Need help with Renfe!

Schedule change may not be the problem. It appears that on both Christmas and New Year's Day, the first train leaves Cordoba at 9:29 am, arriving at Atocha at 11:15. Normally on Sundays the first train departs at 8:03 am, and on weekedays there are earlier trains, like 7:02 and 7:29. But arrival at Atocha at 11:15 should be fine for getting you to the airport by 1:00 pm. The airport bus runs every 15 minutes and takes about 40 minues, a bit longer to T4. Do check and BE SURE they are running the airport bus on a regular schedule that day if you are planning to go that way. Or you could take a taxi. Are you are simply having trouble with the purchase on the Renfe site? You should try again at different times of day. The site can be quirky. But if you have already bought tickets on the Renfe site, the same card should work for subsequent purchases without any problems. Make sure you call your bank to advise them before each attempt, so they do not reject the purchase. And have you registered your card with Verified by Visa? That was essential for getting my card to work. Finally, I can't remember the various error codes, but I am wondering if you are trying to log in on the Renfe site? I registered as a user on the site but got an error message every time I tried to log in subsequently. So I just skipped that and went ahead with the purchase, and had no trouble at all.

See this guide - http://tiny.cc/5ynb6 - points 49 and 50, I think.

What you may be bumping into is that the full schedule may not be posted. The European train systems their schedules about mid December. Check the schedule for next Sunday and compare it with the Jan 1 schedule. If it does not closely match then not all of the Jan schedule is loaded Is the flight at 1 pm or 4 pm? Is it a direct return flight to the US or a connecting flight to somewhere else? That impacts how earlier you need to be at the airport. Even after getting to Madrid you still need an hour to get to the airport.

One more thing---if you absolutely cannot get the purchase to go through on Renfe, try Rumbo.es, which sells Renfe tickets with the same discounts available on the Renfe website and adds a small handling fee. I saw that one of the earlier AVE trains on Jan. 1 still had "estrella" fares available. Also check and compare the price on RailEurope. Recently they were offering Renfe tickets at prices very close to Renfe, within a dollar or two, including web and Estrella fare discounts. Their handling fee is around $8.00 per ticket for the "print at home" option. RailEurope does not offer all routes in Spain, and it is tricky about putting in the exact station, so it can be hard to use.

I purchased tickets several times with no problem. However, there appears to be a common thread of problem, problem, problem running now. One poster said that he was able to purchase the tickets by indicating he was purchasing the tickets IN SPAIN...when he did this, the purchase went through without a problem. Maybe it would work for you. Hope so.

Not sure what that person meant by "purchasing tickets IN Spain". The purchase form on Renfe has a place to enter your residence address, along with name, email, phone number, passport no., etc. Did he or she put Spain as the residence address? And make up the rest? If so, that means Renfe does not consider the billing address for the credit card at all, which seems odd, but may explain why they are so picky about American credit cards. I did check both rumbo.es and RailEurope and these tickets can be purchased from them too. But I would first try Renfe several times first, without logging in to the site, as this seems to cause problems, and you can purchase just fine without it. The Estrella fare for the 9:29 train on Jan. 1 is a bit over 47 euro on Renfe For the same ticket, Rumbo charges 41,60 euro and adds 13 euro handling fee, for a total of 54,60. RailEurope charges $70, plus handling fee of (I think) $8 so a bit more than Rumbo. ( Or maybe not so much more if you have to pay a hefty Foreign Transaction Fee on your purchases in Spain.) Buena suerte!

OK, I did some more investigating with the Renfe site. A "G001 error" is what I get when I attempt to log in to the site. Just skip that and go ahead with the purchase. Doing that, I was able to get all the way to the "Verified by Visa" screen, where they ask for your VbV password, with no problems at all. (I did not proceed past there because the "test" card I used is not actually registered with VbV, and I did not want to purchase tickets.) Hopefully this will solve your problem with Renfe.

Thank you for your prompt and helpful suggestions! (I knew you guys would come through!) I tried the site again but didn't register, and it worked. Who knows why--but I'm not asking. Thanks again--happy travels!