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Eurorail Spain Pass or Individual Tickets?

I can’t decide what to purchase for train tickets in Spain. We are going travel by train from Madrid to Seville, Seville to Granada, and Barcelona to Madrid. Since my trip is only a month away, the tickets on Renfe are not discounted. I was thinking about purchasing a Eurorail Spain pass for 3 days (157 euro @ http://www.eurail.com/eurail-spain-pass?currency=eur). If I purchase the tickets individually the tickets will cost 221.00 euro. However, I’m not sure if it’s mandatory to make a reservation for the trains and if so, do I have to pay an additional fee to reserve a seat with the Eurorail Spain pass?

Posted by
4555 posts

When exactly are you travelling? An arbitrary date of 14 September shows many trains still offering the web special price on Madrid-Sevilla (32 Euro) and Barcelona-Madrid (54 Euro.) With no price break on the regional Sevilla-Granada train, the prices I found total 110 Euro per person.

Posted by
4555 posts

When exactly are you travelling? An arbitrary date of 14 September shows many trains still offering the web special price on Madrid-Sevilla (32 Euro) and Barcelona-Madrid (54 Euro.) With no price break on the regional Sevilla-Granada train, the prices I found total 110 Euro per person.

Posted by
17 posts

I will be traveling from Madrid to Seville Sept 17, from Seville to Granada Sept 19, and Barcelona to Madrid Sept 24. Do you think I should keep checking to see if the prices change?

Posted by
4555 posts

Julie....when you go to www.renfe.com and click on "Welcome," you come to the "Passengers-Timetables" page. Don't enter your information there, since that will only display the regular prices initially. Instead, click on "Purchases" towards the upper right. Enter your travel information on the new page that opens up.
Your two major trips are on Fridays, which are always busy. But, as of this morning, I find Madrid-Sevilla trains on the 17th at 7 and 730 am with Web fares of 33 Euro, and Estrella fares of 49 Euro at 9, 10, and 11 am.
For Barcelona-Madrid on the 24th, there are Web fares of 46 euro on the 550 am train, and some Estrella fares of 81 Euro at 730 am.
There are no deals on Sevilla-Granada, so the cost is constant at 24 Euro....altho I would still book ahead. Here,you might want to consider the bus. They are very comfortable, take about the same time to travel the route (about 3 hours), cost a couple of Euro less...and there are many more of them/day between the two cities.
Even with the Estrella fares, the total is still less than a Eurail Pass.
If the schedules available aren't to your liking, then by all means get a pass. Reservations will be extra, but you should be able to get them for 5-10 Euro each. You should get them as soon as you arrive in Madrid...either at the train station (where lines can be long) or at a travel agency...the one in the El Corte Ingles department store in downtown Madrid should be able to help you.

Posted by
17 posts

Norm,
Oh, I understand now. So I can purchase my train ticket point to point and it will include a reservation. If I purchased a Eurorail pass I would have to purchase the Eurorail pass and make a reservation, when I get to Madrid, which is an additional cost.

My flight will be arriving in Madrid around 11:00, and I was going to go directly to the train station and take a train to Seville. I’m thinking about purchasing my train ticket at the station that day. I’m worried that my flight may come in later than expected, or it may take me longer to get to the train station. What is your opinion?

You have been a great help. Thank you so much.

Posted by
4555 posts

It's always a spin of the wheel....on how confident you are that your flight will be on time. I book my tickets out of Madrid for about 4 hours after my flight arrival time,and that's always worked for me...I usually just have a nice lunch if I have the entire four hours to work with. Even in a crunch, I can get from the airport to Atocha train station in under half an hour. But I am sure that, one day, it will jump up and bite me.