sábado, 6 de septiembre de 2014

CHEAPEST TRANSFER IN BARCELONA AIRPORT

Some days ago I came back to Barcelona by plane. I saw a turist paying 4 times what I paid for the same transfer to Barcelona city center. Only because I have more information. I usually travel abroad and I do not like to pay 4 times for exactly the same service than natives, so let me share this information in case it helps anybody.

(All prices are 2014 and change every year, and I will not update this post, but proportions shoud be the same)

There is still no subway in Barcelona Airport and Taxis are expensive, so alternatives are:

Aerobus - 5,90€ per person

Train - to be caught in Terminal B (with free shuttle from any other terminal). I usually use this option.

There are 2 kind of train tickets:

1 - A normal ticket. The one that will be sold to you by default if you just ask for a train ticket to Barcelona center at the counter. It costs 4,1€ per person and it is similar to this one (changes the zones number but I found no picture).




2 - An integrated ticket (ATM) that allows any transfer during a bit more than an hour.

So I recommend you that when you are in the Airport and you are going to buy a ticket, you ask in the counter (or in the automatic machine) for a:

T10 - 1 zone

It costs 10,30€ per card and you can travel 10 times with transfer to any other transport in the 1st zone of Barcelona (that includes all you will probably visit). It is similar to this one.




The format changes according to the seller and year, but it is the green one, just ask for T10 - 1 zone and they will know what you want.

The price difference is so big (you pay 1,03 per travel instead of 4,1) because the Airport is in Zone 4 for normal train tickets and in Zone 1 for the integrated ones.

If you travel more than one person, you can use the same integrated ticket. You just introduce it once, the first passanger passes, gives the card to the seccond passanger and this repeats the operation. You must keep the ticket as in most stations is requered in the way out, but you repeat the same: the first passanger gets out, gives the ticket to the seccond passanger and this also gets out.

Some days ago I saw a couple of tourists with the normal train ticket. They paid 16,40 € (two persons two ways) and with 10,30 € they would have had the same transfer plus 6 additional travels on any public transport inside Barcelona (that for sure they would finally do).

If you extrapolate to people that travel in larger groups then is even cheaper.

So here is my piece of advice. Enjoy your visit to Barcelona.