Rail pass or not?

It's very unlikely that an adult will get any financial benefit from a multi-country rail pass in general, and it becomes extraordinarily unlikely when the trip includes a lot of time in Italy, where rail fares are less expensive, per mile, than in many other countries. The youth rail pass may be a better deal, but with Italy in the mix I am doubtful. Keep in mind that rail pass holders have to book seats on the more expensive categories of trains (like the Freccias in Italy and the TGVs in France), and that is an extra cost that's already rolled into the price of individual tickets.

The overall length of the ground-travel part of your trip is a factor. Passes are less expensive if purchased to cover shorter periods of time.

If you are in a position to purchase your rail tickets not long after they go on sale for you travel dates, you can save a great deal of money and come out way, way ahead of the cost of a pass. Of course, the travel situation for next March may remain somewhat uncertain, and that might reasonably make you cautious about paying for non-refundable tickets in December or January.

You can take a look at advance-purchase deals in Italy on trenitalia.com and for the Swiss links on the SBB website. However, at the moment the SBB site isn't allowing me to check a future travel date.

Edited to add: I should have mentioned that I believe rail tickets are discounted for children.

Thanks for the reply and helping me think of things I had not thought of before. Just doing a preliminary itinerary in terms of rail costs, I've come up with the following, based on early September travel dates, via Rail Europe:

Milan to Rome: 276.90
Rome to Florence: 154.00
Florence to Venice (RT): 446.73
Florence to Lucerne: 454.00
Lucerne to Paris: 458.00
Paris to Milan: 429.00

That's about 2200 total. Seven day 30 day global rail pass for four 1418. Am i missing something? Thanks!

Sadly, Rail Europe is not your friend here. I would really encourage you to go to this site,
The man is seat 61. https://www.seat61.com/

This site includes so much useful information about train travel in Europe and very practical information about costs and how to determine them. Go to this site, explore it, and see if most of your questions won't be answered.

I hope you have a great trip!

Yeah, he is the best. Yet he actually was the one who referred me to Rail Europe

I don't know your exact travel dates, the time you hope to travel, or the ages of your children, so I just looked at the price of one adult ticket on Thursday, September 2. As I understand it, children 4 - 14 years old get a 50% discount off the base fare on the fast trains you'll be taking. The base fare may be a bit higher than those I cited below, so children might pay more than 50% of the fares I list. These fares are from trenitalia.com and for the fast Freccia trains. You can also check Italotreno, which runs fast trains between the major cities and is sometimes a bit less expensive.

Milan-Rome: From 77 euros
Rome-Florence: From 42 euros
Florence-Venice-Florence: From 94 euros

So it looks to me as if your RailEurope fares may be unnecessarily high, especially if one of your children will be under 15 at the time of the trip. There are several ways in which RailEurope or another third-party seller can make extra money off you:

• There may be a service charge (which should be disclosed).
• If you opt to price tickets in dollars rather than euros, you probably will not get a good exchange rate (which will not be highlighted); it appears that you are operating in euros, which is good.
• The list of departure options may not include all trains; the less expensive ones may be omitted. People have complained that RailEurope employed this money-making technique in the past; I don't know whether it still does this.
  

Also, have you added the cost of four seat reservations to the Global Pass price?

Thanks for the help; i will check those other sites. First two weeks of March travel dates.

So here's the prices you found vs mine:

Milan-Rome: From 77 euros, about 90 dollars for one adult. Prices i quoted were two adults and two 13 year olds, who will be half off, making a grand total of $270, which is 6.90 cheaper.

Rome-Florence: From 42 euros, about 50 dollars for one adult, making a grand total of 125, 29 cheaper

Florence-Venice-Florence: From 94 euros, about 110 dollars for one adult, making a grand total of 275, 171 cheaper.

So it would seem that perhaps booking elsewhere and early could be cheaper in some cases. Since our travel dates are fixed, the flexibility of a Global Pass would not be necessary and tracking near the maximum booking dates could yield some savings. I guess i will see. Checked on Trainline Paris to Milan and costs 30 days from now vary widely from day to day. Appears there is no telling until the time comes.

Are you planning on doing Florence to Venice and return as a day trip?

Edit: And why are you returning to Milan? Why not fly home from Paris? Should be about the same price, not to mention wasting an entire day on a 7 1/2 to 8 1/2 hour train ride.

The return to Milan from Paris - makes no sense. Same for Florence to Venice. Is that a day trip. In Italy anything other than a Regionale trains requires a seat reserving in addition to the pass so that adds another $10/person/leg.

Thanks for the replies! Yes, the Florence to Venice is a day trip. I'm flying from where our Award tickets say to fly from. Fly into Milan, fly home from Milan, is why the Paris-Milan leg. I think seeing Paris, not to mention staying there for 4 days, is worth the 7 hour trip back to Milan.

I wouldn't under any circumstances take a day-trip from Florence to Venice. You'll spend 4-1/2 hours on trains plus maybe half an hour in train stations plus however much time it takes you to get yourselves from your Florence lodging place to Santa Maria Novella and back at the end of the day and the time needed to get from Santa Lucia station Rialto Market and back to Santa Lucia from Piazza San Marco or whatever is your last sightseeing stop of the day. That gives you too little time in Venice to do much besides hang out with all the other day-trippers in Piazza San Marco, at the Rialto Market and along the most direct route between them. People who make short trips to Venice often end up not liking the city (and telling other people it's only worth a one-day visit). The beauty of Venice is in being able to wander the peaceful back streets where you wont be part of a mob.

Single vaporetto tickets cost an exorbitant 7.50 euros per ride. I don't see any discounts for children over 6 who are visiting for only a day. Costs are a lot more reasonable if you spend more time in the city and can make good use of one of the passes, such as by taking both daytime and nighttime trips down the Grand Canal, going to Murano/Burano/Torcello, etc. For adults a 24-hour pass is 20 euros; a 48-hour pass, 30 euros; a 72-hour pass, 40 euros.

If I understand the Venezia Unica website correctly, for a 3-day visit a young person up to 29 years old can cover his (non-airport) vaporetto usage for a total of 28 euros.

There are plenty of very nice day-trips to be made from Florence to destinations you can reach faster and much more inexpensively than Venice.

I wouldn't make a day trip to Venice, skip it and go see a nearby hill town. Your Paris to Milan should be a flight, not the train. It's probably cheaper (booked in advance) and you'll already be at the airport for your flight home instead of transferring from the train station. If you aren't spending time in Milan (I've never bothered) I'd fly straight to Rome , faster and cheaper than a train. OR,

Milan train to Florence, train to Rome, fly to Paris, Fly to Milan to go home.

You don't need the pass.

I do not believe at all that Man in Seat 61 suggests to find fares on Rail Europe. Everyone knows RailEurope is a third party reseller with greatly inflated fares. Always buy train tickets from the actual train company. Always. Heck, Europeans have never even heard of RailEurope.

Well, its your trip, but as others said, a day trip from Florence is less than optimal. At least per the current schedule, the first Freccia is at 8:20 am getting you there by 10:38, and the last return is at 7:26 pm, giving you about 8 hours in Venice. Trenitalia does have a same day return ticket for 69 EUR per person which can be bought up until the day before. That makes it about $325 for the four of you instead of the $446.73 you have listed.

I'd estimate you have about 400 EUR of reservation fees (~$475) if you do go with the Eurail Pass.

Thanks for all your help! I’ve scrapped the Venice day trip idea and will consider other options now. On hold second straight hour trying to change flight home from Paris. Good idea!

From Man in Seat 61:
“Buy Italian train tickets at www.raileurope.com, www.thetrainline.com, www.italiarail.com or www.trenitalia.com.”

Trenitalia is one of the train operators. The other, which you should consider, is Italo Treno (https://www.italotreno.it/en) which has competing high speed service on the Milan-Florence-Rome corridor. Some prefer it over Trenitalia, and prices are often slightly less.

Sometimes travelers have difficulty getting their credit-card purchases to go through on a rail-company website. And sometimes the process itself is a bit confusing because of incomplete availability of English-language instructions (looking at you, Renfe, but perhaps Renfe has corrected its propensity to switch from English back to Spanish by now).

In the past, trainline.eu and loco2.com were the most commonly suggested alternatives for those who couldn't complete a direct purchase, but loco2 was bought out by RailEurope (or merged with it?) and trainline itself now also charges fees. I don't believe there's a no-added-fee third-party option at this point, so Seat61 is providing multiple alternatives.

Always start with the rail company. If that doesn't work, price the tickets on both trainline and RailEurope, and be sure you're buying the best option for you, based on the complete list of departures shown on the rail-company website. Don't be suckered into buying a more-expensive ticket because a third-party website doesn't show the complete list of trains.