1- not posible to buy long distance trains before entering the country- only 72 h in advance by phone where you can get a reservation number that you will need to validate in person on a train station with customer serviceĀ
Many (but not all) pass reservations can now be booked online, on raileurope.com and/or happyrail.com and/or interrail.eu. Which trains work where is trial and error and it may change from time to time because Renfe sometimes change things unannounced and then the booking systems need to catch up.
2-. you need to understand the system itself:Ā
- CercanĆas where you donāt need a ticket and you may need to explain to some of the Renfe staff - not so far to any onboard staff- for this trains in some regions (Asturias, Cantabria, Barcelona, Valencia sand a few more) thereās an app, if not ā¦ Renfe.com
CercanĆas need a ticket just like any other train. Your pass is your ticket though and we did encounter a ticket inspector in the Renfe-operated tram from CĆ”diz who claimed we should get a ticket from the ticket machine, which of course was not possible, unless we would pay for a normal ticket (which we didnāt of course).
- Media Distancia MD or Regional (a kind of cost train lines that only show up in the Renfe web page and not in the app. For this oneās a Ticket is always needed and it is not explained in the interrail plannerā¦.!!!!
I haven't noticed any MDs missing in the Rail Planner app so far. You may need to use a "viaā station if there are faster trains. Most regional trains are also in the Rail Planner app, except maybe the ones to Latour de Carol. Which other ones are missing then?
A ticket is always needed (your pass), but a reservation not always, particularly in Catalonia, where e.g. the MDs Barcelona-Portbou can be used without reservations. Also not all regional trains have mandatory reservations, such as the regional express from Barcelona to Valencia.
- long distance .- some AVLO trains do not accept interrail
AFAIK no Avlo trains accept Interrail. Or did you find any that do accept it?
3-. in almost all stations you have automatic doors that do not read the QR code so you need to find the Information phone- usually a pole with an Inter one where you can get assistance and ask them to āabre el torno por favor- viajo con Interrail y no lee el cĆ³digo ā
We used "Tenemos Interrailā, which worked exactly once out of a dozen or so times. Once the response was that we had to buy a ticket (gates were opened eventually because we were persistent), and most other times, there was no response at all: the intercom/phone system just kept on ringing. We then either followed someone else through the gate or could call some staff (sometimes security) who would then open the gate or find other staff who could open it. In Catalonia, the QR codes worked on the Rodalies gates for a few days and then stopped working, displaying a server error.
