Eurostar passengers can from today purchase through-tickets to six German cities after the operator signed a deal with Deutsche Bahn.
A single ticket can now be purchased from Eurostar's website for an entire journey from the UK to either Aachen, Cologne, Bonn, Dusseldorf, Frankfurt or Munich.
Eurostar runs up to nine services per day to Brussels where passengers can change platforms to board a Deutsche Bahn high-speed ICE train to the German destinations.
A further six German cities — Hamburg, Berlin, Hannover, Essen, Bremen and Duisburg — will also be available exclusively through Eurostar's call centre.
Eurostar said that there would be no seat reservations on the Deutsche Bahn part of the journey and passengers would have the "flexibility to take a later train if they would like to spend time in Brussels".
Eurostar commercial director Nick Mercer said: "With over six million passengers currently travelling by air between London and Germany each year, we see huge potential to encourage more travellers to make the switch from air to high-speed rail.
"In partnership with Deutsche Bahn our fast, frequent and comfortable service to Germany will strengthen the links between the two countries and help transform the way people travel between these important financial and tourist hubs."
Eurostar recently revealed that it plans to start a route to Amsterdam, to start at the earliest in December 2016 (see news, September 27).
Graham Smith