Non-Exchangeable, Non-Refundable

I travelled on Eurostar today and learnt something about non-exchangeable, non-refundable tickets in the process so thought I'd share in case it can be useful to someone else. Eurostar sells several types of tickets in several classes (Standard, Standard Premier and Business Premier). The higher the class and the more flexible the ticket, the greater the price. So the cheapest tickets are non-exchangeable, non-refundable standard class tickets. Once bought, such tickets cannot be exchanged against another on a different train, cannot be refunded in case you don't want to travel anymore but they can most certainly be upgraded to the next travel class up, as I did today. Of course, it requires you paying an upgrade price, which may not be cheap. The fact that you can upgrade any ticket makes sense because:

• An upgrade doesn't fall under the non-refundable rule because you're not asking for a refund, and in fact you're paying extra for the upgrade;
• It doesn't fall under the non-exchangeable rule either because you're not asking for an exchange as you still want to travel on the same train at the same date: you just want to upgrade your existing ticket.

So if you ask general information staff in the station and are told that you cannot upgrade your ticket, don't take their word for it, go to the sales counter. The only reason why you would not be able to upgrade (and pay Eurostar more money) is if the travel class you want to upgrade to is already fully booked on your train.