Russia - Buy Aeroexpress tix on-line?

I'll be flying into SVO Sunday on SU's flight out of JFK. I read in a post somewhere that it's a good idea to buy a business ticket in advance on Aeroexpress into Moscow. When I tried to do that, both of the credit cards I tried got rejected. I checked with one of the card providers, who told me the payment request never got to them and the problem is at the merchant end.

It's possible that I am not responding correctly to their non-standard request for the PAN and CVV2 numbers. Aeroexpress has a toll-free number in Russia, but I don't know if it would work from the U.S., and even if it did, my limited Russian vocabulary might prove insufficient for the task.

Has anyone had success buying Aeroexpress tix from outside Russia?

It is really easy to get them at the airport and I would really doubt the business class car ever sells out. When you get to the airport station, skip the line and go up to one of the machines which are almost always open. You can get a ticket there right before the next train departs.

Thanks -- I'll follow your advice.

A friend managed to get a biz ticket for the DME aeroexpress. He has "Verified by Visa" activated on his card.

It is really easy to get them at the airport and I would really doubt the business class car ever sells out. When you get to the airport station, skip the line and go up to one of the machines which are almost always open. You can get a ticket there right before the next train departs.
Notwithstanding the fact that business class is generally empty, I did once show up at Belorusskiy Vokzal to find business class sold out.

Notwithstanding the fact that business class is generally empty, I did once show up at Belorusskiy Vokzal to find business class sold out.

Was this during the beginning of July when the road construction madness was in full swing?

It definitely can happen. I would give odds on it not happening, however. And coach on the Aeroexpress ain't that bad for a 30 minute ride.

It is really easy to get them at the airport and I would really doubt the business class car ever sells out. When you get to the airport station, skip the line and go up to one of the machines which are almost always open. You can get a ticket there right before the next train departs.

Just one question which is actually outside the topic, but does those ticketmachines at the Aeroexpress station "speak" English? I am going to Moscow at the end of the month and I don't know much Russian (I have of course bought a Russian phrasebook) which is handy anyway.

Just one question which is actually outside the topic, but does those ticketmachines at the Aeroexpress station "speak" English? I am going to Moscow at the end of the month and I don't know much Russian (I have of course bought a Russian phrasebook) which is handy anyway.

They speak English! You'll see a button at the bottom to switch the language.

As dcmike wrote, the machines do speak English, they're easy to use (maybe takes 2 minutes to buy a ticket), and business class was well under half full both times I took it. Business gets you a reserved seat, a free paper (in English there's the Moscow Times, a skinny tabloid which you can pretty much read cover to cover in half an hour), and free bottles of water. I didn't take coach so I can't comment on the cost/benefit tradeoffs, but the business fare at roughly US$17.50 isn't too bad.

There seem to be plenty of taxis available at Byelorussky Station, although the Metro is an excellent and inexpensive adventure if you can cope with reading signs in Cyrillic. I was initially confused at the Byelorussky Metro station, because it took me a while to figure out that the reason I couldn't find the green (Zamoskvoretskaya) line was that the entrance was, as of mid-October, closed for construction. It also took a while to understand the logic of the Metro signage, but once I got that figured out, it was pretty easy to negotiate.

Thank you. I've heard stories about that you can't buy a ticket in Russia without knowing Russian and that even applied to the airport transportation!
Well I have ordered (rather expsensive I'd say) transportation through my hostel since my flight is abit late into SVO and I really don't want to figure it all out that late, since it's my first time to Russia, but back out to the airport I will defintely go with the Aeroexpress. I know about the cyrillic, but after all it's not very different from our latin alphabet.

We arrived into Moscow last month at 8pm on a Wednesday night, waded through all the taxi drivers to get to an ATM and then took the long walk to get to the Aeroexpress area - all of this was well-marked. The machine to buy the tickets is easy to use, and there was a woman behind the machines in case you had any questions. We bought coach tickets and the ride was fine - mostly empty car, too, with comfortable seats. No need to buy ahead of time and we were content in coach.

Good luck!

Was this during the beginning of July when the road construction madness was in full swing?

It definitely can happen. I would give odds on it not happening, however. And coach on the Aeroexpress ain't that bad for a 30 minute ride.
Business was again sold out this week, at least according to the ticket machines at Belorusskiy Vokzal. I had no difficulty getting a seat in economy, however.

As with others, my attempt to purchase a ticket on-line in advance was rejected. I think I have "Verified by Visa" activated, though the card number was recently changed.