KLM Air Rail service to Antwerp
by JFC AdminThis is the first time I’ve tried KLM’s rail-air service between Amsterdam Schiphol and Antwerp. The main reason for taking this routing rather than a direct flight between London City and Antwerp on VLM was the prospect of earning Flying Blue miles.Booking the flight was the same as booking any normal KLM flight, if you specify Antwerp as the final destination it offers you a selection of trains between Schiphol and Antwerp, all the trains have KL flight numbers so to the booking system it just looks like another flight leg. The tickets are issued as e-tickets.
What’s not made particularly clear is that you need to show your e-ticket confirmation to the NS Rail ticket office in Schiphol in order for them to issue you with your rail tickets, I can imagine there’s been problems in the past with some people boarding the train with just an e-ticket receipt and running into problems.
Collecting your rail tickets at Schiphol is painless, you just visit the section of the ticket office for international rail tickets and show your e-ticket receipt. The process involves some paperwork, they write down your ticket details on a form and ask you to sign for it and then they enter these details into their computer and you’re allocated your seats. The seats were in 2nd class, I’m not sure if all KLM tickets are booked into 2nd class or whether Europe Select customers are booked into 1st class (in contrast the Air France air-rail service between Brussels and Paris books everyone into first class regardless of class of travel). The trains are operated by Thalys and their final destination is Paris although only the Amsterdam - Antwerp leg of the journey is a KLM codeshare.
There was about an hour to wait for the train so it was a good opportunity to have a few drinks at Cafe Rembrandt in Schiphol Plaza (the name of the shopping area landside of the airport and close to the train station). Cafe Rembrandt is designed in the style of a traditional Dutch ‘Brown Cafe’ and is worth hunting down as it’s one of the better pubs in Schiphol Plaza.
Now it was time for the train and all went well here, the train pulled into Schiphol station on time and finding the seat was easy. The seats in 2nd class were comfortable enough to make for a relaxing journey. As is usual for Intercity Rail there’s a bar area on the train where you could buy drinks and snacks. The selection of beers was decent and much better than GNER’s range of beers but the range of food was not as good as I’m used to from GNER when I travel up the East coast of the UK. All major credit cards are accepted in the bar area.
One thing to note for those who are used to travelling by Eurostar is that Eurostar tickets are valid for onward connection to any other Belgian station, these KLM tickets are only valid up to Antwerp, if you’re connecting to any other station you need to buy an onward ticket from the ticket office.
Only the outward leg tickets were available from the NS ticket office in Schiphol so on the return journey you need to collect your tickets from the Antwerp ticket office. Although the person in the ticket office didn’t speak much English the process was fairly straightforward once he seen our e-ticket receipt. The process was slightly different than the one at Schiphol, this time he took a photocopy of the e-ticket receipt and then enters the details into the computer. A voucher is then printed out with your ticket details that you sign and he attaches it to the photocopy of your e-ticket after this a ticket is then issued for your selected train.
The return journey was similar to the outward journey, sit back, relax and grab a few beers from the bar area,
Overall the process was fairly simple but they do need to stress that you have to pick up your tickets from the ticket office I can imagine a lot of people running into problems because they’ve boarded the train with just their e-ticket receipt.
As for Flying Blue miles the flight segments LCY-AMS and AMS-LCY credit automatically within a few days however, the rail sectors do not credit automatically. I’ve faxed a copy of the e-ticket receipt as well as the rail tickets to the Flying Blue helpdesk, I expect the miles to be automatically credited within the next few weeks. I will update this entry when this happens to confirm whether this process worked without issue.
If you’re based in London and not a Flying Blue member I recommend that you either get the Eurostar to Brussels and connect to Antwerp on a local train or you fly VLM from London City direct to Antwerp. This rail service is ideal for those people living outside of London where the Eurostar is not as convenient and there’s no direct flights to Antwerp.