Renfe Reservations for Interrail

[Ian99]

I'll be in Irun in Northern Spain first thing on Tuesday 26th heading towards Madrid I expect.

Am I correct in my understanding that there is no way to book reservations for use with my Interrail Pass online?

Instead, I can telephone Renfe 3 days before and they "reserve the reservations" which I can then pick up at a Spanish rail station?

If I make those "reservation reservations" do I pay on the telephone? Am I obliged to pick them up a certain time before the train departs?

 

[30907]

The Interrail planner says their own reservation system can do them - I've not yet tested it.

 

[Flying Snail]

Interrail's reservation service has been able to do most RENFE trains for several months now, it is the only online availability for passholders.

The RENFE phone thing is a weird pre-reservation system, you can only make these a maximum of 3 days before you can collect and pay for them at a RENFE ticket office, no payment is taken on the phone and after the 3 days they will expire if not collected.

 

[danchester]

Yes Renfe reservations are now finally on the Interrail website, though apparently not totally reliable. I haven't tried any yet but if they do work it'll make my life a lot easier...

Per Seat61:

Option 1, try booking online at the official Interrail/Eurail reservations service. Until July 2023 it was impossible to book passholder reservations for Spain online anywhere, but the official Interrail/Eurail reservations service started offering them in July 2023, having finally persuaded Renfe to let them do it. Don't expect too much: Spanish trains often only open for sale close to departure date, meaning anywhere from 10 to 90 days, and they also have a habit of leaving full. This system seems to work for some routes/trains, but not necessarily all. See whether this option works for you for your trains and routes, if it doesn't, try options 2 or 3.

Option 2, call Deutsche Bahn on +49 30 2970 (German line) or +49 30 311682904 (English-speaking line). You should first look up the train(s) you want using int.bahn.de and specify the train number(s). Reservations are issued as old-school hard copy tickets, but these can be sent to any address worldwide by normal post for €5.90 per order or collected from a DB ticket machine in Germany, if you happen to be there.

Option 3, call Renfe telesales on 34 91 232 03 20 and reserve, but (a) it must be more than 24h before departure and (b) you have to collect and pay for the reservation at a Renfe ticket office in Spain within 48 hours. So this method may gain you time, but not much!

InterRail & Eurail reservation fees | How to make reservations with a pass

How much are Eurail & InterRail reservation fees for each country and route, how to make reservations with a Eurail or InterRail pass online. What trains does a pass cover in each country?

www.seat61.com

 

[biko]

My experience last month was that I could book AVEs via the Interrail portal, but reservations for the Avant services were impossible to obtain online. I booked those at a ticket office. If I remember correctly, Intercity trains are treated similarly to Avant and MD trains which means booking online is most of the time impossible.

 

[rvdborgt]

Via Interrail, you can only book AVE, Alvia and Euromed reservations. No Avant, IC, MD, the odd regional train or whatever new categories they invent this year. They add a €2 booking fee per person and train.

I created an overview of known ways to book domestic trains in Spain here:

How to get Reservations :) | Community

Please read first and if you still have questions start a own topic to keep this post as Informationpost as clean as possible. This post is made by @rvdborgt @[email protected] @Angelo and myself. Planning/Timetables:Many of you will notice that the Railplanner of Eurail will have...

community.eurail.com

I try to keep it up to date. Corrections and additions are welcome.

 

[peterblue]

I find it's much easier booking Spanish train reservations at a ticket office rather than through the app.

 

[rvdborgt]

I find it's much easier booking Spanish train reservations at a ticket office rather than through the app.

The app can't book anything though. It can only forward to some of the websites where you can book, including the Interrail website.
The Interrail website does seem to result in error message relatively often. In addition, for Spain, booking reservations only seems to work if you do them one train at a time.
Last time I needed Renfe reservations, I ordered them from a DB travel agent and retrieved them from a DB ticket machine (I had to be in Germany anyway). Many people also book them at the first Spanish ticket office they get to.

 

[doc7austin]

I find it's much easier booking Spanish train reservations at a ticket office rather than through the app.

... except if you want to take the Lyon/Marseilles-Barcelona high-speed train, because there are no RENFE ticket offices in Lyon or Marseilles.

 

[Ian99]

Via Interrail, you can only book AVE, Alvia and Euromed reservations. No Avant, IC, MD, the odd regional train or whatever new categories they invent this year. They add a €2 booking fee per person and train.

I created an overview of known ways to book domestic trains in Spain here:

How to get Reservations :) | Community

Please read first and if you still have questions start a own topic to keep this post as Informationpost as clean as possible. This post is made by @rvdborgt @[email protected] @Angelo and myself. Planning/Timetables:Many of you will notice that the Railplanner of Eurail will have...

community.eurail.com

I try to keep it up to date. Corrections and additions are welcome.

Thanks for all your good work! I note that your link to the Spanish part of your guide includes a line saying, (that reservations can be booked), "At an SNCF (French railways) ticket office!"

Is that still correct?

 

[rvdborgt]

Thanks for all your good work! I note that your link to the Spanish part of your guide includes a line saying, (that reservations can be booked), "At an SNCF (French railways) ticket office!"

Is that still correct?

AFAIK yes.

 

[Ian99]

By way of an update:

I turned up at Irun station the evening before I wanted to head towards Portugal - I already had a reservation for the next morning to Madrid but wanted to explore the option of getting to Vigo via Segovia etc. (where my reserved train would stop). I was told that the trains were full. I asked about a train instead to Merida. Likewise I was told that it was full. Later that evening I went online and could see that I could buy a ticket Madrid to Merida for c.30 Euros. However the system would repeatedly not let me proceed to payment. I even tried in the middle of the night but no luck.

The next morning before getting my reserved train to Madrid, I looked at the in-station RENFE machine and successfully bought a ticket to Merida (although I had a valid Interrail pass). I thought I'd got the last ticket but actually there were spaces on the train throughout the whole Madrid - Merida journey.

This makes me wonder whether when they say the train is full, do they say that only if there is not a single specific seat available for the whole journey. In other words, is there a way of buying a ticket or reservation if there space available by moving seats through the journey?

For the last bit of my trip to Portugal, I decided not to use the Interrail pass and instead bought a Rail ticket to Badajoz, walked / bussed to the coach station and took a coach to Lisbon.

On my way back, I decided to get a coach to Merida. At Merida, I was told that the train to Madrid the next morning was full. I tried it on the self-serve ticket machine and it showed spaces to Madrid. One of the two ticket office staff came out to take a look but we couldn't get it combine with a ticket onto Irun. So we both went back to the counter.. She kept saying that the train was full and that if I tried to buy it at full price on the machine, it would just crash when it came to payment. Then she came up with the idea of going Merida to Puertollano, Puertollano to Madrid, Madrid to Irun. In effect she was saying, "you wanted to take two trains to get to Irun which involves a 2 hours 40 minute wait at Madrid Charmatin. Instead I can offer you an interesting trip up into some hills and different scenery to get to Puertollano. You'll have 1 hour 20 minutes to walk into the town, get a coffee and a roll for 3 Euros, take the train to Madrid and you'll only have 20 minutes to wait at Charmatin."

The clerk was able to sell me reservations for the above much-nicer-to-me journey and that's what I did.

The only other confusion was that they initially weren't confident about being able to cross from Madrid Puerto Atocha to Madrid Charmatin in 55 minutes - but I insisted and it was fine..

 

[Austriantrain]

The next morning before getting my reserved train to Madrid, I looked at the in-station RENFE machine and successfully bought a ticket to Merida (although I had a valid Interrail pass). I thought I'd got the last ticket but actually there were spaces on the train throughout the whole Madrid - Merida journey.

This makes me wonder whether when they say the train is full, do they say that only if there is not a single specific seat available for the whole journey. In other words, is there a way of buying a ticket or reservation if there space available by moving seats through the journey?

I have recently noticed on a trip to Spain - on a Seville - Cádiz - journey - that RENFE seems to block off seats until the day of travel: Checking two days and the day before, ALL afternoon return trains except the last one were noted as "fully booked", causing me to book seats on a bus service instead. On the day itself, almost all those trains had seats available again. I suspected that they want to avoid that passengers on free seasons block off all seats in advance, so that last minute travelers have a chance. It makes planning in advance almost impossible though.

It is really a combination of generally insufficient capacity provided, absurd reservation rules and general RENFE incompetence.

 

[rvdborgt]

This makes me wonder whether when they say the train is full, do they say that only if there is not a single specific seat available for the whole journey.

Yes, that's what they mean.

In other words, is there a way of buying a ticket or reservation if there space available by moving seats through the journey?

Only by trying out yourself.

The only other confusion was that they initially weren't confident about being able to cross from Madrid Puerto Atocha to Madrid Charmatin in 55 minutes - but I insisted and it was fine..

IIRC there are some Renfe-approved journeys with a similar change time in Madrid.

It is really a combination of generally insufficient capacity provided, absurd reservation rules and general RENFE incompetence.

Fully ACK. Unfortunately, DB are also slipping in that direction with their summer mandatory reservations :/

 

[Austriantrain]

I am not happy about the DB plans, but they do have severe capacity issues and try to do something about it by ordering trains. Also - and I do not now how to solve this - demand really now explodes each and every summer and capacity problems are near universal.

Nothing like RENFE, which claim to lack trains but have extremely inefficient stock utilization and have very little new stock on order that is also extremely late.

 

[nwales58]

Luckily for Spain, RENFE's stock shortage is ameliorated by its 'friends' in SNCF and Trenitalia taking pity and sending their own trains in and running them. However, the current minister of transport seems a little upset at Ouigo and its pricing.

At least DB has ordered well over 100 ICE4s. Oh and 90 ICE3neo. And 80 or so Talgo sets (ahem, not Avril). Menawhile Britain spends months agonising over whether 9, 10 or 11 is the right number of new east coast sets. So RENFE did slightly better than us with the Avril order until it became clear Talgo has difficulty delivering. If it worked there would be a follow-on order but at present RENFE's future rolling stock looks unclear.

 

[rvdborgt]

I am not happy about the DB plans, but they do have severe capacity issues and try to do something about it by ordering trains. Also - and I do not now how to solve this - demand really now explodes each and every summer and capacity problems are near universal.

Well, capacity shortage is nothing new on some of the routes and already existed pre-corona, like EC Berlin-Prague, ICE Frankfurt-Vienna, ICE Cologne-Amsterdam, or IC Berlin-Amsterdam; it's just getting a bit worse now. And although new trains will indeed go into service on both routes to Amsterdam, no capacity increase is planned on those routes in the short or medium term. None at all. It seems they just try to "cope" by introducing mandatory reservations.

 

[Austriantrain]

Well, capacity shortage is nothing new on some of the routes and already existed pre-corona, like EC Berlin-Prague, ICE Frankfurt-Vienna, ICE Cologne-Amsterdam, or IC Berlin-Amsterdam; it's just getting a bit worse now. And although new trains will indeed go into service on both routes to Amsterdam, no capacity increase is planned on those routes in the short or medium term. None at all. It seems they just try to "cope" by introducing mandatory reservations.

On the ICE Frankfurt- Vienna and the rjx Budapest - Munich, patronage has - significantly - increased since the pandemic, so I don’t agree that it’s nothing new. On many days, double ICE-T or RJ would be very helpful - it is seasonal though and I am not sure how to find solutions for it. On a commercial basis, providing more capacity for - say - 60% of days is hard to justify.

 

[rvdborgt]

On the ICE Frankfurt- Vienna and the rjx Budapest - Munich, patronage has - significantly - increased since the pandemic, so I don’t agree that it’s nothing new. On many days, double ICE-T or RJ would be very helpful

I don't deny it has grown, but full trains on e.g. Frankfurt-Vienna are not new. It's just getting worse.
But we're getting a bit off-topic here I think...

 

[Austriantrain]

I don't deny it has grown, but full trains on e.g. Frankfurt-Vienna are not new. It's just getting worse.

Believe me, to the current extent they are very much new. I think that ÖBB has said that passenger numbers have increased 40%.

But we're getting a bit off-topic here I think.

Indeed.

 

[jack31439]

I turned up at Irun station the evening before I wanted to head towards Portugal - I already had a reservation for the next morning to Madrid but wanted to explore the option of getting to Vigo via Segovia etc. (where my reserved train would stop). I was told that the trains were full. I asked about a train instead to Merida. Likewise I was told that it was full. Later that evening I went online and could see that I could buy a ticket Madrid to Merida for c.30 Euros. However the system would repeatedly not let me proceed to payment. I even tried in the middle of the night but no luck.

The next morning before getting my reserved train to Madrid, I looked at the in-station RENFE machine and successfully bought a ticket to Merida (although I had a valid Interrail pass). I thought I'd got the last ticket but actually there were spaces on the train throughout the whole Madrid - Merida journey.

This makes me wonder whether when they say the train is full, do they say that only if there is not a single specific seat available for the whole journey. In other words, is there a way of buying a ticket or reservation if there space available by moving seats through the journey?

Thanks for coming back with the update. Seems a shame that RENFE do this seat blocking with then availability on the day, meaning it's a lottery. May scupper my intentions for late May so I'll have to check for some contingency options. I am travelling FIP so I wonder if availability would be different, but my partner is going on Interrail so I'll be at the mercy of that system regardless.

 

[rvdborgt]

Thanks for coming back with the update. Seems a shame that RENFE do this seat blocking with then availability on the day, meaning it's a lottery. May scupper my intentions for late May so I'll have to check for some contingency options. I am travelling FIP so I wonder if availability would be different, but my partner is going on Interrail so I'll be at the mercy of that system regardless.

Renfe don't have quota for FIP (or Interrail).

 

[Ian99]

Renfe don't have quota for FIP (or Interrail).

So does that suggest that, when I was at Irun in the morning, and overnight a ticket had become available for Madrid to Merida, that there should have been an Interrail seat reservation available too? (I should have asked at the ticket office but was keen to grab the ticket when I could, even at c.€30)

Yes, that's what they mean.

With reference to the inability of an online system to split one journey into a number of different seat reservations at different seats because there is no one specific seat available for a whole trip, perhaps there should be some "ticket splitting" software made. Although that would result in higher prices rather than lower...

 

[rvdborgt]

So does that suggest that, when I was at Irun in the morning, and overnight a ticket had become available for Madrid to Merida, that there should have been an Interrail seat reservation available too?

Correct.

With reference to the inability of an online system to split one journey into a number of different seat reservations at different seats because there is no one specific seat available for a whole trip, perhaps there should be some "ticket splitting" software made. Although that would result in higher prices rather than lower...

Yes, especially if you then have to pay multiple €6.50 or €10 reservations...

 

[Ian99]

Just for general information, I paid €6.85 for Madrid to Irun plus €4 each for Merida to Puertollano and for Puertollano to Madrid.

 

[stuu]

This makes me wonder whether when they say the train is full, do they say that only if there is not a single specific seat available for the whole journey. In other words, is there a way of buying a ticket or reservation if there space available by moving seats through the journey?

I'm not a fan of how Renfe operate, but would any railway which insists on reservations sell a ticket like this?

 

[Ian99]

I'm not a fan of how Renfe operate, but would any railway which insists on reservations sell a ticket like this?

It must be an issue for long journeys where any company insists on pre-booked tickets only. They lose sales from someone who would be happy to move seats part way through a long journey.

 

[nwales58]

For the locals, long distance travel, train, coach, plane, has always required reservations so they see nothing wrong, including full trains. It's us northern europeans who don't expect this.

 

[Ian99]

sure and the nuance under discussion is that if a train goes from A to B to C and all the odd number seats are taken from A to B and all the even number seats from B to C, then there will be no availability from A to C despite the train only ever being 50% full...

 

[Bletchleyite]

sure and the nuance under discussion is that if a train goes from A to B to C and all the odd number seats are taken from A to B and all the even number seats from B to C, then there will be no availability from A to C despite the train only ever being 50% full...

Which is the reason why seat selection can't be the default, and it makes sense only to offer it to people who really care about it. As that way you can put all the A-B and B-C journeys in the same seats, keeping the others free for A-C. If you offer it up front rather than as a "change your seat" option if you don't like what you were given, you create that inefficiency and lose sales.

Or you can offer unreserved tickets, but Spain is hardly going to change to that.