caniac,
you need your printed ticket and you can, either print it yourself in your own computer or print it in some new printing machines at the train station, with either the credit card you used to buy the ticket or the reservation number.
I will recomend you to print your ticket in advance as this printing machines are brand new and just started a few days ago and not every station has the machines working.

car,

Do you know how to reprint these tickets from the renfe site?

Thanks!

caniac,
I'm not sure I understand well why one of your tickets printed and one didn't.

How did the first one print and the other not print at all?

Were they 2 separate purchases?

If so, when you made the 2nd purchase, did you click "imprimir billetes" as you did the first time? That's a necessary step.

Did you receive a localizer number and a ticket number for the 2nd ticket?

If so, you can take one of those numbers and the same c.c. you used for that purchase to the Renfe office at the Madrid airport when you arrive in Spain (if coming into Madrid).

There's a Renfe office outside int. arrivals downstairs in Terminal 1 and another in Terminal 4.
Giving them this info, they can print that ticket out for you.

bump

Maribel,

I purchased the tickets a couple of weeks ago from my laptop through a wireless connection. I don't remember seeing a bar coded ticket that I needed to print. Maybe I had a pop-up blocker enabled that prevented this?

After purchasing my tickets, I realized that I failed to change my 11 year old son's ticket to the "nino" fare. After a phone call to renfe, I was informed that I needed to cancel my son's ticket and repurchase a new one. This transaction worked OK for me, but when I was done, a ticket (with bar code) popped up on my screen and I printed it off. This new ticket was purchased from a different computer. My lack of Spanish comprehension may have caused me to miss the option in the original transaction, but the repurhased "bar coded" ticket just appeared on my screen (for print) when I was done.

If I can get them reprinted in Spain, then I will not worry about it too much. I do have the localizer number and I received an email confirmation for each ticket. It would be nice to get them reprinted here before I leave however.


Thanks again for all your help.

Caniac

Hi Caniac,

the problem was the pop-ups. After buying the tickets, there is a pop-up window that brings the pdf file with the tickets. I usually (since a couple of years ago) save the file to my computer and so I can reprint it afterwards.

I don´t think you can regenerate later on if you haven´t printed it or save it the first time.

BTW, Renfe has announced that they are going to revamp their sales system due to the amount of complaints received (you should have seen the papers and hear the radios last Friday here in Spain ... they should have been logging to Fodors so that they would have known what to expect about that lousy system ...).

Bye, Cova

caniac,
It might have been the pop up but I'm still a little puzzled.

I just purchased 2 yesterday online. After I clicked to purchase and saw the message that Renfe was communicating with my bank, I saw another message (in Spanish) after my purchase has been approved, advising me to save the info, and a box bottom right that says "imprimir billetes".

I clicked on "imprimir billetes" to download my ticket in pdf file, printed it and saved it to my hard drive. If I loose my hard copy, I just print another one (that I've learned well!!).

Since you do have the email message and the locater number from your transaction, just have the missing one printed at the Renfe office at the airport upon arrival.

Currently there is no way online to regenerate that ticket. I've tried.

As cova says, Renfe is changing their online system daily (they just loaded new 9€ one way AVANT fares for Madrid-Segovia).

But it's still plagued with glitches.

Some that I've experienced:

when I typed my name and address to purchase, several letters were missing-they just couldn't be typed in.

once, when printing my ticket, only the departure station printed at the top-everything else was blank.

I sent it to another computer with the most recent version of Adobe Acrobat reader, and it printed properly.

when I scrolled down the "destino" box to purchase a 2nd AVE ticket, the Segovia Av option disappeared, first no Segovia at all, then on another try, it appeared as Segovia Guiomar (which is the actual name of the station).

when I tried to exchange a ticket from regular fare to Web fare, clicking on "cambios y reembolsos"...

I put in both my localizer and ticket number and tried to fill out the subsequent necessary info, "origen", "destino", "fecha de salida", email, but "destino" drop down box wouldn't work.

I switched from Firefox to Opera, and it worked.

So the "new improved" www.renfe.es is now the site I love to hate! (used to be SNCF...)

Maribel, SNCF is very particular (they 're french ! ;) ) but you can't compare with RENFE, it's not fair ! The natural comparison is with TrenItalia , always full of surprises LOL

caniac,
you can have your ticket reprinted in any renfe office.
Please note that it is not in any renfe station. But just in the major ones, that sell AVE tickets.
For travelers intending to buy the tickets in Terminal 4 , note that this office only opens in the morning.
So this is my latest small fustration with Renfe I couldn't make the internet site work so I decided to buy the tickets I needed for next weekend when passing through Terminal 4, flying to Paris, I then found out that this office only opens in the mornings and therefore I missed my reservations deathline.
I called Renfe again to renew the reservations to try and buy the tickets but of course the train I wanted was already sold.
I AM ALREADY MISSING IBERIA'S BAD TREATMENT.

caniac-
The same thing happened to me - my ticket did not print because I had the pop-up blocker on. Anyway, I went to the station and the agent showed me how to get the ticket printed out on the self-service e-kiosk! Very easy and took less than 1 minute. I think the kiosk only is in Spanish, but basically you just type in your localizer code and the ticket pops out! I was so worried that I arrived at the train station 30 minutes early, so i ended up with plenty of time to spare.

Thank you to everyone for all the help! I have a couple of additional questions.

1) We scheduled our AVE train ride from Madrid to Seville several hours after landing in Madrid. If we arrive at the train station 1-2 hours early, will renfe allow us to get on an earlier train?

2) We want to visit Cordoba while in Seville. One option was to get off in Cordoba for a few hours and then catch a different train to Seville. Can we exchange our Madrid to Seville tickets for a Madrid to Cordoba and a Cordoba to Seville ticket -OR- can we just get off the train early? (I read another post that said there were lockers in Cordoba's bus station!)

Thanks again!

caniac-

AFAIK, if you have already purchased your AVE tickets, you cannot just hop on an earlier train. You'll need to go to the ticket office and see if they can change it. Depending on the fare you purchased (is it a discounted one?) you may or may not be able to exchange it.

Since all tickets come with an assigned seat, you cannot just get on a different train than the one you bought without exchanging it. They have pretty tight security in train stations in Spain and they inspect your train tickets before you can get on (very unlike other European countries I've been to).

So if you want to stop in Cordoba, again you'll need to change your ticket or otherwise you won't be allowed to get on in Cordoba to get to Seville.

Hi,

I've carefully printed out and read this helpful thread as well as the link 'How to use the Spanish Railway website' and am trying to buy tickets Seville to Madrid on 7/4. I am 62 days out (it won't allow a purchase for 7/5) but the AVE train schedule for that day (and for the days 6/29 through 7/4 only display one departure time (16:15) when previous days (6/28 and earlier) show the full schedule (trains leaving just about every hour).

I didn't read this as being one of the many possible glitches one could experience with the renfe site. Should I just wait another day to log on to see if the full schedule pops up? Not sure what the problem is, what do you suggest I do?

Mike

mike,
Typically it takes renfe a while to load their summer schedules (we've run into this problem every summer), so I'd just wait a few days. Be patient and they'll eventually get all the departures loaded into the system.

thanks Maribel, I will wait and try again later!

Can anyone stand one more question on this thread?

My train departures have not been loaded onto the system yet (though it is well within the 62 day window), so I check in periodically as Maribel suggested. However, I went back one and two weeks (for the same departure day, Friday) to see if the tourist web (60% off) and estrella (40%) fares were available for the departure times I was interested in. What I found was interesting, leading to some questions.

I saw that no web fares were offered for six morning departures, but four estrella fares were offered. [Since the Tourist/Estrella fare is the same as the First Class/Web fare, I looked at First Class also]. Also found no web but four estrella fares offered.

Going out one more week earlier, only one departure (the 6:45am) offered an estrella fare, and no web fares.

This suggests that to get the estrella fares, you need to get in line early because they will sell out [duh]. However, I'm wondering if for some departures there will never be a web fare offered (sort of like some airlines which during busy periods never offer the lowest fares no matter how early you try to buy them). Or, another question (though I doubt it) is whether web fares are loaded later and after estrella fares are loaded, or are they all loaded into the system at once? This would tell us whether we should wait or not to see if web fares miraculously appear.

I'm wondering if others have experienced the same situation and how they handled it. Thanks,

Mike

Mike, there are less "web" fares seats than "estrella" fares, so it is normal that they "fly".

Also, I suspect that it will be extremely difficult to find a web fare in, let´s say, the 6:00 am train from Madrid to Barcelona or viceversa (and if they have ever existed, they have probably been bought by the frequent travellers on those times).

You are looking into travelling on the first friday of July. Quite a lot of people will be getting the AVE that day and the following weekend in order to begin their holidays. It seems that there might be plans to increase the number of trains, and that´s why nothing is appearing yet.

Anyway, the way they upload the trains in the website drives me mad. I am trying to purchase a ticket from Cáceres to Madrid, and I caný look further than mid-June, although I know that the train I want will be running on that precise Sunday ... It´s awful.

Bye, Cova

mike,
Both the web and estrella fares would be loaded at the same time-the web fares wouldn't come later. But...

I agree with cova. It's maddening the (slow) way they load the fares. And as cova says, the "prime time" departures may have very few or even no web fares available. They're not obligated to offer web fares on every single departure, just some.

The best advice I can give is just to check Renfe daily and pounce when you see a discounted fare finally loaded into the system for your date.

Thanks Cova and Maribel. I stand prepared to pounce at a moment's notice.

Cova, good luck with your Sunday trip, hope both our departures get loaded soon.

Mike

GOOD NEWS: the fares and schedules have been loaded for my departure.

BAD NEWS: After entering all the informatioin several times, the system keeps saying: 'The process cannot continue right now. We apologise for any inconvenience.'

I guess I have to just keep at it until they accept my info...