Renfe booking issues---try rumbo.es?

Nobody has used this service? Check it outthe website is much friendlier than Renfe, and apparently it is a reliable travel company. I won't be buying my Spaiin tickets for another month, but I'd love to hear from anyone who has bought tickets this way instead of struggling with Renfe.

I have used the Renfe site several times...after I learned the procedure there has been no difficulty...the first time was trial and error..more errors than trials to be sure.... There are several postings here on the site to explain the procedure

Yes, I've read those, and also lots of information on other travel websites. Some people talk about spending hours and hours and still getting error messages and not being able to buy on Renfe. There doesn't seem to be any logical explanation as to why it works for some people and doesn't for others. Time of day? Type of computer? Web browser? Use the website in English or Spanish? Everyone says something different. I'm just trying to come up with an alternate plan in case I have trouble with Renfe.

Great! I am glad to hear the rumbo.es option works. so what do you get to confirm the purchase, a confirmation number? So you tried Renfe many times and were not successful? I just keep reading such mixed comments---some succeed and some don't, no apparent explanation. The Renfe website is very frustrating.

It's an electronic ticket. You get an email confirmation from Rumbo with the actual ticket/boarding pass, with barcode, attached for you to print out.

Success! After repeated attempts on RENFE to purchase an AVE ticket from Madrid to Valencia, rumbo.es did the job and the price was the same. Couldn't select my seat, though, but that's not a big deal. I have another ticket to buy but the travel date is outside RENFE's 60 day limit. Thanks for the info, nothing else I Googled was helpful. Kind of funny, but some of the posts on other sites went back as far as 2008.

Thanks. So can you get on the train with that, or do you show it at the station and exchange it for a paper ticket? Do you have an assigned, reserved seat, even tho it wouldn't let you select one yourself?

No exchange necessary, it's basically the same as a pre-printed boarding pass on an airline. Present it at the boarding area and you're set to go. There is security to go through, baggage is run through a scanner and passengers go through a metal detector, but it's not like airline procedures. Your seat is assigned and reserved.

I am also planning some rail travel in Spain and went to the rumbo.es site. I tried going to the English language tab but could not find trains there. No problem the Spanish site looks doable. I went though the steps to buy tickets and it does look like you will incur a hefty 12 Euro surcharge per ticket. My first choice will be to try the Renfre site with the help of Trip Advisor but this seems like a good backup option.

Wayne, the AVE ticket I priced (Barcelona to Madrid) had a discount which partially offset the service fee. Final price was pretty close to the Renfe price.

After successfully getting a Madrid-Valencia ticket on rumbo, I hit a brick wall trying to get a Valencia-Barcelona ticket on either rumbo or renfe. I couldn't even get a bus ticket online. I kept getting a message that my credit card charge was declined, using both MasterCard and Visa. The following three steps solved the problem and allowed me to get the ticket directly from the renfre site with no added charges. 1. Call your credit card company and tell them you will be using it to make purchases from a foreign website. 2. Sign up online for Visa's 'Verified by Visa' or MasterCard's 'SecureCode'. This allows you to set a password you'll need to complete the transaction.
3. Set your browser to accept pop-ups because the verification window from the credit card companies is a pop-up and so is the ticket you'll need to print. Kill the pop-ups again when you're all done. Give it a try, it worked for me.

I've read all those tips and also read that the computer and browser (Mac vs. PC, Internet Explorer vs. Firefox vs. Safari) might make a difference. Which did you use?

I use the now obsolete version 2.2 of Firefox, so I doubt the browser has much to do with any problems.

Forgot to mention that I use a PC with the double obsolete Windows Vista.

Last year I purchased 2 tickets for the AVE Barcelona-Madrid using the RENFE web site 60 days before the trip date and initially had problems using my credit card.Otherwise , the RENFE site was easy to use.

Forgot to mention that switching from VISA to Mastercard solved the problem.

That's strange, I had to switch from MasterCard to Visa to get my tickets.

Once again demonstrating that success with Renfe seems pretty random. I'm prepared to face total frustration when I try to book on Feb. 26, but will hope for success.

Gary,I recall that I contacted VISA 3 times and was told that everything was ok at their end and comunicated that info to RENFE .

I just thought I'd chime in with my own experiences buying rail tickets through Renfe and Rumbo. I decided to buy tickets in advance, since I'll be in Spain during Easter Week, and I'm worried that trains will be particularly crowded at that time. I had three separate legs to book (Madrid to Cordoba, Cordoba to Granada, Granada to Sevilla). I was able to book the first two legs on Renfe's own site without any trouble at all. My card is registered with "verified by Visa". But when I attempted to book the third leg, the site decided it would no longer accept my credit card. The problem was not on my bank's end: when I called them about the problem, they informed me that Renfe hadn't even attempted to put the transaction through. So, for whatever reason, Renfe decided it would no longer let me use that card even though I had already made two successful bookings on their site with it. None of my other cards would work. I therefore ended up booking the third leg through Rumbo. It turned out to be a little bit more expensive, since while they discounted Renfe's rates by EUR 5, they charged a processing fee of EUR 9 for each ticket. Other than that, the process went smoothly, and within about 45 minutes of booking through their site I had received the actual tickets by email. These are identical to the tickets issued online by Renfe itself, and they are essentially the sort of thing that you'd print off after buying tickets online on US air carriers. Hope some of this helps, Cam.

OK, the verdict is in. Yesterday was the first day we could buy our tickets from Barcelona to Madrid. I wanted to buy that day to get the Web fare or Estrella fare. I did all the stuff in advance-called my bank to notifu them of an upcoming charge from Renfe, and registered my card with Verified by Visa. But the charge would not go through. I called my bank and the person I talked to said he could see the attempted charge; they did not reject it but Renfe "refunded" it. He had me stay on the line while I tried again and he manipulated things on their end. This time the Renfe website froze up when I hit "buy". He said there was nothing more he could do and I should call Renfe. but it was the middle of the night there, so I would have to wait to do that, plus pay for an expensive phone call to Spain. So I booked through Rumbo and it went through fine. Yes, there is a fee of several euros, but we have our tickets, and got the discount price.

Thanks Lola, for updating the thread with your experience. I thought at one time I had heard that it has to be normal business hours in Spain for the transaction to go through. That and it seems the planets have to be in a certain alignment.

I think it is both! I too had read it had to be "normal business hours" in Spain, and indeed I tested the website for several days in advance of our purchase date, and found in general the website would not function under "purchase" around midnight to 4 am or so Madrid time. But yesterday it was working fine at 5 pm PST, or 2 am in Madrid. I worked through the purchase, entered my CC detais, got connected to "Verified by Visa" and entered the passwordk, etc. All went well so far, and then "error" "Cannot complete the transaction at this time". I guess I could have waited until it was morning in Spain, but I was afraid that by then the Web and Estrella fares might be gone, at least for the train we wanted. The odd thing is that a purchase from Rumbo goes through Renfe---that is how it shows up on my credit card.

Dealing with renfe is definitely not a 'just a click away' experience, but they're not the only ones. As I mentioned earlier, I was able to buy a Madrid to Valencia ticket from renfe but had to go through Rumbo to get from Valencia to Barcelona. My next trick was to book a round trip journey between Barcelona and Toulouse. Step one was to book renfe between Barcelona and Figueres, Spain. That went through ok using Visa and electronic tickets were emailed to me for printing . Next step was a switch to TGV-Europe to get tickets between Figueres and Narbonne, France. That went through ok, again using Visa, but I had to tell TGV that ticket delivery was in Spain. If I selected USA, they bounced me to Rail Europe. Electronic tickets were again emailed to me for printing. Finally, I needed to get tickets between Narbonne and Toulouse but that transaction wouldn't go through. I waited a day, tried again and succeeded. This time I didn't get etickets but a voucher to be turned in at Narbonne for the tickets. The ticket for the Airbus factory tour, which is the reason for going to Toulouse, zipped through on their website without a hiccup. I also decided on a day trip to Palma de Mallorca and tried to buy the flight ticket through Vueling - wouldn't go through.
Went to Expedia, got the ticket for the same price, USD 70 - unbelievable. The charge on my credit card was by Iberia Airlines. The Global Economy is strange, isn't it? Kind of like taking the scenic route.

i had the same problems with trying to purchase from renfe website. i had to book a one way and a rountrip ticket. i was able to book the one way with an american visa card, but tried for several hours with no success when trying to book that second ticket for the round trip. i've tried multiple options, using different computers, trying different cards and switching internet browers with no luck. i end up buying at rumbo.es. you have to use the spanish website, the english version does not have "train" option at the top menu. but if you use google translate to navigate thru the spanish page, it's not difficult at all. but as oppose to renfe where you can just buy a ticket, rumbo requires that you enter a phone number and your ID info. not too much of a hassle. i was able to get the discounted webfares and the actual renfe boarding passes via email. the surcharge is 9 euros per person. still, not bad considering the hassle free payment, i got confirmation via email within minutes from rumbo and pdf file of renfe train tickets. thanks all for all the great advice.

Apparently you can now but tickets for trains within Spain on TGV-Europe.co. According to Man in Seat 61, TGV offer the Web and Estrella fares, but you have to pick up the tickets in France; they will not mail them to the US. No word on the self-print option that you have on Renfe.

After spending half my day on the Renfe site and on the phone with my bank/credit card issuer, here's the rub for folks that had their visas issued in Washington and Idaho: we don't qualify for Verified by Visa service. The Renfe site requires a shortcode from Verified by Visa at the time of the transaction and because this is not provided, transactions will not go through. Folks on my bank's side (both credit card and the debit card side) don't even see the attempted transactions. That being said, for residents of the other 48 states, just make sure you sign up for (free) Verified by Visa service before trying to buy anything and you should be fine! So! I will either give this a last shot by calling Renfe directly (I have heard that this has worked for folks - having a Renfe customer care rep, many of whom speak English) to have my tickets processed or I'll pay the extra euros on Rumbo.es. I just hate paying extra fees when I've done all the leg work...

I don't think that is a "state" issue, at least not for the cardholder.. I am a Washington resident and was able to register my Chase card with Verified by Visa and successfully bought a number of tickets on Renfe. Apparently some banks/issuers do not subscribe to the Verified by Visa program, but that is a different issue. Maybe try a different card?

Afraid my only other card is Amex. I just spoke with Renfe customer service and they said that "at this time, it is impossible to use a foreign credit card to purchase on the Renfe website; you must either purchase tickets once in country". The other option she offered was to call a travel agent in NY at 800-634-1188 and they could purchase them for us. Hmmmm....

p.s. Rumbo.es didn't work for me either. so. frustrated.

The "Verified by Visa" thing apparently is the key. If have seen people say this over and over on Tripadvisor---multiple failures until they registered their card, then it worked. If your card does not participate in VbV (or the Mastercard equivalent), there is probably no help for Renfe itself. Edit: I have heard many times that if you call they will say that foreign cards just won't work. I know for a fact that is not so, as many people have reported on Tripadvisor that they were able to use a US credit card on Renfe, just as I did. In my case, it was the VbV and the first purchase on Rembo.es that did the trick. Renfe would then accept my card on the website. The travel agent number they gave you is likely for Petrabax. They have offices in Los Angeles too. They have a website if you want to check it out, but you cannot purchase on the website, only by phone. I have no idea what they charge for handling fees, but if they can get you the Web fares it would be worth it. You might give them a call and see what you think. I talked to Juan at the LA office before I got my card to work on Renfe; he was very professional.

You could also try TGV-Europe. If you say you are picking up the ticket in Spain ist will switch you to Spanish, so you have to be able to manage that. I just did a test run for tickets from Barcelona to Madrid on 23 June. It showed the trains and the Estrella fares, but not web fares. However, when I tried to proceed with a booking for the 8:30 train, got an error message, saying to try later. Maybe it would work eventually?

Success at Rail Europe! I messed around with RENFE (nightmare) then Rumbo.es (could only buy one ticket) then went to Rail Europe out of desperation. I will tell you the prices were just as good as Rumbo and RENFE and the transaction took 5 minutes. Very easy. I printed my tickets out immediately. The prices were just as competitive as the others. Give it a shot.

I thought I would lose my mind after trying for days to book on Renfe. Success at last at booking four legs of travel in Spain. What finally worked was using the Spanish version of Renfe, switching computers and allowing cookies and pop-ups, signing up for Verify by Visa. Using the above, I booked one leg of my train travel, and it went through like a breeze. So, I thought, I finally have this figured out - hah, was I wrong! For the subsequent train travel I needed to book, I had to use a different credit card every time. Thanks goodness, I have a lot of credit cards or otherwise I would be in trouble. Now, I am trying to book bus travel on ALSA to go from Cadiz to Granada. Website is easy to navigate, but it won't accept any of my credit cards for payment (Shades of dealing with Renfe). I will see if using a paypal account (which I don't have and will have to set up) will work. If anyone has any suggestions on how to book ALSA bus transportation, I would appreciate it.

I have solved this! After 5 hours and another hour on the phone with Chase Bank, and on the phone with Renfe. I also tried Rumbo.es (does not book out-of-country) You do need the following: 1. Verify with your bank that they should expect a charge from Renfe and have the amount pre-approved 2. Register with Verify Visa
3. THIS IS THE MOST IMPORTANT FOR ME: If you do all this and still use the original visa card, even though the changes have been made, Renfe will reject it! You need to do this with a card that Renfe HAS NOT SEEN! Chase tells me that many merchants, once they reject a card, do not allow it anymore (until some time goes by). Hope that helps. I now have my tickets at a huge savings, but I spent 5 hours getting them...not sure if that was worth it or not.

I unsuccesfully tried for hours to use Renfe on line. I then found out a much more user friendly site: Petrabax (http://petrabax.com/renfe/). They do charge like a 15% fee but I tell you, it's worth it.