Hi,

Raileurope is only a ticket retailer online and sells in name of RENFE tickets for their trains. 

RENFE is the train company in Spain that runs the train. 

I would suggest to not look at Raileurope, but it can also be possible that RENFE has a bad website, but both gets the same data from RENFE. 

Thanks - I understand the status of the various parties. The thing is that I can actually buy a ticket NOW on Rail Europe (checked all the way to the payment screen) so I assume that the empty seat exists right now. Will the local ticket office see the same empty seat? 

I guess we will not have anyone in the ticket office in San Sebastian right now but I am hoping for somebody with experience in Spain of the scenario I am looking at here.

I must say I’m as confused as you. Normally if the Renfe app shows it as full it is. I’m a bit dubious that RailEurope could really produce a ticket and reservations. I guess it will fail at the actual payment stage and decline the card as no seats available. On the other hand Renfe May hold back a small allocation for agencies. Let the community know how you get on!

If you are wondering if standard price seats are available surely the best source is online at Renfe.com.

If you are trying to buy reservations for use with a Global pass then that cannot be done via Rail-Europe.

Reservations for pass holders is notoriously difficult from outside Spain but a search in the forum will show the options.

Coming just back from ESpana-and having used RENFE with/out the usual problems here reported (for me mostly closed off gates for cercanias) I can assure you that it is as for now not yet possible to RES for those dates-or buy tickets. I bet somewhere in the system of that R-Eur you will also get 404 or whatever prob messages. It simply does not go that fast there. ONLY -and with a lot of fanfare-even on the national TV-news/novedades was disclosed that AVE=superfast trenes can now be RES for the holy dates untill in the Ano nuevo + feliz navidad (thats is 1/1 and Xmas).

I have also noted that esp on weekends, sabados+festivos, most long-dist trenes are indeed often very full/completo days ahead-ALL. Plus that it seems also in ES, catholic as it is, a long weekend for some holy day is coming-which also leads to full trenes.

Maybe, but I was not going to risk €100 to explore that possibility!

I think I will finish up trying the DB booking option when Xmas period tickets become available, if they will send tickets to UK. If that fails then I will try the Renfe phone line from the UK and then, within 3 days, pick up the reservations in Spain. In the last resort I will hopefully be able to secure reservations in the San Sebastián ticket office 36 hours ahead of the departure that I need to be on.

When there I will definitely be looking at what the relevant apps say and report back!

In case of misunderstandin, I am looking at availability NOW for a day or two in advance to assess whether they are likely to sell out more than a day or two in advance in December. I am finding per Renfe that they do sell out and I guess your experience is confirming that. So this raises a strong possibility that I would have problems on 18 December trying to book locally for 20 December travel on a key train. 

You can take it as certain that trains on the day you want will be full possibly many days before. There are few services on that route which is the key problem. DB don’t usually send tickets out you have to pick them up from a ticket machine in Germany. I didn’t know DB could book Renfe. 
 

Are you planning to use Interrail/ Eurail and just need a reservation or are you buying travel tickets? If you need just a reservation only Renfe can do this.

Please see How to get Reservations | Community (eurail.com) for DB and other options that I will exhaust before getting to Spain!

I contacted RailEurope customer services and they were kind enough to carry out a test transaction to confirm that they had availability when Renfe state ‘train full’.

Of course I cannot confirm that a person present in San Sebastian right now could buy a reservation for the 9.02am to Madrid next Tuesday 1 November but the low current RailEurope pricing for that ticket (£57.50) is indicative of there being lots of availability. Meanwhile Renfe show every train that day as full!

tranline.com also show availability. They also say "only one left” but I'm not sure if that's only 1 for that price or only 1 seat in that train.

In any case, it's quite strange. On the other hand, it's Renfe...

There is definitely something odd with that, every day for the next week (even today) shows almost full availability except on Nov 1.

It is at that price - and I have investigated further through trainline, as far as choosing seats for two people. Impossible to sit together!  So to be fair to renfe it does seem that almost all tickets are sold. 

I am guessing here, but trainline and RailEurope seem to have far more dynamic customer facing systems than renfe - so when somebody cancels renfe simply do not update their customer interfaces in real time to show a seat available. I hazard a guess that their ticket hall systems are updated real time so if I were there in San Sebastian I would be able to secure my precious reservation.

I have commented elsewhere that it seems true that almost every seat is sold.  A bit more research and I find that Tuesday - All Hallows Day - is a public holiday in Spain - not sure why so many should be catching a train though!

Because catholic people go to visit their dead relatives at cemeteries in this days (1.11. and 2.11.).