minamax10

Greetings!

We are traveling form Seville to Madrid on a Saturday in October.
Two possible trains are at 8.45am and 9.50am. Both AVE trains.

I've been checking Renfe site from time to time. For a long time, my date was not available and I could only see tickets to the end of Sept. Now, looking at the site I see that October and as far as December (!) bookings are available. I hoped to get the tickets when they are first released in order to secure the best fare, but now I cannot tell whether the prices quoted for October are the best OR if they will go down a bit later?

Am I correct to understand that Saturday mornings (especially the 8.45am train) are busy time to travel? I guess more people heading out for the weekend? I see that midweek and even Sunday prices on average are lower.

Now, I see Turista Promo ticket for some of Aug-Sept-Oct Saturdays to be at 59.65EUR/person. Whereas in December it's 34.75EUR. Does it mean that I missed my timing to purchase the tickets at lower rates for October?

AND, even though I see the 59.65EUR/person for Turista Promo ticket when selecting 1 person. I am only getting 75.50EUR Turista Flexible when checking the price for 7 tickets which we need. Does it mean that the train is already pretty much filled up? And my only option is to pay the full fare?

Thank you!

Man_in_seat_61

With any form of dynamic pricing, you should generally assume prices only go UP.

95% of the time they do indeed go up as departure approaches. Only occasionally are more cheaper prices released, if sales are slower than predicted by the yield-management system. But you don't bet on a 5% chance with the odds stacked 95% against you.

People in Europe use trains to live their daily lives - visit Granny, go shopping, attend a business meeting - all things we arrange days or weeks ahead, not months and months. So would a train in October be almost full when it's only July? Very unlikely unless that's the train that gets 10,000 supporters in city A to a football match on that specific date in city B!

As long as booking is fully open and you can see all the prices, it's no good arguing with the system, just pick the best price/convenience solution for you.

minamax10

Man_in_seat_61, thank you for the reply. If I am not mistaken, I've done a lot of reading regarding RENFE on your site It was extremely helpful when I was getting ready for my first experience with Spanish high speed trains in 2014. Thank you!

This time, sadly, I see that our chosen date is not really good for getting any sort of deals. I also noticed that we can get better price for the Preferente class @ Promo 60.90EUR or @ Promo Plus 65.80EUR, then Turista class @ Flexible rate of 75.50EUR. Actually that was the case in 2014 too. once you try to buy for a larger group, then Tourista class would come up with only flexible rate. So we needed up traveling Madrid-Barcelona using the Preferente Promo Plus fair. I guess we'll have to do the same thing this time.

Man_in_seat_61

Try splitting the booking into smaller groups. If there are only a few tickets left at cheaper price levels, the system can't use them if they aren't enough for the whole booking.

Like many airline and rail booking systems, it cannot mix and match different price levels within one booking.

minamax10

Man_in_seat_61, indeed that's what I had to do in 2014. We bought 12 tickets at Promo + and 3 tickets at Flex price. But I did have to do them separately. I will challenge that for this year as well. Will update when it's done and tickets confirmed! thank you!