Hello all!

I am planning to visit Spain for about 2 weeks and plan to visit BCN, Seville, and MAD.

- BCN --> Seville --> MAD --> BCN
- With the interest of time, I am planning to fly from BCN to Seville, via the Vueling. I wanted to know how much in advance should I book to assure a decent deal, if not good.

- I plan to take the AVE from Seville to MAD to BCN. How soon should i Book these tickets?

- I will be traveling from 7th Mar to 30th March.

Thank you all for your input in advance

You can book now.
For example, at Renfe, March 30 MAD-BCN AVE 12:30pm departure is 40.55€ without seat assignment and 45.90€ with seat. If you waited until the last minutes, the same seat is 106.70€.

However, do you have to even return back to BCN? If you are flying, there is a bigger airport in Madrid

Thank you,

I have heard that booking directly through Renfe is a little finicky with US creditcards, any suggestions to overcome this?

In what respect is it finicky, should I try to book, and if there is a problem they will email me ASAP, or will it be a problem on the day of travel?

Any similar problems when booking air-ticket from Vueling?

Thank you

Solely because you have volunteered your nationality and you MAY have problems with your credit card,(next to nobody within Europe has problems), the most comprehensive guide to the RENFE site and alternatives - http://www.tripadvisor.com/Travel-g1...ts.Online.html

Book your train tickets with Petrabax.
You'll pay a bit of a surcharge, but the amount of time and hassle you will save will be worth it.
http://petrabax.com/

It is easy to book online with Vueling. If you are checking a bag take the "Optima fare" which allows one checked bag.

There is an AVE train from Barcelona to Sevilla that only takes 5.5 hours. I just checked on petrabax and it looks like you can get promo fares for $97 in March. I'd do that in a heartbeat over dealing with airports and airplanes.

I've been looking at both the Renfe and Petrabax sites, while trying to plan my own trip. I get a headache trying to convert the different prices to compare them. Maybe it's easier if you only have to think in two currencies. Hopefully the Renfe site will work for me when I finally get to book. Less than a week until the first date (June 20) goes up on their site I think.

I have also looked at the ALSA bus for some of my travel plans. It's much slower, but a lot cheaper.

Thank you all for sharing suggestions and experiences,

I got a headache just trying to figure out the Renfe site, I just ended up booking via the Petrabax for the trains, and booked via the Vueling. No problems so far!