Buy a Ticket at the Station Ticket and Service Desk

Even with the modernisation of many train stations and the increase in eticket sales over the last few years, you will be happy to hear that it is still possible to buy regular point to point tickets for your train trip at the train station service desk. Just find the OV Service and Ticket Shop and ask the staff for help.  If you are at a small station then look for the 7/11 style store called the 'Kiosk' with Tickets & Service sign and you can get information and your ticket.  

  The single use tickets are printed as single use OV cards (OV- Openbaar Vervoer is the Dutch for public transport). These cards have a chip and antenna inside the card and allows you to check in and out at the barrier gates or at the free standing check in card readers when entering or leaving a station. Just tell the member of staff where you want to go and they will print the OV card. The date (as well as the route) will be printed on the card. To validate this ticket you need to ‘check in’ entering the station and when you arrive at your destination you ‘check out’ when you leave (inchecken en uitchecken). This is not really rocket science but I do get asked a lot how this works so I have created a separate post about this. You can find it here.

Fees for Buying your Ticket at the Service Desk : The disposable chipcards have a €1 supplement when purchasing them at the ticket desk and when buying them from the ticket machines.  Remember that there are two types of ticket machines in the stations and the OV - Chipcard can only be purchased from the NS ticket machine with the blue sign and white NS logo across the top. You can read more about all the ticket machines here.

  
The staff at the ticket desk can also sell you a ticket or seat reservation for International trains to Belgium, Luxembourg and German but for this service they will charge you a service fee of €3.50 per booking per person (to a max €10.50 per booking). This applies to tickets that do not require seat reservations. If you want a ticket and a seat reservation the service free is a whooping €7.50 per booking per person (to a maximum of €22.50 per booking). These fees exclude credit card fees. Such high international fee booking costs are supposed to drive you to online payment methods (you can home print a ticket or buy an e-ticket) but really they probably drive people to the Ryanair website. 

Opening Times of Ticket and Service Desk: If you are depending on making a ticket purchase at the ticket desk then be sure to double check they are still open when you arrive. You can find their opening hours of the major stations ticket desks here.