Hello. I have read what many have to say about the problems with using the Renfe website to book train tickets, including the man in seat 61, and I was wondering what website people have used successfully since loco2 has been taken over by raileurope? I will be booking my tickets from Australia so I'm particularly interested in hearing from anyone who has recently purchased and used Renfe tickets bought online from Australia. I'm happy to pay a fee for using a third party website to book the tickets as long as they are reliable. I'd also like to know how easy it is to get seats together if I buy tickets online from Renfe or another website as I will be travelling with my husband and we would like to sit together.
Posted by
Basel, Switzerland
8889 posts
Raheen, I haven't used Loco2 since it was re-branded. However, according to the "Man in Seat 61", as long as you go to the UK website: https://raileurope.co.uk/ (NOT https://www.raileurope.com/ ) you still get the same deal, and the same prices.
See here: https://www.seat61.com/websites/who-are-raileurope-uk.htm
The same name but still two different companies and two different websites - so far.
Posted by
Chicago
8166 posts
I am not from Australia but used the RENFE site sucessfully for an upcoming trip. The only reason seats would not be together when booking for a party of two regardless of what site you use is when the train is full and you were getting the last open seats wherever they happen to be.
Have you tried and it was a failure or just going by what you read?
Anyway I would use thetrainline.com or the raileurope site reference above if you can't get it to work.
But make sure when attempting to buy any train tickets for Spain that it is not too far in advance. RENFE which controls the schedule that it provides Raileurope and thetrainline.com currently only has tickets for travel through February.
Posted by
OP
5 posts
Thank you Chris F and Jazz+Travels for your replies.
Chris F, when you did use Loco2 to book Renfe tickets, were you able to reserve seats together easily?
Jazz+Travels, no I haven't tried to use the Renfe website and I probably should give it a go. I understand what you are saying about seat availability. When you used the Renfe website was it easy to reserve seats together if they were available?
Posted by
Chicago
8166 posts
Nothing to reserving seats together.
Posted by
OP
5 posts
As my daughter and her husband are going to Spain at the end of this month, I helped her to book her train tickets on the weekend and I just wanted to report back to say that it was a very easy process. Because she wanted to make some bus journeys, as well as train journeys, we decided to try raileurope.co.uk rather than Renfe so that she could do all of the bookings in the one place. We did some research first to check what fares were available on Renfe and they were identical to the fares available on raileurope.co.uk It was also easy to book Alsa bus tickets although, looking at the Alsa website later, it did look like there might have been more trips available on the Alsa website than were reflected on raileurope.co.uk but it really wasn't a problem. She paid by Paypal without any difficulty and the pdfs of the Renfe train tickets, and the Alsa bus tickets, were emailed immediately. And, amazingly, the 5.95 euro fee is only charged once per booking so she only had to pay that amount of fee for making 10 trips for her and her husband. I'm very impressed and looking forward to using raileurope.co.uk when I book for my trip in April 2020. Thanks again to those who replied to my original post and to all of you who share your experience and knowledge on this forum. And a big thanks to the Man in Seat 61!
Posted by
OP
5 posts
And I forgot to mention that she had no difficulty getting seats together :)