Buying Train Tickets - RENFE website
 

Hello, all...

I am slogging my way through the RENFE website -- my Spanish is so-so -- and when I put in dates for Seville to Granada on May 5, it tells me it could not find any trains.

"No se han encontrado trenes"

Is that because it is too soon to buy them (I hope!) or because they are all full?

Or perhaps, I'm not really following the procedure at all correctly. I found the train I wanted and clicked the shopping cart. The next screen ("Busca y compra tu viaje:") showed the correct citites and date, but when I click "Buscar" that's when I got the message.

Thanks.
SS

It's saying it can't find any trains because you can only buy tickets 62 days in advance-so wait another month and try again.

Thanks...will do.
SS

One more issue (which I might as well get straight now rather than wait till I'm ready to purchase) -- which of these two seat configurations means facing front:

sentido de la marcha

or

esplada a la marcha


Last time I took the Eurostar between London & Paris, I got that backwards (and that site was in English!!) and ended up calling London to get it right.

Just looking at their "Nuestros Trenes" section is baffling. It appears that before I pick seats, I have to know whether the train is going in the "A-B" direction or the "B-A" direction. It doesn't show that on the schedule -- hopefully it will at purchase time, so I can pick correctly.

SS

I haven't been able to make RENFE work for me the past two days. I bought tickets on it last year, but it's told me that it can't accommodate me. I'll try again tomorrow.

By the way, you can find a link that says RENFE English. Last year I found a very helpful post on Trip Advisor that told how to go through the whole process of ordering. I found it very helpful.

Pegontheroad- I posted the TA link earlier today when another poster started a thread on renfe issues.

Have you notified your bank that you will be attempting the purchase? It's interesting that last year I was able to make the renfe purchase without notifying my bank. But this year I received the infamous error message when making my purchase attempt (just yesterday). After a call to my bank I was able to get the purchase complete. It wasn't bad at all actually - and definately worth the deeply discounted web fares.


http://www.fodors.com/community/euro...the-trains.cfm

I have notified my bank and I have Verified by Visa. Actually I didn't get far enough to put in a cc number. Maybe I should try the Spanish page. I'll try again tomorrow.

Try 60 days before departure

A good fall back option for Spanish train tickets: www.raileurope-world.com

They sell at the same prices as renfe.com, including the cheap Web and Estrella fares, just with a 4 euro fee on top. But easier to use and no credit card hangups!

We were able to see the train schedule for +62 days, but we were told we cannot purchase until within that time frame. Found the schedules easy to use on their website. Try posting an earlier date (weekend or weekday as may apply) so you can get an idea of availability. Good luck.

Man-in-seat-61 - I thought I had read elsewhere that raileurope was now selling the discounted tix - thanks for the confimation - to me, a 4E fee sounds like a reasonable price to avoid the RENFE site!

Update - Gave up on Renfe after multiple tries with two different creadit cards and the card-people on the phone while I did it. The transactions never even reached the credit card's computer.

RailEurope's price was about 10% more...and they did give most of the discount fares -- but you can't choose seats on RailEurope...the main downside, since we had hoped to get a Mesa (table) group of 4 seats on one of the trips.

Oh well...I have all the tickets now, so I can relax.

SS

next time try www.rumbo.es or logitravel.com who also sell the tickets and people don't seem to have trouble using their cards with them.