Should I Wait to Buy Train Tickets in Spain?

We will be in Spain from mid February until mid April 2023.

I have booked ALL my point-to-point train tickets as there is a significant discount (around 30%) for advance bookings. The only ticket I haven't booked is Madrid-Toledo return as we are planning to visit Toledo as a day trip from Madrid and will decide once we know what the weather is doing.

I used the Trainline app/website to compare my options. Renfe is the main train company but it now has competitors on some routes who can be significantly less expensive (e.g. Barcelona to Madrid). The Trainline will show you all your options as well as any options for buses over the same route.

For trains we found that if you want to choose a particular seat there might be a €1 extra charge, but if you don't have a preference then when you get your ticket the train company will have assigned you to a particular seat.

I have never heard of a Spanish rail pass other than the passes that local commuters use. My niece did use her Eurrail pass in Spain but came home saying "never again" for a Eurrail pass as it didn't work out any less expensive than individual tickets and was very stressful. Even though she had the Eurrail pass she still had to make seat reservations for the trains she caught.

There have been complaints on this forum about difficulty in using a Spanish rail pass, but I don't know whether there's only one of those. The situation did not sound good, however, so at the very least, I'd recommend doing some Googling to see if people are still having major issues, and which pass--if there's more than one--is involved.

Even traveling as soon as March, you can probably save a good bit of money by purchasing rail tickets now rather than waiting until you're in Spain. You need to check the fare rules carefully as to ability to get a refund or reschedule if your plans change.

Trains between Madrid and Toledo are the exception in that the fares on that route do not increase as the travel date approaches. The only potential issue there is that those trains do sometimes sell out. (Rick warns about this in his book, recommending that you buy the return ticket at the same time as the outbound ticket.)

Actually, I have observed a lot of cases of "train full" when I looked at current-day and near-future schedules on the Renfe website for trains on the main lines running between Madrid and Barcelona, Seville and Granada. There is some risk of not being able to get on a train at the time you want if you wait too long to get your ticket. How big an issue that is in March, I do not know.

Whatever you do, don't plan to buy tickets at a staffed counter at Atocha Station in Madrid. You will waste hours doing that. The vending machines are easy enough to use for standard tickets, but in the past there were occasional complaints about US credit cards not working. I haven't heard that recently, but I think more and more people are buying their long-distance tickets before leaving home, because the savings can be substantial.

Folks like the Renfe app, which I haven't used. As noted above, there are now competitors to Renfe running trains on some of the major routes, so to see all your options you'll need to use a third-party website like trainline. Most if not all those will charge a fee. You could use trainline just for research, and then buy the tickets from the appropriate operating company's/companies' website(s).

The fast trains require seat reservations, and they are included in the fare if you buy tickets. It's only when you're using a rail pass that you are charged extra for the seat reservation--one of the reasons many of us are so doubtful about the value and practicality of a rail pass. As far as I know, seat reservations aren't available on the non-express trains, but your itinerary doesn't appear to include any of those.

As noted above, there are now competitors to Renfe running trains on some of the major routes, so to see all your options you'll need to use a third-party website like trainline. Most if not all those will charge a fee. You could use trainline just for research, and then buy the tickets from the appropriate operating company's/companies' website(s).

I usually book my trains direct but this time I have used Trainline just for the convenience having everything in the one app. The booking fees have been very reasonable ant only €1 to €2 per booking.

I am also traveling most of these routes mid-late March and have already bought my tickets.

I have downloaded the Renfe app and set up an account. Once that was done, purchasing the tickets themselves was fast and painless. I was able to save “frequent travelers” along with the required passport number) and just chose which passengers for each set. (Most are myself and my daughter but a couple are just me.) They email your ticket, which you can print, save in Wallet, or in Files (I do all but print). The tickets are also always available in the app. A seat reservation came with all mine and I didn’t worry about choosing something special. It appears to have seated my daughter and me next to each other.

So yes - it saves both money AND vacation time to purchase ahead, unless you have a specific reason for not doing so - like AussieNomad does. Note: each time you can choose to pay in euros or dollars. Choose euros. As my father-in-law used to say, “Those dollars look as good in my pocket as they do in theirs.” :)

How funny to see this thread. I've been battling with the renfe site and app for a couple of hours tonight. My husband took over once I threatened to throw the laptop 😡😤

I've been battling with the renfe site and app for a couple of hours tonight. My husband took over once I threatened to throw the laptop

Try the Trainline. They are an official reseller for Renfe and their app and website are really easy to use.

I use Trainline also. I think they tack on a small fee, but to me it's worth it for the convenience. I've never had an issue using the tickets I've bought on Trainline.

Many thanks to all who responded.

I seem to be an idiot at the computer. I have tried several times Trainline, but have problems buying tickets for multiple passengers. Even though I have entered the information for others, the website keeps showing one passenger when I try to select tickets for a particular passage. And Omio presents a different challenge--it seems to want a purchase for each separate train travel without being able to save all the trips selected and make one purchase.

I just used one of Renfe's competitors last night to reserve tickets for May/June, Madrid-Barcelona and it was pretty easy and I thought were reasonably priced (38 euros). The company is IRYO. It was recommended on another thread in this forum. We'll see how it goes once we get there.

Richard

It has been 4 months since I last booked on Trainline. (I also found Renfe to be very frustrating to use). Did you set up an account on trainline and login with password? Then you should set up a "railcard" for each passenger in your party. Basically, each railcard contains the exact spelling of name, birthdate and email and maybe passport no. (I can't remember). To search and buy tickets, pick your starting point and destination and date, one way or return. Then add the railcards of all the people in your group (the default is only to book for yourself). When you push search, it will give you all the applicable routes and the total price of your whole group for each train so you can compare and pick. (Because it only shows the total and the advance discount prices are so low, I sometimes think I am only booking one ticket when I am actually booking for two!). Pick the train with best time and price and then go to next steps to finalize (if applicable, select seats, add luggage upgrade if necessary, etc.) and pay. Good luck.

PS with regards to question in first post:

1. With so many trips and people, you can save a lot of money by taking advantage of early booking discounts. If you wait there could be sell out or your group may end up sitting apart in different cars. The only downside is that you have less flexibility (unless you buy a changeable for a fee ticket). Most people have tightly scheduled itineraries and prefer to have everything ready and paid for anyways.

2. The cheap tickets automatically assign your seat. You can always pay extra to pick your seats. Up to you e.g if you don't want to be facing backwards on the train.

3. No experience with rail pass. Good luck.

Thanks to each of you who responded above. I finally figured out with your help what I was doing wrong.

Yes.

I went to Spain in March 2022. I took 5 train trips. I was able to figure out the Spanish RENFE website and buy my tickets from home in advance. I printed my tickets and carried them in a folder. I understand that some people don't print their tickets. They show the tickets on their phone. What if your phone dies? I don't remember "making a seat reservation". My tickets seem to have just automatically come with a randomly assigned seat. Yeah there is always going to be risk in any kind of advance reservation - what if you have heart attack just before your trip or there is some occurrence like war, pandemic, earthquake, and so on? My current preference is to just take the risk and buy advance train tickets a month or less before my trip. In Spain you theoretically can buy tickets at the last minute but there is a chance the train you want could be sold out. It is best to buy your tickets sometime before you leave home. Spain has long-distance buses too, if you want to be cheap, if the train you think you need is sold out and you don't want another time, in the unlikely chance you want to add a less popular out of the way town that is better served by bus, and so on. Actually I took an ALSA bus from Seville to Granada because the given trip time was 3 hours versus 2hours 47 minutes for the train and I made a sacrifice on amenity for the sake of cost and almost the save travel time....

Try the Trainline. They are an official reseller for Renfe and their app and website are really easy to use.

Thank you. I did and it was much less frustrating 👍