you won’t earn points on tickets known as ‘DB London Spezial’.) Unfortunately, you can’t earn points for My Thalys World by booking through RailEurope.
There are plenty of other European train loyalty schemes out there, but some aren’t available for U.K. residents to join — or, at least, require a bit of effort to do so.
Germany’s national railway company, Deutsche Bahn (DB), has BahnCards and BahnBonus – but a quick scan of the T&Cs show that only residents living in the European Economic Area (EEA) can sign up to join. The U.K. departed the EEA in December 2020 as part of Brexit. A shame, as DB covers routes not just through Germany but to Austria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Hungary, Italy, Luxembourg, The Netherlands, Poland, Slovakia, Slovenia, Sweden and Switzerland.
There are two key Italian train loyalty schemes we spotted: Trenitalia’s CartaFRECCIA and Italo Piú. For the former, people who aren’t Italian residents can join the scheme by submitting this form via email (cfreccia.application@trenitalia.it), though Trenitalia tells TPG U.K. it is currently working towards allowing non-residents to join via the app. Watch this space! Operator Italo’s loyalty program, however, states in the T&Cs that you must be living in Italy to join.
České dráhy (ČD), which operates trains around the Czech Republic and from Prague to numerous European cities, also has its own loyalty points scheme. While there’s nothing in the T&Cs (that we could find) that suggests U.K. residents can’t join, you do need a Czech mobile phone number to complete activation when signing up online… adding a U.K. number with the +44 code doesn’t cut it.
Featured image by Chesnot/Getty Images
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