chubbymamma

I wanted to purchase our tickets for Madrid to Seville upon our arrival in Madrid, but they appear to have sold out for that day, the only tickets available are for passengers with disabilities. Are any same day tickets released?

indyhiker

To the best of my knowledge, Renfe doesn’t release additional tickets the same day. I’ve read too many warnings about trains selling out on popular routes at peak times. But have you visited a Renfe ticket office? If there’s any chance, your best bet is to go direct to the source.

greg

Which date and time?

chubbymamma

Friday 06 April, everything after 8AM is sold out. There appears to be a train at 4 pm but when I click to buy it, it says sorry but there are no seats.

efarr99

Check loco2. I found seats.

greg

While many trains seems to be sold out, there are still many trains with available seats. You did not mention where you got your info. I looked at:

Renfe
www.petrabax.com
www.trainline.eu

Madrid Puerta de Atocha - Sevilla Santa Justa

8:00-10:32 AVE2080 - available
8:30-11:14 ALVIA - sold out
8:35-11:38 LD-AVE - sold out (trainline says available with Alvia-AVE change at Cordoba)
9:00-11:38 AVE 2090 - available
9:45-12:27 AVE 2494 - available
10:00-12:32 AVE 2100 - available
11:00-13:32 AVE - sold out
12:00-14:32 AVE - sold out
13:00-15:40 AVE - sold out (petrabax says AVE 2130 is available) (trainline says available with change at Cordoba)
13:30-16:05 AVE - sold out
14:00-16:32 AVE 2140 - available
15:00-17:21 AVE - sold out (petrabax says AVE 2150 is availabel)
16:00-18:30 AVE 2160 - available
16:30-18:55 AVE - sold out (petrabax says AVE 2360 is available)
17:00-19:38 AVE - sold out

chubbymamma

Many thanks for the detailed response, I had tried booking all of these intermediate trains on multiple sites, including petrabax and loco2, and was unable to - each time I got a message saying the itinerary was no longer available. I need 4 tickets, I also tried splitting them into groups of 2 thinking that may open up some seats, but no luck. I ended up booking a flexible ticket on the renfe website for a very late train in the hope that I might be able to change it later. An hour ago I tried changing some of the tickets in groups of 2, (searching for a group of 4 tickets shows no availability) while the site shows a lot more availability, it will not let me change my tickets - I may just have to make a new reservation and pay a (hopefully small) cancellation penalty on the old reservation.

PalenQ

Even first classes sold out? www.seat61.com often has great advice.

Christina

Why would Renfe release additional tickets the same day instead of selling them in advance? That doesn't really make sense, they want to sell out if they can, so holding tickets back could only hurt them.

I don't really understand the problem, I just looked and there are many tickets available on Renfe for tomorrow at several different times. And I put in four people, also.

And when I clicked to buy it, it did not say sold out, either, but I only tried two times to buy (8 am and 4 pm). They have at least 4 tickets available at 6:20, 7, 8, 13:10, 16:00, and four timees in the evening from 19:30 onward.

Now I wasn't going to try to buy them as I got to the point you had to put in your CC number, but nothing came up saying they were sold out. I used RENFE, I also wonder what website you are using.

chubbymamma

Even first class was sold out, and turns out I was not imagining it either. Our flight reached Madrid on time. Upon my arrival at Atocha station at around 11AM, I found out that even the 8PM train I had booked sold out subsequently. Luckily, 4 first class seats opened up on the 6:35pm train to Cadiz and we were able to get to Seville a little sooner. Our earlier tickets on the 8PM train were flexible and the entire amount was refunded. The Renfe crew at Atocha train station were sympathetic and allowed us the use of the preferente lounge for a great portion of the time (as opposed to only 2 hours before entry}. Our hotel told us later that there is some kind of political convention going on, that this is not a regular thing.
Funnily, I had been checking the trains for over a month and had found it odd that there was lower availability for our travel day, lower even than Good Friday the week before.

chubbymamma

It seems odd that tickets would sell out online, what would people who don't have access to the web do? Call perhaps? I don't know, it doesn't seem right to limit the customer base only to those with access to technology.
And yes, I went through that too, I would enter passenger info for all 4 travellers and hit 'continue' each time before it would give me a message saying the seats were not available. It would have been less frustrating to not have to go through that exercise each time. Of course I was trying the 4PM because that was the only one which did not show up as full when I checked on Renfe. Other sites like loco2 and petrabax showed more open trains, but would not let me buy the tickets when I tried (which, in hindsight, was a good thing - at least they were not overbooking and I did not end up with bogus reservations on a full train). But all is well now, thanks for your support,.

vipsha

aa

PalenQ

Seems like Renfe needs to put more capacty on those train routes. Or maybe an anomolay?

PalenQ

Seems like Renfe should put more capacity on those trains unless this was an anomaly?