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Hello. My family is traveling to Spain next week.

We have purchased a Mobile Pass and downloaded the Rail Planner App. We are taking 5 different trains throughout our trip. I was able to find and add 3 of the trains by selecting them from the list of routes. I had to manually add 2 of the train routes as they were not showing on the list of available trains. Does it matter that I manually added the trains? I want to make sure those trains are in fact available on the days we are needing them.

How and when can we make our seat reservations? Is it true that we cannot reserve our seats until we are at the train station or 24 hours in advance? I would like to do them now, so I don't have to worry about it once we are in Spain!

Thank you!!

It does not matter that you manually add trains. Do check for app updates every now and then, since they can bring updated timetables. That is, if Spanish railways (RENFE) can be bothered to send their updates to the European Timetable Centre (which is not always the case, unfortunately).

Spanish railways have made it quite difficult to book their trains. Booking reservations for Spanish domestic trains is currently not possible online. You can buy these reservations:

  • at a Spanish ticket office
  • possibly at Lisboa Santa Apolónia (they're reported to have a Spanish system there)
  • at a Deutsche Bahn ticket office. You need to provide the train number.
  • via Deutsche Bahn by phone (+49 30 2970). Collect at a DB ticket machine or receive via post (€5.90 per order). You need to provide the train number.
  • Via a Swiss ticket office or by phone (scroll down to Switzerland).
  • Via RENFE by phone, with limitations, see this page (scroll down to Spain).

The good thing is that domestic Spanish pass reservations are not quota-controlled, so you can book seats until the train is full. You can also buy all your reservations at the first Spanish station that you get to. You certainly don't have to do that at the departure station of each train and you can also do that long in advance.
Train numbers can be looked up via www.raileurope.com, but not too long in advance, since RENFE don't publish their timetables a long time in advance.

Thank you so much!

So, just to clarify, we do need seat reservations in addition to our mobile pass tickets? The trains don't have an option to not reserve a seat and just get placed where they have available (like they do on airplanes)? If they do, we are a family of 5, would they keep us together? We will be able to reserve our seats for all of our planned trips at the same time once we are at the Madrid-Puerta de Atocha? All of our trains are within Spain (Madrid-Seville, Seville-Cadiz, Cadiz-Madrid, Bilbao-Barcelona and Barcelona-Madrid).

Again, thank you so much for the information!!

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