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I know that it’s not possible to make Spanish reservations on the Interrail app and you have to make them in person at a train station in Spain (absolutely crazy!). I am planning to get to Spain on a Sunday, but want to take another train on the Monday, if I go the ticket office in the first station I arrive at in Spain, how likely is it that trains for the next day will be ‘sold out’? Or trains for 3 or 4 days later (especially the high-demand Madrid > Barcelona train)?  Thanks for any experiences/info.

PS I am travelling in late October

There are more options than booking in person in Spain, albeit still a bit limited:

Reservations for TGV/AVE France-Spain.

Reservations for Spanish domestic trains.

It's a bit too early to book for October, by the way.

Mad-Bcn has AVE fast trains ev hour-even a few more in the peaks, If you can have the least bit of some flexibility, I really see not much problems. Plus there are also now 2 competing low-cost others (not taking passes-but their fare might be cheaper as use a passday); OuiGo and AVLO with a 3d promised to come.

THE main bottleneck are the 2/day very long-dist trains Bcn-Andalucia-as each&any newbee seems determined to use those.

The reason for the method is with  a tiny little bit of thinking (money!) easy to understand: otherwise the whole world would book seat only and ´forget´ to also pay for the ticket. Thats why Tr-It and SNCF have withdrawn this method

RENFE also offers its own Spain RailPass-all virtual, which includes free REServ-as they manage the whole booking process.

Mad-Bcn has AVE fast trains ev hour-even a few more in the peaks, If you can have the least bit of some flexibility, I really see not much problems. Plus there are also now 2 competing low-cost others (not taking passes-but their fare might be cheaper as use a passday); OuiGo and AVLO with a 3d promised to come.

THE main bottleneck are the 2/day very long-dist trains Bcn-Andalucia-as each&any newbee seems determined to use those.

The reason for the method is with  a tiny little bit of thinking (money!) easy to understand: otherwise the whole world would book seat only and ´forget´ to also pay for the ticket. Thats why Tr-It and SNCF have withdrawn this method

RENFE also offers its own Spain RailPass-all virtual, which includes free REServ-as they manage the whole booking process.

Thanks mcadv. I’ve looked at the RENFE Spainpass but it costs as much as an Interrail!

I believe that SNCF still allow Interrail reservations online, for all French domestic routes which allow Interrail. I don’t know about Italy.

I don’t really understand what you mean about your ‘forget’ comment. If someone just books a reservation on an Interrail, they have no benefit to ‘forget’ to pay, because the travel is free. If they don’t have an Interrail, they also can’t ‘forget’ because I assume there is always some sort of ticket checking, either on the train or at the platform gates?? You might say that someone might book a reservation and then forget to take the train, or change their plans and not bother to cancel the reservation - but the fact that it costs E8 means this is less likely than if the reservation was free?

Mad-Bcn has AVE fast trains ev hour-even a few more in the peaks, If you can have the least bit of some flexibility, I really see not much problems. Plus there are also now 2 competing low-cost others (not taking passes-but their fare might be cheaper as use a passday); OuiGo and AVLO with a 3d promised to come.

THE main bottleneck are the 2/day very long-dist trains Bcn-Andalucia-as each&any newbee seems determined to use those.

The reason for the method is with  a tiny little bit of thinking (money!) easy to understand: otherwise the whole world would book seat only and ´forget´ to also pay for the ticket. Thats why Tr-It and SNCF have withdrawn this method

RENFE also offers its own Spain RailPass-all virtual, which includes free REServ-as they manage the whole booking process.

Thanks mcadv. I’ve looked at the RENFE Spainpass but it costs as much as an Interrail!

I believe that SNCF still allow Interrail reservations online, for all French domestic routes which allow Interrail. I don’t know about Italy. Nope SNCF stopped to sell reservations online at their page. But Belgian Rail offer it now on b-europe (but you need a PassCoverNumber) reservations for domestic services within France.
In Case of Italy they were the first that stopped to sell them online and now you can reserve Italian daytrains on oebb.at (the website of Austrian Rail) in the post “How to get Reservations :) “ you can find a manual :)

I don’t really understand what you mean about your ‘forget’ comment. If someone just books a reservation on an Interrail, they have no benefit to ‘forget’ to pay, because the travel is free. If they don’t have an Interrail, they also can’t ‘forget’ because I assume there is always some sort of ticket checking, either on the train or at the platform gates?? You might say that someone might book a reservation and then forget to take the train, or change their plans and not bother to cancel the reservation - but the fact that it costs E8 means this is less likely than if the reservation was free?
SNCF & Trenitlia used as excuse why they stopped to sell reservations Online that many travelers just bought the reservation for 10€ and never had a Railpass :) Which means it´s a fraud and they had to much trouble with that. (to avoid such problems some Companies ask for the PassCoverNumber before you reserve)

 

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