Interrail and Eurail passholders rejoice, as now you can skip the queues and reserve your seats on long- and medium-distance RENFE trains on-line.
Rail Europe, a European practice reserving platform, has expanded its providing to incorporate trains operated by Spain’s state-owned railway, eliminating a serious hurdle that has dogged rail passholders for years.
“The addition of RENFE’s passholder fares to our platform is a game-changer for travellers desperate to discover Spain with ease,” says Jürgen Witte, Chief Product and Know-how Officer of Rail Europe. “This enhancement ensures Interrail and Eurail World Cross holders can navigate its world-class rail system seamlessly.”
With the brand new service, passholders can simply see if a seat reservation is required for his or her journey and what the related prices will probably be.
From there, they will make their reservation on-line, eliminating the necessity for time-consuming in-person bookings the place a scarcity of Spanish language expertise is typically a difficulty.
What’s the issue with reserving RENFE seats with a rail go?
Whereas many Interrail and Eurail trains don’t require seat reservations, Spanish high-speed trains – the Alta Velocidad Española (AVE) – do.
Though Interrail purports to permit bookings on some AVE trains by way of its self-service system, customers report intensive points in getting the platform to work. Some trains out there on Interrail/Eurail aren’t bookable by way of the self-service system in any respect.
Beforehand, the one choice to safe a seat reservation with out shopping for a ticket on a RENFE high-speed practice was to name the corporate. The traveller would then need to go to a RENFE station to choose up and pay for the reservation inside 72 hours of reserving, which is usually not handy.
“In Spain, virtually all trains, aside from purely suburban ones, require a reservation, and RENFE’s personal web site would not supply passholder reservations,” explains practice journey professional Mark Smith, who runs the web site The Man in Seat 61.
“Moreover, Spanish trains can go away totally booked, so that you ideally must e-book forward. This was a serious subject for utilizing an Interrail or Eurail go in Spain.”
Smith warns that, significantly on peak journey days, akin to Fridays and Saturdays in the summertime months, queues will be atrocious. At main stations in Madrid and Barcelona, passengers can wait so long as one or two hours to be served.
The complexity has prompted confusion and frustration amongst travellers. On the Eurail discussion board, one consumer mentioned, “Not gonna leap by hoops to go to Spain. I’ll cancel the Spain leg and keep in France.”
Learn how to e-book seat reservations with RENFE
To order a seat on a RENFE high-speed AVE practice, merely head to the Rail Europe web site.
Click on ‘add rail go’ beneath the journey planner and choose the kind and sophistication of go you maintain. Then, you’ll be able to seek for a journey as regular, however you need to solely see the passholder reservation prices somewhat than the conventional ticket prices.
Smith notes that the Rail Europe system defaults to a second-class reservation within the search outcomes. Holders of first-class passes must manually change the value drop-down in the event that they wish to reserve a first-class seat.
There are different choices for reserving seats on RENFE with a go. These embody utilizing Dutch company HappyRail, which has confirmed to achieve success at reserving seats on AVE trains, however prices a 3.5 per cent charge.
Interrail and Eurail reservation companies have been out there since 2023, however success is patchy. Smith notes that, when the methods do work, they permit reserving in first or second class, however not within the ‘premium’ class that will get passholders Sala Membership lounge entry and a meal with wine included on AVE and Euromed trains.
Smith has lengthy really useful Rail Europe as a reserving service for Interrail and Eurail passholders, because it has extra seat decisions, extra advantages for first-class passholders, and no reserving charges.
“It is a massive step ahead,” says Smith, “and if one system will not get you the reservation you need, strive the opposite.”
The place are you able to journey with RENFE?
RENFE operates a complete route community throughout Spain, with each its AVE (high-speed) and Larga Distancia (long-distance) trains. On the map beneath, the purple strains are AVE trains, and the gray strains are the slower long-distance routes.
In addition to travelling inside Spain, RENFE connects to a number of worldwide locations. These embody Oporto in Portugal and several other locations in France.
From 23 April, RENFE will launch a brand new direct Seville-Barcelona practice service, chopping out the switch in Madrid and making it simpler to get between the 2 common cities.
Alongside the way in which, it stops in Córdoba, Puertollano, Ciudad Actual, Madrid, Zaragoza, Lleida, Tarragona, and Girona, that are all enticing locations to go to, too. The high-speed service takes round six hours and is about to make journey between the south and northeast of Spain a way more handy choice.