difficulty booking bus tickets from Movelia

[Lydia Gillen]

I have been trying to book bus tickets from Bilbao to Pamplona. Movelia is the bus company. But they keep saying that my bank is not accepting the payment. However when I phone the bank to ask why, they say they have not been requested, and therefore have not refused.

Has anybody any experience of this or any wisdom to offer.
The journey is for May 3rd, and so it is therefore within their booking time frame

frustrated
Lydia

 

[jeff001]

It looks like the bus is actually operated by La Union. You might want to try booking it through their website.
http://www.autobuseslaunion.com/idefault.asp

 

[Lydia Gillen]

Many thanks Jeff for your helpful suggestion. However La Union puts me through to movelia. They are so used to me they even know my passport number. So no joy as yet.

I have booked bus tickets from alsa in the past with no difficulty. I know renfe will only accept credit cards if you have in the past personally presented them in a railway station. Could Movelia be doing the same thing.

Anybody else got any suggestions please.

 

[renegadepilgrim]

Can you just book the day of or is there a benefit of booking ahead?

 

[Lydia Gillen]

Hi rene,

Last month I could not book the tickets.

May 3rd was too far in the future and out of their time slot for making bookings.

However once it came to April 1st I could go right through the booking process until the very end when they said 'your financial provider is not accepting your card.' However my financial provider provider is accepting my card several times a week. So the problem is not with my credit on my account nor with my bank.

I would like to book in advance in case that when we arrive the bus is full. We have a reservation in Pamplona for that night of May 3rd.

Lydia

 

[renegadepilgrim]

I understand you are having problems with your card, I just wanted to know "why" it was so important to book ahead. I would imagine there are probably several buses that go to Pamplona each day. Good luck figuring it out....

 

[Malarvani]

I am from Malaysia & I have the same problem to purchase my ticket. I want to buy bus ticket from Madrid to Granada & keep on saying it is problem with my Bank. I am working in a bank too & does not show on the screen. Movelia you make our life difficult!

 

[SteveC56]

I am trying to book bus tickets from Santander to LLanes and am having exactly the same problem with Movelia's user-unfriendly website.

 

[Alan Pearce]

I bought tickets from Alsa last week, and had a similar problem. When I tried to buy them using a debit card or a credit card it told me that my bank had refused the tranaction. Then following advice from this forum I clicked on the Paypal option instead of the credit card option, joined Paypal and then could use me debit card to pay for the ticket.

I don't know if this helps you, but I hope so!

Alan.

Be brave. Life is joyous.

 

[SteveC56]

I have now bought my ticket online with no problem and payed by PayPal.
The route is actually run by ALSA.

There is a link from one of the ALSA pages that takes you to a very useful Google tool called Google Transit.
Hopefully these links will be of help to anyone experiencing problems with Movelia.

http://www.alsa.es/compra-y-horarios/

http://maps.google.es/maps?ie=UTF8&f=d& ... me=08%3A57

http://www.alsa.es/rutas/madrid-granada.htm