I felt I got robbed today — by the Renfe train system.
When going to the advance ticket sales counter to buy a train ticket to Madrid either tomorrow or Sunday, I was told all train tickets during the day to Madrid were 115 Euro. Umm, it’s a two and a half hour train. My train from Valencia to Barcelona was 5 hours, and it only cost me 24.50 Euro. Something doesn’t add up here. There are no fewer than 12 trains running daily to Madrid, so I can’t imagine demand is driving these prices — it seems something else is at work here, but no clue what.
I ended up purchasing the night train to Madrid leaving at 22:00 for 43 Euro, but the prices for this route don’t make any sense to me. It was the only train to Madrid that was not 115 Euro. The ticket sales person even told me tickets are cheaper if I want to come back to Barcelona from Madrid. I didn’t say anything, but was thinking “thanks, but no thanks – I won’t be coming back to Barcelona from Madrid”
Any ideas why prices are so high for this specific train?
Update: I had lunch with Claudio Cossio from FronteraEstates.com today in Barcelona and he clued me into the fact that the 3 hours trains are all super fast trains, and the night train is an 8 hour ride. It’s now a little more understandable at least.
Drew Meyers
Drew Meyers is the co-founder of Horizon & Oh Hey World. He worked for Zillow from September of 2005 to January of 2010 on the marketing team managing Zillow’s API program and various online partnerships. Founder of Geek Estate Blog, a multi-author blog focused on real estate technology for real estate professionals, and myKRO.org, a blog devoted to exploring the world of microfinance. As passionate as you get about travel.
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