Same day Air tickets buying in Madrid
 

I will be arriving Madrid airport from Cairo at, 6:30Am on March 15, 2004. Plan to spend part of the day in the city, and, later, depart to Barcelona (5:00pm aprox.)The air tickets of Spanair (website) are the cheapest, with the restriction of buying tickets in Spain (78 Euros roundtrip). Am I taking a big risk buying air tickets to Barcelona on the same day arriving form El Cairo? Thanks for any info.

I travel to Barcelona for business, the flight I take from the states lands in Madrid and I buy a "shuttle" ticket at that point on Iberia. It's actually just like a train system. So my response would be NO I think you will be ok.

Lily

Hi Gilberto,

You don't say when you are returning, but on Iberia.com, I found a roundtrip leaving on March 15 and returning March 18 for 65 euros, so that is less than Spanair.

You can buy e-tickets online, there is no restriction about where you are buying the tickets. They send you an email confirmation, and then an official e-ticket. You print it out and bring it to the airport.

If you go to www.Iberia.com, at the top left of the page, there are two drop down boxes.

In the first one - the title says "Iberia en/in" and the box says "Espana". Leave that one alone.

The second box says "Idiom/Language" - change that to English (unless you speak Spanish, of course).

Then when you go to the part where you put in your departure and arrival cities, you will get the Spanish cities only.

Do some experimenting - some flights are cheaper than others, so you may have to hunt a little for the low price.

This is just my suggestion - I don't like leaving flights to the last minute - what if they are booked? What would your backup plan be? Iberia seems like it would be a good alternative since you can do it in advance.

Good luck!
Karen

Thanks LilyLace and Kaudrey for your prompt replies. I will consider de Iberia option. Answering Kaudrey's question, I'll be leaving Barcelona on 26th of March. Question: Do any of you know how many layover hours will I have in Madrid if I arrive at 6:30am from Cairo and board a Cruise in Barcelona no later than 4:00pm?

Ooops! I know there are 9:30 hours, but I'm actually asking for "free" hours, after immigration and returning to airport from Madrid.

Hi Gilberto,

This is JUST from my experiences in Madrid: There seem to be shuttles leaving for Barcelona every hour or less. Madrid is the easiest airport I have ever been in & out of as far as customs & imigration. Beware however that Iberia and Spanair both seem to never be as "reliable" as we Americans (I'm asssuming here) like our airlines to be. I'm really not sure what happens but it seems that these shuttles just kinda wait until they have enough people to fill a plane.....maybe someone else knows.....I've done this trip 6 times in the past 2 years and it's always the same routine. Sometimes you wait a little longer to leave sometimes you leave earlier.....no one seems to get flustered by it either way!