tobyo

Hopefully this is an easy question. I was just re-reading Maribel's guide to buying Alhambra tickets online and she notes to NOT use a credit card that will expire before the date of our visit to the Alhambra and that you will not receive an email confirmation. Am guessing this last part has changed as I did get an email confirmation. I also used a card that expires in April (so noted in my email confirmation...) and our visit is in May. I'm hoping she only wrote this part about the expiration date because the transaction might not take?? My transaction did go through and now I'm wondering if I'll have issues when I go to retrieve our tickets the day of our visit?? Am I being too paranoid? I will receive the new card with a new expiration date some time soon, and definitely before we leave for Spain. really hoping someone here knows this.....

Also, I thought I read somewhere that you would need your PIN for when you swipe this same credit card to retrieve your tickets. but maybe I am confusing this with something else? does anyone know this too?

many thanks once again!!

Clifton

I think this is right, but hope someone catches me if I remember wrong. I was under the impression that at one point, there was a website set up and you were making reservations and holding them with a credit card, but you weren't actually performing a transaction until you got there.

There was a change to the websites issuing tickets awhile back, right around the time we went a couple of years ago. And I think at that time, the new website was actually selling tickets online, and you then were just picking up your tickets, not buying them, and the card date wasn't as relevant anymore.

I don't know Maribel's guide though but saw them mentioned here often. Not sure how up to date they are right now.

Incidentally, either way, there's a separate line for picking up online tickets that saves a lot of time.

tobyo

oh yes, the transaction did already take place. so maybe the changes were made after the guide was created (dated 9/09). that makes sense!

is that separate line to pick up tickets marked differently? I still wonder about the PIN, but I may also be thinking of something else because neither the email confirm nor the printout I made after I made my reservations say anything about a PIN to pick up the tickets. (now it's gonna bug me where I read that and what that was for....)

thanks so much!!

Clifton

I don't recall what the sign says, but I do know that at the time, the pre-paid ticket window was all the way on the left. It was the one that did not have long long lines.

Not sure about the need for the pin. It was a couple of years ago, but we pre-paid online and didn't have a pin for the card then. They may have added that. I do know that pins are more common with credit cards in other countries, such as in Europe - and in Australia where we moved to since the Spain trip. And now we have a pin with our CC, so I get what they're talking about. Just not sure if it's necessary, given how we didn't need on with our US card back then.

four_maccas

Hi tobyo,
I don't think you'll have any problems collecting your tickets with an expired card. We visited the Alhambra last December and a month before our trip we had fraudulent transaction on the card we had used to purchase the tickets and had to cancel that card and arrange for a new one to be issued. Took the cancelled credit card with us and the e-mail confirmation and had no problem getting our tickets when they swiped the obsolete card.

tobyo

okey doke, thanks!!!