Madrid to Barcelona AVE ticket purchase problem

It is a common problem. Read the instructions for purchasing from Renfe on the Tripadvisor website (in the Madrid forum). One thing that helps is to have your card "Verified by Visa". Sometimes it helps just to try again in a few hours. I am not speaking from personal experience, as my tickets won't go on sale until later in February. I've just been reading all I could in proparation. My backup plan is to buy from rumbo.es. It is an agent but they pass on the discounts (and add a small service charge.)

Thanks, Lola, for your reply. I quickly went to the Rumbo.es site thinking you had solved my problem for me...and had the exact same problem. So, I had a co-worker email Renfe Customer Service to tell them of my problem and he replied that we should call the 24 hr tkt line. So, we called Spain and my co-worker talked to the woman on the line who said we could not buy tkts without a Spanish credit card (I am assuming she meant European?). She suggested we could try a local Travel Agency and see if they can get these tkts. Wow...I have read so much online about how to purchase these but no one has said anything about this. Has something new happened? I though I remembered reading something somewhere about a change to credit cards in Europe and how American cards might experience trouble. Could this be it? When did this happen? Beware, Lola! You may have the same problems as I!

Yeah, now I know where I read that... HERE! http://www.ricksteves.com/tms/article.cfm?id=243&extras=false So, could this be the problem? They won't accept cards that don't have the Chip-and-PIN...? BTW, I had no problem buying the Thalys tkts last week. Only experiencing this with the AVE tkt.

Chip and pin has nothing to do with buying over the internet. Chip and pin only applies when your card is physically present. Chip and pin applies when you put your card into a card reader, you enter your PIN, and the machine authenticates using information that is encoded in the chip that is embedded in your card. I was able to buy from RENFE last May. My transaction failed on the first attempt. The following day, I got a call from my bank's fraud department asking about the attempted "unusual" charge. I told them that it was me and that I still wanted to make the purchase. They changed my profile to allow this. The next day, I successfully purchased tickets. The things that I did that may have helped: 1) I read the very detailed post on the tripadvisor website on how to purchase tickets from RENFE www.tripadvisor.com/Travel-g187514-c80518/Madrid:Spain:Buying.Renfe.Tickets.Online..html 2) I used the Spanish site (rather than English) as many people posted that there were issues with the English site. I don't speak Spanish, but using the tripadvisor info and google translate, I was able to fill everything out 3) I made the purchase during business hours in Spain 4) On my first attempt, I was redirected to sign up for Verified by Visa and then subsequently the transaction was rejected. The next day, I was prompted for my Verified by Visa credentials. The transaction completed successfully.

No, it is not the chip and pin thing, but it is a problem associated with American credit cards. Some people can get theirs to work, others cannot. Se my post about rumbo.es below, near the borttom of the page. Someone posted on there that he bought tickets from renfe just last week, no problem. He felt it is crucial to have the "verified by VISA" thing. Do go to Tripadvisor and read the detailed instructions. there.---allowing cookies, disabling pop-up blockers, etc. But someone who posts there, very knowledgeable about Spain, said he talked to a Renfe agent in Spain, at the station, and they said they would not accept American credit cards on the website if they had not bee used previously to purchase tickets IN Spain. In other words, for a first-time visitor to Spain, it would be impossible. He said this was a new Renfe policy. But then others said that is not true, they were able to purchase on the webiste th efirst try. So, who knows? Lots of people say to just keep trying, sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. I am gearing up to try it myself at the end of the month.

All we know is that it is not chip and pin. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. I'd keep trying using the exact instructions on the links provided.

Go to http://www.renfe.com/EN/viajeros/index.html . Don't enter anything there...instead, click on "Purchase" towards the upper right. Enter your information there, and you should be able to proceed. The above proecess worked for me in the fall. Information from Norm on this site in response to a question from me. As I recall I was directed to the page http://www.renfe.com/index.html there I clicked on the button for Compra de Billettes and found the train I wanted....the page is in spanish, but you can easily navigate it to the purchase information if there are still problems, let me know. Apparently it must work on the Spanish side and not the English side.

Thanks for the update, and sorry to hear of your lack of success. It seems so random! I thought Petrabax is in the UK? I've got them in mind as a backup-, but thought it would take an international phone call. do they have US number?

They have an office in the areas of Los Angeles and New York (Woodland Hills and Long Island, to be exact). And they have a toll free number, 800-634-1188. Being in LA, it was just a local call for me. It was simple to deal with them. Raul, who I talked to, was very nice. Just have to pay a little more.

Well, I just wanted to update everyone on what transpired in getting my train tickets. First off, thanks to everyone who posted replies with directions, ideas, or links to other threads about this problem. I was never able to make any of the 3 cards we had at our disposal work on the Renfe site. One of them was a Verified by Visa card. My card is a CitiBank card and they do not participate in the "secure" program. I tried the Rumbo site. Could not make it work with them, either, but I got the furthest there. It actually asked for the Verified by Visa password but then came back with an "error" message. All of our banks were contacted numerous times. Not a problem there. I used both IE and Firefox. Neither made the difference. And, trust me, I tried MULTIPLE times! I read on another site of a state-side site for Renfe tickets called Petrabax (www.petrabax.com). You go to their site and type in what you are looking for and they will contact you with the options and quote a price. They will secure your tickets for you and send them to you by e-mail. Expectantly, there is an added charge. I ended up using them and gladly paid the added expense just to have this done. So, we have our tickets and all is well. But what a hassle. I hope that I am in the minority and other people will not have the problems I had. But if they do, at least there is an easy option with Petrabax. Thank again everyone!

Steven...thanks for the information...it might come in handy for me on my next trip.