Hi
I can book the Eurostar from London to Paris from the US easily enough. But I am starting in Colchester. Is there a site that will allow me to book Colchester-Paris (yes, I know is not direct and not even same London station). Is there any reason to believe that Colchester-Paris is significantly cheaper than Colchester-London and London-Paris since I can easily do Colchester-London when I get to Colchester.
TIA
Neal

The Eurostar site, in the UK at least, has a drop down option for booking through tickets from a lot of UK stations to Paris although, having just looked, not specifically Colchester. I am not sure if this would represent a saving or if it is just for convenience.
It may not show this option on the US site - I know there is a difference as the US site allows you to book tickets well before the booking period opens in the UK for Eurostar. One of the reasons that the US site may not include the forward domestic connections is that the domestic rail companies' advance booking periods are shorter than the US Eurostar advanced booking period.

Are you with me so far or have I confused you?!

It might be worth phoning the Eurostar customer service people in the UK (on +44 (0)1233 617 575 from 8am to 9pm )to query this further - I have found them to be very helpful. (Note: if you make a telephone booking, it is an additional £5 - but you can specify the seat you want, which you can't do quite as specifically with online booking)

UK domestic rail fares are notoriously complex (a subject of much complaint) - in general, it is much cheaper to book a ticket in advance (with the exception of local commuter lines)rather than walk up and buy on the day. It also rather depends on what time of the day you need to travel to make your connection.

Neal, I don't believe that there is a single online train site that will allow you to do a through journey like this (at least I have never found one for travelling from a 'lesser' place..). Likewise, I know that if I went to my local English train station and asked for a ticket to Paris, I would get a very funny look! I don't think anyone has joined up the dots on this, online or offline. I would buy the tickets separately.

However, you could try contacting an online travel agent and see if it is cheaper that way as they buy things like Eurostar tickets in bulk and in advance so you might just get a better deal and they would book the whole thing. Having said that, I have rarely found a travel agent cheaper than a do-it-youself job

It is interesting that if you google Colchester train journeys (or similar) you get a very full explanation of the very complicated train fare structure from there to London so you need to know what to ask for when you buy at that station just to go to Liverpool Street. Train help lines are notoriously unreliable with information on their availability of particular types of fare.

Ps. I am so slow posting that I now see that Panda has replied in similar vein...

Thanks to both. Obviously the train that will fill up, and the one that gets expensive as you walk up, is London-Paris. Colchester-London is not reserved. So, based on the responders, I will just buy London-Paris from US, and pick up the Colchester portion and the tube in London when I get to Colchester.
Thanks to all, most helpful
Neal
(BTW the ES site (for the US) only allowed me to put in London or a few other major cities to Paris - another site let me put in Colchester but then told me I could not book that far ahead. The modern world of travel is great but not perfect yet.)

You are right to come to that conclusion - unless you are choosing an unusual day (such as Valentine's Day or english school holidays) then it is so, so much cheaper to book ahead for Eurostar. For some reason (there must be some sound business reason for it, and I try to remain unjealous!) the booking period from the UK is only 120 days whereas it is at least double that for the US.

I love Eurostar - wouldn't dream of going by plane now to Paris (or Brussels) -no miles of terminal walking and waiting for bags etc.,.