Having been staffed on a French client project over the last 18 months, I've travelled extensively on Eurostar between London and Paris (minimum weekly), as well as completed the odd trip to Brussels and Lille. Generally, I'd always aim to travel Eurostar rather than fly, because I live in central London, and instead of 40 mins to get to Heathrow, I can make it to Waterloo in 10 mins instead.

But there's a nice way around this for people regularly travelling to France over a prolonged period. Those booking leisure tickets over the weekends have this option anyway. The trick is to book your tickets in reverse to take advantage of leisure fares coming in from the French side. So instead of booking London to Paris Monday to Friday, book Paris to London Friday to Monday. Makes a massive difference. For the same price (give or take 20 quid), you can get a seat in the first class (not premium first) carriages, where not only does the leg-room double, but seemingly, so does the seat size. Some shorter carriages are also available, and are generally quieter. You get your free business reading material (ok, so sometimes this includes the Daily Mail, but we'll glide over that point). Your meal is served to you by the extraordinarily polite customer service reps (and let's face it, the uniforms are much better than the airlines have come up with). The only time I've seen a rep on the verge of losing her rag with a customer was to someone who, frankly, should have had a bung put in his mouth anyway. And before you think 'yeah it's easy to recommend upgrading if you aren't paying for the ticket', I can categorically tell you that I was convinced enough to pay for it out of my own pocket when travelling for leisure.

Becoming a carte blanche member is relatively easy, and the Eurostar frequent traveller programme does seem to be more generous than say, British Airways (who'll do anything not to give you member points instead of the new miles). It's worth using the Paris members departure lounge, because that's where you'll find the funky seating, free nuts 'n' stuff. Don't eat too much because the food you get with any first class ticket is better than airline equivalents, and you will pretty much finish it all, esp if you've been on the run.

Now, if Eurostar need to pay more attention sooner rather than later, it's in getting the trains refurbished, because some are looking pretty old/scraggy to me. The effects of this are more noticeable in standard, because the colour scheme is a paler one, so you get to see every single stain that hasn't come out of the carpets and seating, etc. Nevertheless, even carpets and seating in first are looking increasingly worn, and the whole effect doesn't create the greatest impression when people are forking out a couple of hundred quid a pop.

If Eurostar could extend its service to more locations, or hook up more conveniently to other destinations, this is something I'd increasingly look to use as an alternative to air travel for holidays in Europe too. Currently, travelling to Geneva for ski-ing, say, is still too long/too much of a faff, but it would be so much easier not to see my baggage torn to death by the airporate baggage handlers, when I can dump it on the train myself. I found travelling by rail far less tiring than air (no variations in altitude/dehydration to deal with or the amount of walking around terminals) for comparable travel times.

By the way, buying tickets to start in France is usually slightly cheaper because you also benefit from the French government subsidy for rail.