Hi, We are traveling from Paris to Montpellier, staying overnight in Montpellier before continuing on to Barcelona to leave for a Mediterranean cruise. I've been able to purchase the Paris to Montpellier leg of the trip through TGV, but I'm having trouble with the Montpellier to Barcelona leg. I found the train that I want through Renfe, but my credit card won't work on the Renfe site. I found the same train on the Pentrabax website, but the markup is unreasonable (in my opinion). None of the other websites are showing that same train as available for booking. So, should I wait and hope that the departure date will appear in the near future? Is there another website I could try? Any suggestions for making Renfe work? Thanks!! For reference, the Paris-Montpellier trip is 31 May and the Montpellier-Barcelona trip is 1 June, so both are within the 90 day time frame.
Posted by
Seattle, WA
17435 posts
Renfe shows the ticket Montpellier to Barcelona at 61 euro. Petrabax wants $99. That is not a huge increase, maybe $16 or #17 dollars. But there does not appear to be a price advantage in buying ahead, so as larry suggests, you could wait and buy it later in France. As for Renfe, did you try the usual recommendations? Register your card with Verified by Visa, call your bank first, etc? Did you get as far as the purchase page and get an error message? FWIW, I found it easier to purchase on Renfe if I did NOt log in; I just entered my details for each purchase.
Posted by
Elk Grove, CA, USA
6898 posts
Sarah, we have recently seen some difficulties posted on this website from travelers trying to get from France to Barcelona. Recently, I couldn't even see Spain on the www.tgv-europe.com website. But, I can now but the only routing they show for June 1 Marseilles/Paris Gare-de-Lyon then change station in Paris to Gare-de-Austerlitz and then take the night train from Paris to Barcelona. Total travel time is 15hrs. Totally unacceptable. There are trains a day running from France into Spain. Usually, there is a train change to a Spanish train just inside Spain (i.e. Figueres-Vilafant). Perhaps you can purchase this ticket on arrival in France. There's not much of a discount on the fares so that shouldn't be a problem. However, you might run into France not accepting your credit card for the Spanish segment. We ran into this in reverse a year ago when coming from Barcelona to Avignon. The Spanish would not accept our credit card for the French segment. Really don't know what's going on between these two countries. With Spain being so broke, perhaps its a cash transfer issue. Who knows.