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I will be arriving in Spain September 21.  Eurail says in order to get a seat reservation for a Spanish train that isn't available on their website, I need to go to a train station when I arrive in Spain or call the Renfe office. 

My questions are:

1.  I want to go from Granada to Ronda on the 29th and there is only one reasonable train per day (2 hrs. vs. 4½ hrs.).  Is it highly likely that I will be able to get a seat reservation on that train on the 29th by going to the train station in Madrid on the 21st? 

2.  The Eurail website says: “Pre-reserving a seat is possible. You will receive a PNR code which you must use to pick up and pay for your reservation at a local station ticket office, making sure to show your Eurail Pass. After the booking, you must collect your reservation within 72 hours. The reservation can only be booked up to 24 hours before the train departure time. After this time the pre-reservation will expire." 

This makes no sense to me.  How can I collect my reservation within 72 hours when it can’t be booked up to 24 hours before the train departure time?  Can someone explain what this means?

¡Gracias!

Thank you for both answers.  They each helped me answer my questions. 


Searching on https://www.renfe.com/es/en now for next Friday 25 Aug there is availability which is a good indication that there should be space 8 days in advance on the same trains next month.

 

The pre-booking thing with RENFE is a very silly procedure, rather than running a proper telephone reservation booking you can only pre-book a train only within 72 hours but more than 24 hours of it’s departure but must go to a station to actually reserve and pay for the temporarily held seats.


If you make a reservation by calling RENFE you must collect the reservation within 72 hours, but no later than 24 hours before the departure of the train. This means that if you call RENFE 72 hours before the departure, you must collect the reservation within 48 hours. 


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