Brussels Travel Answers

The best place to look for railway fares is on the official railway website for a country. In Europe they all have English pages and the vast majority give fares as well. Fares can vary according to how far in advance one buys the ticket, time of departure, date of departure, special offers, whether one travels first or second-class and so on. There is always a 'standard' fare as well, of course. Not all routes on all days in all countries will offer fares other than the standard fare. Here's the official Belgian railway website: http://www.b-rail.be/main/E/ Standard fare for travelling this evening is 13.50euro. I see no variation in fare in the next few weeks but obviously have no checked every single departure per day (there are lots of departures Brussels>Brugge). No need to buy tickets in advance online for this journey. Just buy them at the station on the day of travel, or a day or so beforehand if it suits.

The 20+euro fare you saw would be for first-class travel which is, imo, an entirely unnecessary expense. You will not get cheaper tickets from sources other than official railway websites, imo. I do not think there is a direct Brussels>Brugge bus.

very easy train ride, and many times daily. you can get on official site special rates that can go down to 9 euros and then regular rates at 21. But yes you were told correct, the official site will have the lowest rates. you can buy on the train station too, its a local train,no need for advance purchase but then wont know if there is a special. bus, dont know. hope it helps

Save your time & energy: buy your Bruxelles to Brugge ticket at the train station, I believe it is Midi Station in Bruxelles from which you depart. That is what we did. It was simple. You will not find a cheaper ticket price on-line than what you will get on the spot at the station.

Sorry but gwened's information is totally incorrect. Nor do I understand what websites and forums you have been looking at, that quote a price of €9.50 - unless by any chance this dates from several years ago, or just possibly, it was a special "shopping ticket", which applies in the run-up to Christmas! 1. There is only one source of Belgian Railways (SNCB/NMBS) tickets, and no cheaper source than Belgian Railways. 2. It makes no difference whether you buy domestic Belgian train tickets online or at a station (unless by any chance you are under 26, as Go Pass 1 ticket is only available ONLINE from b-rail site: €6.50 single, €13 return, no exchanges, no refunds). Unlike Eurostar, Thalys, etc., DOMESTIC Belgian train fares do NOT vary depending on how far in advance you can buy them ("book" is a misnomer as you can't reserve seats on Belgian domestic trains), and cannot possibly be the explanation for the different prices you have seen. The cost of a standard 2nd class single for Brussels-Brugge, since 1 Feb 2012, is the one given by leics, i.e. €13.50, and the return price is 2x that, so €27. There IS, however, a WEEKEND RETURN ticket, which can be used for a day trip on a Saturday or Sunday, which costs €14.40. 3. There is no practical alternative to the train, as there is no bus from Brussels to Brugge. It would be just about possible to string together 3 separate De Lijn (Flemish bus company) bus services: Brussels to Aalst, Aalst to Ghent and Ghent to Brugge, but I imagine it would take most of the day to complete the journey. 4. Just for the sake of completion (because it doesn't seem to me that it can have anything to do with the different prices found), there is one more possible fare for this journey: over-65s can buy a "senior ticket" for €5.30 return to anywhere in Belgium. 5. Finally, why are you using forums etc. for train fares anyway, rather than going to the "horse's mouth"? If you just went to the b-rail site it is easy enough to find fares information. For future reference here is the "domestic fares" section of that site: sefora.b-rail.be/sefora/Sefo...

P.S. With respect to "I believe it is Brussels Midi station from which you depart". The train to Brugge travels through Bruxelles-Nord, Bruxelles-Central and Bruxelles-Midi, in that order. You can catch it at any of these 3 stations and the price is the same from any Brussels station, "Brussels [agglo]" being one entity for train fares purposes.

I assume you are taking your information from seat61, Hasbara? The additional fare one pays if travelling onward from the London>Brussels Eurostar is 6GBP (they are not yet at parity and the UK does not use the euro) or 7 euro. You need to book the Eurostar ticket (on the official site www.eurostar.com) to 'any Belgian station' in order to take advantage of this. You can only travel onward from Brussels Midi/Zuid, not from Centraal. Onward travel in Belgium used to be free within the 24 hours which included the Eurostar journey, but no longer.

@GAMINARI "Sorry but gwened's information is totally incorrect. Nor do I understand what websites and forums you have been looking at, that quote a price of €9.50 " The information was supply by the original poster, if your can read English. I never quoted those prices just use what the original poster was saying. Please read well before answering on an open forum. thank you

@gwened: Sorry, but you did not just repeat what the OP said, your response states categorically "you CAN GET on official site SPECIAL RATES that can go down to 9 euros and then REGULAR RATES at 21." Since you put this forward as a statement of fact, please tell: which official site (currently, since you did not qualify your response) shows a "special rate" of €9 and a "regular rate" of €21 for this particular journey? As leics had already surmised, the €21 rate that the OP has seen might correspond to the (standard) 1st class fare, currrently €20.70; the (standard) 2nd class fare is €13.50, and one might surmise that €9.50 might correspond to the winter shopping ticket at 2010/11 rate (this last winter it cost €9.90), but it certainly doesn't correspond to any rate CURRENTLY currently shown on the b-rail site for this journey. And yet you state (instead of saying "I think", or "perhaps the explanation is") that this price can be obtained "on official site". If you make such a statement, you should be able to back it up. So please, where can the OP find a "special rate" of €9 for this journey, since you say that prices go down to this level on the official site? I don't think you should be surprised or offended if people contest facts you put forward which conflict with other information available. We can all make mistakes - especially on complex train ticket prices - but if you take the trouble to answer someone's question, I think you should take the trouble to ensure that any facts you are giving (or confirming that the OP has understood correctly!) are accurate. I certainly WILL contest any information given that appears to be incorrect, in the interests of OP getting a correct answer, and not searching desperately for a €9 fare that isn't available! As for "you can buy on the train station too, its a local train,no need for advance purchase but then wont know if there is a special." Who "won't know if there is a special"? If you mean the ticket office staff, then assuming that you are referring (as I would understand this) to BELGIAN stations, that is not true. In my experience, the ticket office staff ask all necessary questions to ensure they sell you the most favourable ticket available for your situation at the relevant date, including temporary "specials". The winter shopping ticket and summer "day at the seaside" tickets can be obtained just as easily at the station, on the day of travel, as online, in advance. I grant you that there is one type of "special" (Go Pass 1, for under 26s - €6.50 single) that can only be obtained online, but that is not because ticket office staff won't alert you to it, it's because they can't sell it over the counter.

If you are arriving in Brussels by plane, you can buy your tickets at the airport train station. This saves the cost of paying for a separate transfer into the city.

Thank you for your response. I will buy the Euro 13.50 train ticket that was mentioned. I was not very sure if the website I went was the Official belgium train website, as there seem to be many agents selling such kinds of tickets. (Once, I had almost bought a fake ticket before, and so have been more careful to check before making a purchase...) Thank you :)

Glad you have it sorted out! It is always best to use the official railway websites for each country. There are many agencies which sell railway tickets, and all with add on charges (because they could otherwise not make a profit!). To find the official railway website I always just google the country name + 'railway'.