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Alhambra Website will not accept any of my credit cards! WTH??

Posted by (California) on

I am using the link that is provided on the Rick Steves Website:

http://www.ticketmaster.es/nav/landings/en/mucho_mas/entradas_alhambra/entradas.html?utm_campaign=ALH-weboficial&utm_source=alhambra-tickets.es&utm_medium=link&canalMB=ALH

I have tried 4 different credit cards so far and the website won't take ANY of them! I know that the information is being entered correctly. ( I run an ecommerce business, so I know how to place an online order!) Does anybody know whether their website is having problems with its payment gateway, or is there a problem entering a US credit card? This is very frustrating! How are you supposed to buy advance tickets if their system won't accept your credit card? I have tried 3 Visas and one Amex with no luck. I even tried changing browsers (Chrome, FireFox) and it didn't make a difference.

Is there a different website for purchasing Alhambra tickets that I can use (not a tour operator which will charge extra)?

Posted by
32352 posts

I'm not sure if this website is the same as the one you were using....

http://www.alhambra.info/en/alhambra-tickets.asp

Just curious, did you notify the banks associated to your credit cards that you'd be making an international purchase? That can sometimes be the source of problems.

How were you planning to pick up the tickets?

Good luck!

Posted by
50 posts

OK, we figured it out. I asked my husband to try it. His credit cards wouldn't work either. However, he had been in Barcelona several years ago and had tried to purchase tickets to a soccer game online and ran into the same sort of problem. The solution: use a DEBIT CARD instead of a credit card. I never would have thought of that!

Personally I never use a debit card for online purchases -- however, in Spain for some reason, this is necessary on some websites.

I don't understand why they don't tell you that on the website. It's really annoying.

So, he was successful in purchasing our tickets for next month.

We used the link from the Rick Steves website that says "Savvy travelers make an advance reservation" (the link to the Ticketmaster website is in blue for the words "advance reservation") on this page:

http://www.ricksteves.com/watch-read-listen/read/articles/granada-moor-than-the-sum-of-its-parts

Posted by
59 posts

I'm in Australia and recently couldn't buy Alhambra tickets using my credit cards either. I don't have a separate debit card.
I've transferred money to our apartment people in Granada and they'll buy them for me, but this is costing me quite a bit extra in bank transfer fees.
The Ticketmaster site in Spain is ridiculous. Don't they care if the rest of the world can't buy their tickets?

Posted by
15784 posts

two years ago I had no trouble using my MC credit card to buy train tickets and Alhambra tickets online. This time I tried for days to buy a ticket on renfe.com (in early December) and it wouldn't accept my card. The most common error message I got was that my bank wouldn't authorize it. But I'm pretty sure the problem was with the Spanish website, because unlike in the past, I never got to the "verify security code" stage with MC SecureCard - which is done before the charge goes to my bank. I gave up and used PayPal - cost a little more, but worth it since the price of train tickets just goes up as time passes.

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