Lyon - Barcelona 22 September 2023

I may be wrong, but it's looks like that advice applies only to SNCF trains, and not RENFE trains.

Worst that can happen is you get a fine and/ or thrown off the train. Best that can happen is you ‘get away with it’. Middle case is that they allow you to buy the reservation on board!

The efficient English speaking lady who served me, assured me this was exactly the case. They could NOT give me a seat reservation to a Renfe train. They could in Paris but not in Lyon.

According to her, it would be possible to buy my way out of this when I boarded the train.

I am willing to pay the fine, and play nice..

Wish me luck, the alternative is three shifts and 2 hours longer into the night...

I've read multiple report from people who did just that when boarding an AVE in France: speak with the staff and then pay the regular €10 fee once on the train. One such report mentioned there were 3 pass holders at just one door and probably more at the other ones. Hopefully RENFE will get the message that a better solution is needed, but until then, I'd advise to do it like described here. But don't forget to talk with staff before boarding.

I booked this train through Trainline.com, there's also an app in the Play store. I will depart this afternoon! 

Yes regular tickets are easily available through RENFE or Trainline but Interrail/Eurail passholder reservations (10€) are impossible to get unfortunately...

I would contact trainline in advance, they have a customer service, I am sure they can work it out. Have you tried that?

I am very curious how this worked out. Also used interrail for the first time since the invention of the internet and so far I’m under the impression european railway systems haven’t improved one bit!

I made seat reservations from bruxelles-midi to Valence TGV (10:17-14:48) and from Barcelona-Sans to Madrid (21:25-23:55) With the hopes to travel from the Netherlands to Madrid in +/- 15 hours. 

The missing link is AVI/AVE 9742… Valence TGV to Barcelona Sans 15:13-19:34… for which I too need a reservation but cannot find a way to make one. 🤪 

I’ll be in France next week and try a railway station but from what I heard here it would be impossible. I aso have a friend in Spain but it seems no-one had any luck with that either?

Impossible at French ticket counters. SNCF and RENFE aren't cooperating anymore at all (they're "at war" even).

Other AVE trains are available on interrail.eu so this issue lies entirely with RENFE. :(

Maybe it could work with your friend but staff will likely want to see the pass and ID.

Buying the reservation on the platform has been done many times by multiple users so that works. However on busy dates the train could be sold out so some risk remains.

What's your travel date ? Since you have a reservation afterwards I might suggest buying a regular ticket online so you don't get stranded in France (a shame it comes to this of course!). Maybe you could request a partial refund afterwards saying you had Interrail but couldn't book in advance (there's a tiny chance it could work...).

Thanks for the quick reaction thibcabe!

My travel date is may 19, which is pentecost and i know that’s quite qidely celebrated in France so i’m afraid the tickets will sell out. But we’ll see! So far haven’t given up on teying to make a reservation ahead of time. 
 

Surprisingly NS (dutch railways) international ticket office in Amsterdam wasnt able to make reservations. They recommended DB, as “the db has acces to different reservation systems”. 
 

it all reminds me of Terry Gilliams movie “Brazil” a kafkaesque dystopian movie 😅 Kafka would have loved modern rail travel! 

DB can sell domestic Spanish reservations but not those international AVE trains. The issue really lies on RENFE side, any news on that @Mukhammad @Camilo. ?

It would be incredibly helpful for this summer.

Now it seems that tickets aren't yet on sale for 19th May due to works around Nîmes and Montpellier. Looking at other planners the train seems to be diverted via Nîmes Pont du Gard and Montpellier Sud de France (LGV bypass) with the same arrival/departure times.

However at the same time RENFE website is having issues right now (more broken than usual!) so I can't say for sure.

Check back soon I guess. Good luck!

I'd say that Sunday is the least busy day of the holiday weekend so you have good odds to book a seat on the spot.

Oof! Thanks for the heads up, those bypasses would leave us stuck there. 🫣 Where did you find that info?

I tried the Münich haubtbahnhof international servicedesk, as I was  already there, and the clearly experienced clerk sighed what I already feared for; no way to make a seat reservation for that AVE train through DB in Germany. Gotta show up in time at the platform.

Today in the newspaper; The agressive low prices that the SNCF backed “Ouigo” train company maintains in Spain after the market was declared free, apparently lead to record losses for RENFE (-€109m euro in 2022). Seems like a plausible reason for the lack of communication between renfe and sncf. 🤔
 

They (annoyingly) cannot sell the international AVE trains as I said, only domestic journeys.

Yes Ouigo is the main reason they stopped cooperating...