Hi, I have been trying to book the above itinerary fro several weeks now, using Renee, loco2, Mali Europe, rome2rio. No luck. one site says there are no tickets but tickets are available a year in advance. Another site says 60 days. I have booked before on loco2, and did so just a few weeks before traveling, so I am unsure.
Anyone have any thoughts about this? Is this usual?
Thanks in advance.
Michael
Tickets SHOULD go on sale ABOUT 60 days in advance, maybe. Renfe isn’t super consistent. When booking from Madrid to Granada in November, tickets weren’t available until about three weeks prior to the travel date.
Michael,
It’s too early to book train tickets for 9/7/20 (September 7, 2020) This is the date you’re looking for, correct?
I’d probably start checking about 90 - 120 days before your date, however, you may not find tickets until 60 days prior to your date of travel.
For our January trip the tickets were availabile evembless than 60 days outn-;it was more like 30-40 days! RENFE is known for this.
Hi from Wisconsin,
Go to seat61. This is a website and in the far left column you will find something resembling...buying train tickets in Spain. Seat61 is highly respected and reliable source.
Buying tickets for train travel in Spain from the national source, RENFE, is like trying to eat a frozen banana. Go some where else. eat61 will suggest where.
Depending on the train type, RENFE posts tickets for sale some where between 60 and 90 days in advance. Which really means, not before 60 to 90 days. It might turn out that they are posted 46 days in advance, because no one got around to doing it.
Once we had our tickets all interface with the system was top notch.
wayne iNWI
I've been checking for March 7 and nothing after March 1 is available for Barcelona - Madrid - Toledo. Renfe site is definitely quirky. I hope within a week my date will be available at a decent price, but I'm not sweating it too much. I'm sure a train will be running. :)
Celeste, I see lots of March 7 trains for Barcelona-Madrid (Promo tickets available--get them while they're hot) and for Madrid-Toledo. I think you're running up against the disaster that is Renfe's website software. It often doesn't deal well with trips involving connections.
I know it's best to make a single purchase when you have a connection to make, so you're protected in case of a delay on the first train, but that may not be practical here because of Renfe. If it weren't for the insanity of the ticket lines at Madrid's Atocha Station you could just wait to buy the Madrid-Toledo ticket--whose price never changes--when you arrive in Madrid. But the ticket counters there are to be avoided at all cost, and there's always a possibility, however slight, that the ticket-vending machines won't like your credit card. So I'd just buy two separate tickets, allowing plenty of time to navigate through Atocha to get to the Toledo platform.
How long should we allow for the madness in Madrid if we don't book on the same ticket? Is an hour enough? I have been reading Seat 61 and discovered the route was available on RailEurope but hadn't gotten any further than that. Thanks!!
You won't need anything like an hour to find the right platform at Atocha Station. Thirty minutes would be adequate. However, the AVEs are normally reliable, but no one can guarantee that no delay will occur. If the timing is such that you might be looking for food about the time you hit Madrid, you could allow a 1-hour buffer and use any extra time you have at Atocha to pick up food for the train.
RailEurope will charge more for the ticket--perhaps substantially more. Compare prices carefully. I suspect trainline.com will be less expensive, though still more costly than Renfe.
I'm not sure exactly what the problem was, but I finally got Barcelona to Madrid to show up on Renfe for March 7. I fiddled around with the fares, had also already found Barcelona to Toledo on RailEurope and it actually ended up cheaper than the Barcelona to Madrid on Renfe. And in First for the Barcelona to Madrid leg of the trip. Moral to the story I guess is that Renfe is a pain in the you-know-what. If it works, great, but check the other options before you commit. Good luck!
