Thetrainline.com

Who is cheaper??? Both are travel agencies reselling tickets. You need to compare their prices with those of the Spain rail company -- renfe.com. Personally I would purchase directly Renfe. If over 62, there is a discount card available.

Cut out the middle man fee and by direct from RENFE
http://www.renfe.com/

But if it does not accept your credit card use https://loco2.com/en-us or thetrainline.com.

hey hey david
i've used trainline.com several times with no issues. you register at no cost, some trips may charge a small fee. just do a "dummy" booking and see the cost. easy to use
another site is loco2.com you need to register for no fee. easy to use. do a "dummy" booking to see cost.
i've stay away from rail europe, it's like a travel agency/3rd party reseller.
don't know where or when you want to travel, early for best fares. read seat61.com a great source of information. you will get different opinions, likes and dislikes, i'm just putting in my 2 cents of options for you, you make your own decision. enjoy and happy travels.
aloha

The train tickets issued are all for the same trains, pulling from Renfe's Spanish database. If you find one source cheaper or easier to use, then you're fine. With Renfe, using PayPal can be a way around credit card approval issues (unless you have already signed up for Verified by Visa or MasterCard SecureCode).

I've used the Trainline app to buy tickets and to also check for train times and to keep track of my ticket purchases. It works well and was pretty easy to use.

I would always use the website of the national railroad to purchase tickets unless there was a reason not to (for ex, the national railroad does not sell those tickets because the connection is cross-border. These third party resellers will never save you money.

I just looked up Frankfurt Hbf to Munich Hbf. The lowest fare on Trainline was $35.24, which was 5% more than the €29,90 from the Bahn converted by Oanda to $33.50. Then Trainline added another $1.10 booking fee, for more than 8% ($36.34 vs $33.50) over the Bahn price.

I don't know if Trainline is trying to profit from the international conversion fees charged by most credit cards, knowing that with most credit cards you will have to pay more in international fees if you purchase from the Bahn, or if they are just charging more to compensate for the ridiculously high transfer fees exacted from merchants by most US credit cards.

It's not uncommon for people to have problems buying tickets on the official rail sites with US credit cards. In the past I have used Trainline, but they have started charging (small) fees, so this year I used Loco2.com very successfully, for the same price as the official site with no additional fee.

RailEurope is $2 cheaper per ticket.

Did you buy it from Rail Europe or are just comparing the prices listed on all the sites? If you bought on Rail Europe what fees did they charge?

I've used Traineline, Loco2 and national sites. For the sake of management ease I try to confine purchases to ideally one but no more than 2 sites - that usually means Trainline or Loco2 for multiple country trips.

RailEurope is $2 cheaper per ticket.

I don't know what train you were comparing to, but the Frankfurt to Munich train Trainline found for $35.24 doesn't even show up on RailEurope (it's an EC, R/E only shows ICEs on that route). That's the problem with RailEurope, they don't show you all of the possible connections, only the ones they want to sell you tickets for, and that's usually the most expensive trains. The only train around the same time shown by RailEurope is the 12:01 ICE.

That train, at current exch rate) is $58.14 (€51,90) from the Bahn, $61.01 ($62.86 w/ booking fee) from Trainline, and $65 ($72.95 w/ booking fee) from RailEurope.

I think it is "common knowledge" on this forum that, although RailEurope offers some convenience, that convenience comes at a high price.

I always use Trainline because I NEVER have issues with my American-issued credit card and their fees seem to be lower than the other consolidators I have tried. Never had an issue. Their app is easy to use. I like that they send you a QR code to use to either pick up your tickets at the station OR present on the train in place of paper tickets.

I am trying for days to book the train tickets from Madrid to Sevilla, but I receive the following error message:

'Uh oh. The reservation was not successful and we’re unfortunately not exactly sure why. Please try again. If you’re booking a journey with several trains or if it’s a round trip, please try to reserve them separately.'

I just purchased tickets last night on Thetrainline.com for two round trip from Barcelona to Madrid on AVE train for October 7th returning October 14th. I paid $275.87, which included a booking fee of $13.15. It was worth paying the booking fee to be able to read everything in English. The Renfe site seems to switch to Spanish part way through the process.