Anyone familair with the RENFE website?
 

Anyone used RENFE to book rail tickets for travel in Spain recently?

I'm repeatedly getting a message that the overnight train for the return leg of my journey (Sat 15th June) is 'unavailable' 'please check back later'.

Does this mean seats haven't been released yet, or they've all sold out already?

It's baffling because the days either side and the previous and following Saturdays have availability.

It's been like this for about 4-5 days now and I can't work out what's going on.

And all the time my flight option increases in price too.....

From where to where?

Paris to Barcelona and Barcelona back to Paris.

I got as far as start purchase for June 15.

https://venta.renfe.com/vol/listaTrenesElipsos.do

That's about as far as I want to go without buying a ticket.

Yes - that's not a great deal of help, tbh. I know how to use the website. I just wondered if anyone else who had previously booked tickets on RENFE had encountered such a message and knew whether it meant the seats have all gone already or whether there's some sort of delay in getting it opened for sales...

There are seats available on the 14th and 16th for the Barcelona-Paris train, but Friday the 15th and Wednesday the 13th show nothing.

Yep, shows that the Elipsos train from Barcelona to Paris is sold out on 15 June.

"Yep, shows that the Elipsos train from Barcelona to Paris is sold out on 15 June", which seems strange, but then who knows...

I can't see the words 'sold out' anywhere. Just 'not available'. And I had an alert set up for when this particular journey was released for sale, which never showed up in my mailbox, so I'm really struggling to believe it really is 'sold out'.

Sent a brief email to RENFE asking what was going on and they replied that trains sometimes show as 'not available' when timings and prices are being confirmed and that it doesn't mean there definitely will or won't be a train on that day. Which seems odd for a Saturday, but anyway....

It's a huge pain, because all the time the prices for the other legs of the journey, or the alternative by air, increase as the cheap seats sell out.

I know there's also going to be new high speed day time service launched in April, so wonder whether it's worth the gamble of booking cheap overnight outward train while it's still available, then booking the daytime TVG when it comes up. Or whether to just bite the bullet and sign myself up for Ryanair and their paltry 10kg baggage allowance...

Think I've solved it......

Looks like there might be engineering work for about 5-6 days in June, with trains running every other day, rather than daily.

So I need to either book a flight instead or extend my stay by a day and get the Sunday train home.

Well done me :-)

Why are you buying RENFE tickets so early and on line??? SOOOOO many things could happen btwn now and then.....including the train line not ready to publish timetables(not available) and associated fares. Only reason to buy so far ahead is to secure some great deals.

Due to low public demand for their AVE routes, RENFE is revising the fares and setting some dramatic reductions. That may be part of the delay in posting and making those available so far ahead of time.

It's not massively early - it's only about 9-10 weeks. Also, Eurostar has been available for a while, so I don't want to leave it in the hope of snagging a cheap deal on the Spanish bit only to pay more than necessary on the UK-France bit.

Logical.

Right - seats for that Saturday train became available this evening. So 'not available' does not mean sold out - just not finalised yet.

I am all booked.

Thank you for your sensible comments Robert and Lincasanova.

The rest of you were useless and won't be getting a postcard.

Or a sombrero. Or straw donkey.

Enjoy your trip! The early bird gets the good prices on Renfe, as you well know!

>>Or a sombrero. Or straw donkey.<< RM67-- I thought you were going to Spain, but appearently you are heading out to Mexico?

Como se dice moron en Ingles?