The Spain reservation incident

  • 14 July 2022
  • 3 replies
  • 115 views
F

Hey there,

 

We are two travelers from France and I personally wanted to share our experience with Renfe in regards of booking a journey from Barcelona to Madrid.

I know, I’ve read a lot here about how Renfe is not conciliatory about booking trains from abroad. But come one, with tried every single option listed in the Interrail page for reservations (we even contacted Deutch Bahn but they never responded) and everything lead to nowhere. The lady at the phone from Renfe (who was very kind with us) told us that it was impossible for us to book this train in advance since we can’t withdrow our tickets more than 24h in advance. She couldn’t believe herself that there is such a lack of solutions for travelers like us.
And here we are, 24h in advance, uncertain about whether we will make it or not in time to Madrid. Not to mention the cost of hostels and AirBnB in Barcelona…

Is there anyway we can collectively notify Renfe that their service is not at all conveniant for Interrail users (I guess they already know and don’t care that much, but you know...) ?
Anyway, I’m kind of concerned now and just wanted to share if anyone has something to share either.

Thanks for reading !
 

3 replies

M
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Userlevel 7
Badge +5

Oh come on-does your national society in this hexagone care anything about ´les voyageurs´? They only have changed gréve to ´mouvement social´-as if words change everything. And made yet again some other website that confuses about anyone who is used to sites of railways. And have nasty regions that suddenly decide to not accept any pass in its TER-trains. Which was revoked after a week.

Neither will RENFE listen-you are nr very last-you pay hardly a cent. What they will say if pestered too much: we stop taking passes alltogether. And as apparently the ES govmt has decided to make the trains free -for people who live there and more restrictions to keep away the foreigners-the situation will likely even be much worse in the last half of this yr.

But in fact if I read your note nothing is certain yet-you are not in ES and have not tried it there-with hourly trains AVE and a recent other post that tomorrow had certainly empty space in several, it should not be that hard

 

F

Never said SNCF is not a problem either, I guess you missed the point. Why would you make a comparison when it’s not at all related ?
And my goal is by no means to say that Renfe is a problem is its whole.
The fact is that all our other trains are booked and we arrive late at Barcelona. We can’t connect from there and maybe you can understand that it is a problem when you have a low economy.
We will see this tomorrow.
 

seewulf
Rank
Userlevel 7
Badge +14

Never said SNCF is not a problem either, I guess you missed the point. Why would you make a comparison when it’s not at all related ?
And my goal is by no means to say that Renfe is a problem is its whole.
The fact is that all our other trains are booked and we arrive late at Barcelona. We can’t connect from there and maybe you can understand that it is a problem when you have a low economy.
We will see this tomorrow.
 

The only solution is dont travel there with Interrail ;) or Eurail :) The companies get money from Eurail (If less traveleres use it in Spain it means less money for them ;) and maybe then they think about their service ;) ) 

Few years ago the British Railcompanies wanted to leave Eurail & Interrail but within one days they made a u turn and stayed after they noticed how many tourists they will lose :D 

Similar happend yet with the Regionaltrains in south france that published on short notice Interrail & Eurail wont be valid on their regionaltrains from 1st July (It wasn´t SNCF it was the region that said that. As they are the ones that pay for the regionaltrains) Luckily they made even a full return and said they will stay in the Validity area (i assume they even noticed how many tourists they would lost) As the regionaltrains in that region are a cheap way from Spain to Italy (Barcelona - Cerbere - Montpellier - Marseille - Nizza - Ventimigglia - Genoa)

I´ am not working for Eurail or Interrail i just share my knowledge here. Please ask in the Community and not via private message as this is the fastest way to get an answer. I prefer English/German/ Czech for my answers. In case of Reservationquestions please share some details like Route, Date, Trainnumber as otherwise we can just provide general advices or answers

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