chexfan

So... has anyone successfully been able to reserve an Estrella (or any other type) ticket online using an American credit card?

I thought all was well, when I got to the "Verified by Visa" screen but ended up getting an error:

Reference: G001.R190
The process cannot continue right now. We apologise for any inconvenience.

chexfan

Here's an insightful thread on Fodor's.

I had no luck with a Chase Visa and no luck w/ an AmEx. But my Chase MasterCard worked with no issues!

But, it seems from that thread above, that YMMV.

naxos

Had the same problem in May. Verified my VISA and was able to make one rt purchase but then unable to make the 2nd of several ticket purchased for my itin. Called RENFE and was told that it should work-- called my cc company and told they had blocked the card because of attempts to make multiple purchases-- had the cc company fix that and then still got the error.

Basically the same scenario as on the TA website- but I perservered and was ultimately able to buy all the tix necessary..The incompatibility with the bank rationale seems odd since the purchase intially went thru and then after many false starts, subsequent purchases went thru using my UAL VISA.

David-A

Regarding naxos experience (first purchase ok, subsequent not working):

I recall reading somewhere that the renfe site only allows one shopping basket of tickets to be purchased until your credit card has been seen/verified by a ticket collection point. After that unlimited allowed.

I don't know if that information is correct in the first place, or is still current, but I do recall reading it in a few of the many accounts of problems with the website on top of the hit and miss of which cards it accepts.

embarcadero1

I tried in vain to buy from RENFE.es - I speak Spanish, so thought I'd give it a try.

No luck - and they told me that they didn't accept any credit cards from outside Spain. Repeated attempts to buy online confirmed this - no luck at all.

I finally called the Agencia de Viajes Corte Inglés in New York - and managed to buy the tickets through them. But it was a pain, and I was only able to buy a few estrella fares.

What a pain!

dragonfirebcn

AMEX works through their call center

chrissxb

please continue to follow this thread in our european rail forum

regards,

chrissxb
moderator
europe forum

dbuckho

I purchased two pairs of tickets through renfe.es back in July for my August trip. Used my Mastercard - no issues.

My card is issued by a credit union serving government employees and has a few features geared towards overseas assignments - not sure if that helped? Chexfan also had success with Mastercard - perhaps that is the way to go?

kanopemainer

" In principle, two companies have divided the zones of influence: MasterCard runs in Europe and Visa in the USA. "
read it here:
http://74.125.93.132/search?q=cache:...&ct=clnk&gl=ie

JDiver

That makes sense - iirc, I was able to use my MasterCard to secure tix.

allset2travel

I did not try to reserve online.

I had no problem in using US based CC to buy AVE tickets at the station in Madrid

littlegreenmen

I spent two days trying to purchase a ticket from Renfe. Spanish site, English site, Visa, Mastercard, Amex, different banks, one time use cards, tried calling the bank, tried calling renfe. Nothing. *Nothing*

Found a link on the renfe site for international ticket agents, under US it lists an outfit called Petrabax. Called the California office, no wait, wonderful guy on the phone booked my ticket immediately, emailed me a CC authorization form, faxed it back in, got the ticket emailed to me. Same price as renfe.com, web discount and all.

http://petrabax.com/renfe/

Mizter T

I don't recognise that characterisation of things. Apart from anything else, Visa seem to be doing well in securing business in the debit card market in Europe -most of the major UK banks who were issuing debit cards as Maestro cards (a MasterCard brand) have now switched over to Visa Debit, Visa Europe has taken over the French Carte Bleue debit card scheme, and a new chip-and-PIN only card called V PAY has recently been launched in the European market. It's perhaps worth noting that in Europe, Visa is now organised as a separate entity, Visa Europe, to Visa Inc.

Though in this particular case it may be that using a MasterCard results in fewer hitches, for whatever reason. Shame the Renfe and Trenitalia booking sites are so troublesome - it may well be this way simply as a result of lots of fraud attempts.

Jalinth

I was in Spain last fall and tried (multiple times) to book a couple of trips on the train but eventually gave up. Ended up flying the first leg for $49 and taking a bus (very nice one) for $20 for the shorter 2nd leg. Definitely cheaper than the train.

SmilingBoy

Slightly off-topic, but this credit card issue caused me to dodge the fare in Spain and the beg for money.

More than 10 years ago, I was spending a week in Tarragona, after which I had a flight out of Barcelona around 6am. There was no way to get from Tarragona to BCN in the morning, so the plan was to take the last train connection of the night before and spent the night at the airport (did not have/want to spend money for hotels at that time).

I had checked the Tarragona train station a few days before and verified that they had a credit card sign at the counter. This meant that I planned spend all my pesetas, and just buy the train ticket with the credit card. The spending part worked well, and after a long time queueing at the station counter, and just minuted from the departure of the train, I am told that they only take credit cards for some other train or ticket, but not the one I had to take.

Given that I had no choice and would have otherwise missed my flight, I just got on the train. When the conductor came, I tried to explain my impediment, showed him my print out of my connection and asked to pay by credit card (this was possible at that time in a few other countries). However, he seemingly ignored my story, and just told me a few times where in Barcelona I had to change trains. Nice!

The next problem was that I did not even have enough money for the train ride from the Barcelona station to the airport. And there were barriers that I could not jump. And it was the last train of the night, leaving 15 minutes later. And no ATM to be seen. So I had to beg for money (I think I was missing around 150 pesetas, which is around €1), and some nice enough fellow travellers gave it to me. Lucky me.

The night at the airport was not very comfortable though and I would probably do it differently now.