Hello everybody, I am trying to book some train travel in Spain this spring. More specifically, one way Madrid/Seville, o/w Valencia/Barcelona and o/w Barcelona/Zaragossa. The Renfe site allows you to purchase either 1st or 2nd class tickets but wont let you to reserve a seat until after the purchase. The question is: do they charge extra to reserve a seat? I have traveled with a Eurail pass before and the Rail Europe or Eurail sites do charge you extra to reserve a seat with them (up to $33 per person in 1sr class). I wanted to take that extra charge into consideration when deciding whether to buy 1st or 2nd class.
Thanks

This is a good question. As I recall - from my own experience, I've had both experiences in that I was given the option to choose my seat - and also, was not. Now I don't recall why. I've got to say that there's so much legroom for 2nd (or 1st) class seats that it's easy to get past your seat-mate - unless they have their tray-table down, of course. Or maybe you want a forward-facing seat only or a seat which does NOT have a table in the middle (2-forward facing seats, a table in the middle, and 2 back-facing seats). I'm not a fan of the seats with the table in the middle, myself, unless I was traveling with 3 other friends and we occupied all 4 seats. Otherwise, you'd have to play "footsy-tag" withe the person across from you.

But in short - or in long, as the case seems to be, I don't believe RENFE charges extra to reserve your seat, no.

Let us know what you find out, please!

Saludos, MadridMan

Two questions about RENFE (also planning some train rides in May):

(1) Has anyone had trouble with a normal US credit card on their site? (Thalys and Trenitalia occasionally have given me difficulties requiring starting the ticketing process over from scratch, even though I alerted my credit card company about the purchases)?

(2) How do you tell the difference between seats facing the front and seats facing the back. On the diagrams in the "Nuestros Trenes/Dónde está mi asiento?" section of the website, there are two deisgnations:

-- Sentido de la marcha
-- Espaldo a la marcha

Which is which?

Thanks.

SS

patient with Renfe its a bad site, improve but still bad, just keep trying.
sentido de la marcha is as the train goes you see the front, espaldo a la marcha is when the train goes you have your back to it.
cheers

The Renfe site is nothing but advertisement for Xanax, it will give you a nervous breakdown trying to figure things out, and I don't even have the language barrier. Their credit card processing is slow at best, and if you are trying to use AMEX it works only 20% of the time. VISA, M/C are a little better.
As for the direction of the seats I suggest you completly disregard the way they tell you they are facing since the trains pull into most stations one way and then pull out in reverse, so its almost impossible to say which way you will be facing in the end.
What I do is I book whatever seats seem to have empty spaces around them and then change to whatever seat is empty once the train starts moving.
Did I make any sense? Its friday happy hour here in Miami and I'm on my second Macallans so sorry if I ranted.

Are any of the tickets refundable or exchangeable on AVE, Altaria or Alvia?

[Miamiajp...thanks for the warning, and sorry to hijack your original post.]

I had problems with my credit card (GM Mastercard) and my travel companion had to put our tickets on hers. I will be purchasing tickets for a one way trip this summer and hoping that I can do it successfully this time. Please keep us posted on your progress.

Madrid in May: Don't quote me, but I think you can exchange your tickets. Hopefully someone with first hand knowledge will post.

miamiajp...re: seat direction.

I am aware that the trains reverse direction in many of the stations.

However, the Madrid-Sevilla AVE seems to only stop in Córdoba (after the first 2/3 of the trip), and the Córdoba-Madrid run appears to be non-stop -- so it's probably worth the trouble to start out facing the right way on some of our trips. [Our four trips are: Madrid-Sevilla, Sevilla-Granada, Granada-Córdoba, Córdoba-Madrid]

So...that leads me to my question: Can you select seats on the AVE trains on the RENFE website? (The RailEurope site, while easier to use, does not allow it.)

Thanks for your patience.
SS

Another question:

The RENFE site seems to have special fares. There are three icons with the following explanation...that really doesn't explain what each means.

Le recordamos que estas tarifas son limitadas y varios clientes pueden estar solicitándolas simultáneamente. Su disponibilidad queda sujeta a la formalización de la compra.

My bad Spanish: "Remember that these prices are limited and some customers can be buying [trying to buy] them simultaneously. Availability is subject to your actual purchase."

[I think that last sentence means that they might disappear while you are working on the purchase and might not be there when you actually click to complete the purchase because someone else beat you to it and they're all gone now.]

The three icons are:

-- A purple/white W
-- A tan star
-- A purple/white icon I can't decipher.

Can someone tell me what they are? Any special limitations? I assume these are early-purchase prices of some sort that sell out quickly.

I can't find a key on the page.

Thanks.
SS

I just bought AVE tickets through the RENFE site so hopefully I can offer some help or at least commiserate in your pain. I am not sure if this applies to Cercanias or AVANT trains since I only purchased AVE tickets.

First off, there is no charge for seat selection through the RENFE site. There is a box you have to check in the purchase process to be able to select your seat, but then you select it a little bit later in the process. I'm sorry I don't remember exactly where it is, only that it is real easy to miss.

As far as the other sites to book tickets through, I am not sure about Eurail. I only poked around there a little bit but it seemed more hassle than the RENFE site. Raileurope was real easy to use but I think they wanted a $18 surcharge per ticket to go through them. At that price, I went the headache route through RENFE's site.

As far as cancellations, I think I read on RENFE's site that internet purchased tickets cannot be refunded but I went back and tried to find it again and couldn't. I may have read it on a different site and it may be old info. In the "mis viajes" page on RENFE after I purchased my tickets, there is a link to cancel or change tickets.It only said tickets paid for with cash are non-refundable. Fees Apply. So I am not sure on this one.

Sorry for the novel but hopefully I am answering all of the above posted questions. The symbols described refer to different discounts. The purple w/ white w is I believe a web only deal but they were gone for when I purchased tickets. The gold stars are a web discout as well. The purple unidentifiable symbol is for a discout based on purchasing the table seats. There is only a discount for 2, 3, or 4 tickets and the discount is greater for 3 and 4 people. The web discounts are only for a certain percentage of seats in each class and when they are gone they are gone so you can probably save some money purchasing in advance. I think it said tickets are available 62 days prior.

US Credit Card (own header due to lengthy post Sorry!)

About credit cards, this is the biggest hassle. There are several factors that could make it not work.

First off, I read on a different site that you cannot make a purchase through RENFE's site between 2300 and 700 hours Madrid time. I found that to be true.

My understanding is that you must use the spanish site and not the translated version in order for it to go through. Not difficult if you know spanish. If you don't know spanish, I suggest opening two internet windows at the same time, one in spanish, the other english so you can follow along in with the english terms but input into the spanish one as the format is exactly the same.

As far as getting a US credit card to work, I'll tell you everything I did so it hopefully saves you some trouble. First off, I tried to make the purchase prior to notifying my card company of my intent to travel. The transaction didn't go through and resulted in my card being suspended altogether for "fraudulent use" until I called them and confirmed it was me trying to make the purchase. This was a VISA card hosted by Chase Bank.

So, I called my credit card company, removed suspension, and notified of intent to travel. (At this point is was after 2300 hrs Madrid time and transaction didn't go through giving me a different error message. Note the site with still let you take the time to input everything before telling you it doesn't work.)

Next day, I tried with a different card that I had already notified my intent to travel with. I used this card because they only charge 1% surcharge for foreign transactions. This was a VISA through a US only bank. I did not ever get this card to work.

Back to using the Chase VISA. I input everything and attempted to make the purchase but was denied again. At this point, the RENFE site says that it is out of their control and up to your bank for approval. After the denial, I didn't have to re-enter everything, only my card information. What I ended up doing was having everything entered, called the number on the back of my card and hit submit while I was on the phone with the bank. They could see the transaction in real time and were able to authorize it.

Long story short, you may have to use different cards and plan on phoning your bank during the transaction process.

I can't say it is going to be this way for every card, but that was my experience I just went through over the past three days to finally get my tickets purchased.

Hopefully this novel helps.