Spain/Portugal/Gibraltar - Renfe Combinado Cercanias

This is a relatively new development whereby your long distance ticket automatically includes free travel on local trains at both ends of your journey. My PDF tickets show this and even have a separate Cercanias booking reference number.

With the help of Google Translate I have a fair idea of how it works. It seems one cannot just use the PDF ticket on local trains - must obtain separate Cercanias tickets. Does one just show the AVE ticket at a ticket counter and tell the agent where you are travelling to? It also says you can obtain a ticket from ticketing machines. Does anyone know how that will work?

http://www.renfe.com/viajeros/larga_distancia/servicios/combinado_cercanias.html

You will need your translator.

BTW. Renfe also started a new pass for non-Spanish residents X trips w/in 1 month, coming to about 40€ per trip or less depending on the number of trips you make with the minimum being 4.

http://www.renfe.com/viajeros/larga_distancia/servicios/combinado_cercanias.html

You will need your translator.
Thanks. I have already done a translation of that page.

I was more hoping someone who has actually been through the motions would describe the steps. Not having ever dealt with the Cercanias vending machines I can imagine myself standing clueless in front of one - not knowing where to enter the booking reference number or which buttons to press - while my connecting train leaves without me!

All I can offer is - the last one I used was touch screen, with a choice of language and if in a busy station and a cluster of them, a member of the station staff may be in the vicinity for an assistance. I think you will find little to be concerned with.
Otherwise get yourself organised with time enough to not miss your connection :-)

Hi.... i am in the same boat ...... have you now walked thru the process and able to share what you need to do ?

Well, I arrived yesterday evening at MAD and stayed at the Hilton. I took the hotel shuttle this morning to T4 and walked to the Renfe station, right after the Metro station.

There are two categories of vending machines, one for long-distance and one for Cercanias. There was a helpful attendant who did all the work for me!

First, she entered my file reference (no need for my credit card or pin code) to print my long distance ticket to Cordoba that I had purchased on the Renfe website. She then moved to the Cercanias automat and put the barcode of the ticket in front of an optical scanner and it printed out a Cercanias ticket (of the same size as a Metro ticket) that enabled me to go to Puerta de Atocha. Completely seamless ^

Edited to add:
When I came back to Atocha from my travel to Andalucia, there was no optical scanner on the Cercanias automat, so I had to manually input the code for Combinado Cercanias from my long distance ticket (note that it is separate from the file reference for the long distance ticket), choose the destination (first screen: other destinations, second screen: Aeropuerto T4) to print out the Cercanias ticket.

Thanks for that detailed description, JOUY31! ^

Seems to be easy. I'm glad they finally have their ticket machines working.

Thank you all for the information! I will be able to use this in December, arriving Atocha from Barcelona and going onward to MAD. Very nice.

T2

A last word from me on this. The ticket machine worked fine. (Once I found the darn things - they are not where they are shown on the on-line map of Malaga station!) But the button for Combinado Cercanias is (ever so slightly) tricky to spot on the screen as they use the logo which is not in the same colour as the other ticket buttons. So just read the screen carefully (in the language of your choice).

A really nice system!