NATIONAL rail board RENFE's website crashed this morning due to a frenzied rush on its one-day-only cut-price tickets for the high-speed AVE network.
To celebrate 25 years of the AVE – which connects the 350-kilometre journey from Valencia to Madrid in 90 minutes, among other rapid routes – RENFE is selling 25,000 one-way trips for €25 a head on the 25th day of every month this year.
But it had to up the quota to 32,000 today after its server seized up at around 02.00, having put the tickets on sale on the stroke of midnight.
At one point, the rail board reveals, it was shifting as many as 1,079 tickets a minute.
RENFE broke records for sales between 00.01 an 00.45 this morning, after which the system began to slow down due to high traffic.
By 01.20, or just an hour and 19 minutes after the cheaper seats went on sale, it had sold a total of 24,191.
By 01.35, the entire 25,000 were sold out, but many buyers were overlapping and buying the same tickets as each other, meaning RENFE had to honour all purchases and throw in a further 7,000.
The first time RENFE offered €25 tickets, on April 25, the rail board thought it had broken a record when all 25,000 had gone within 12 hours and the website had netted 3.3 million hits.
Tickets at €25 are not limited to travel on the day of purchase, so anyone who tried and failed to book in advance for a journey more than four weeks from now will get another chance on June 25 from one second past midnight.
