Spain Transportation

Cheapest way to Purchase Spanish Rail ticket for USA & Australia resident.

I used to live in USA and traveled Europe from there in 2000. Currently, I live in Australia and went to Europe last year. On both occasions, I purchased the Euro Rail pass. Like million others, having the pass was sort of “a must” before heading to Europe.

I am going to Europe next month again and spent hours for the last few days on various aspects of touring Europe. My findings: I was pathetically foolish to fall into “Euro Rail pass” trap.

Euro Rail pass (for resident living in the USA & Australia) is simply a spam. This crap doesn’t cover anything. Having pass doesn’t ensure anything. For all major trains in Europe, you need to pay supplement and reservation fees even if you hold Euro Rail Global pass. Not to mention, there are other fees such postage, night train supplement, etc. The whole world is giving you electronic ticket except these Euro Rail agents in Australia and USA.

Going back to my upcoming trip, part of it will be spending 4 days in Spend. I checked with euro-rail first and the price for Spain pass+ Reservation+ Supplement was close to AUD 1000. Seriously.

I then checked the Spanish rail web site (they offered some great price off the web), and it turned out I need half of what I was about to spend with EuroRail agent in Australia. Seriously.

Now, the question is: did I need to know Spanish to browse the Spanish Rail web site.

Answer: NO.

First, there is no denying in fact that Spanish Railway did a crappy job with their portal. However, there is a way you can live with it. And the Guru of Rail Traveling “Seat 61” was my guide (I am providing it below. It also showed how you can get the cheaper rate. Awesome deal)

Finally, Rule of thumb: Stay away from Euro Rail pass unless you are Murdochs, Pakers, or Gates.

Do a bit of research and get the ticket depending on where you going.

Step-by-Step guide to purchase cheapest Ticket for Spain.

• Go to www.renfe.es.
• On their home page, leave it in Spanish. In other words, don't switch to English at this stage as all that does is take you to a few English language information pages without any access to their online booking system.

• On their home page, use the enquiry system marked 'Compra de Billetes' (ticket sales) on the left of their home page to request your journey. Enter your origin, destination, travel dates and number of passengers, and select either 'ida y vuelta' (return) or 'ida' (one-way).

• When you click 'buscar', a new window opens, showing timetables & fares for your journey. In this new window, look for the drop-down box at bottom left labelled 'Español' and change it to 'English'. It should now change all subsequent pages to English. Don't get upset if it wipes your first enquiry, just re-enter your journey details in the journey planner at top left. At least it's now in English!

• The timetable & fares results page will show the normal fare ('Tarifa General') for each class on each train departure and any available special fares ('Tarifas Promo') such as the cheap Estrella ('star' logo) & Web fares ('W' logo). Select a train departure and class of travel that you want. Turista = 2nd class, Preferente = 1st class, Club = premium 1st class (available only on AVE trains). They ask you to copy in the magic numbers you see on the screen (this is just an anti-webbot device) then click 'continue' (or, if you're still stuck in the Spanish version for any reason, 'continuar').

• On the 3rd page, change the drop down box marked 'Fare' ('Tarifa' in Spanish) from 'General' to 'Web' or 'Estrella', if they are shown as available. 'Web' fares are cheap online-only advance purchase fares, non-refundable, non-changeable, 60% reduction over the one-way full fare. Estrella fares are an advance-purchase fare giving a 40% reduction over the full one-way fare, semi-refundable. Both Web & Estrella fares are available to anyone of any age, and are the best deal for Spanish rail travel. If you don't see 'Web' or 'Estrella' in the drop down box, then they aren't available on that train.

• Fill out your details. If for any reason you're still stuck in the Spanish version, 'Correo electronico' means 'email address'. 'Nombre' means 'first name', 'appelido' means 'surname'. Change 'Tipo de Documento' from NIF to 'pasaporte', then enter your passport number under 'Numero documento'. 'Dirección' means 'address'. 'Codigo postal' means postcode - just use '123456' if it refuses to accept a UK postcode.

• One correspondent says that when filling in these details, it wouldn't accept lower case 't', but would accept upper case 'T' instead and would also accept 't' pasted from their PC clipboard. Also, don't worry if it won't accept all the digits in your phone number or postcode, this doesn't matter.

• Enter your credit card ('Tarjeta de credito') details. 'Fecha de Caducidad' means 'expiry date'.

• Important: Sometimes, credit card purcahse may fail. In that case RETRY.

• Make sure your browser will allow pop-ups as you might otherwise lose the order confirmation.

• When you've booked and paid, click 'Print' ('imprimar' in Spanish) to print them out on your own PC printer. If it allows you to do so, it's a good idea to 'save' the ticket .pdf file to your PC as well as printing.

• This printout is your ticket, valid for travel without further formality. It has your reserved seat and coach numbers printed on it, along with your travel date, train time and journey.

Spain Transportation

Visiting Spain?

Visiting Spain?