booking train tickets online on trenitalia with capital one

Is making train reservations needed a long time in advance? do most do this? or bu tickets day of?

Trenitalia no longer accepts U.S. credit cards. There seems to be a bit of dispute about this (some seem to have success, but I'm not sure that that's the case recently).

I also have a Capital One MC and i am set up on trenitalia. Three weeks ago bought tickets on Eurostar for friends headed to Firenze from Roma.

To Leslie's point, I do live in Italy and I have an Italian ISP. That may be a deciding factor.

In the past few months I have purchased 10-12 trenitalia tickets online but frankly it's easier living here just to run by the train station.

My friends have had mixed success getting through trenitalia. A few months ago a friend used a MC from the USA, but as of three weeks ago other friends were unable to purchase - which is why I ended up buying them!

Again, just buy them when you get here - less hassle. The trenitalia website can be very frustrating - and that's even if your credit card works!!

I was told, by Trenitalia and DiscoverItaly.net, that, while it has been difficult to purchase from the U.S. in the past, it is now just no longer allowed at all. I guess that was easier than fixing the problem.

We purchased ours in advance, for two reasons. First, we're only taking one leg by train, so making a special trip to a travel agent or a train station was just going to take valuable time away from our trip. And, you have to have reservations for the Cisalpino run we're taking.

I have been going to Italy almost every September since the late 60's and have never purchased train tickets from the U.S. Just go to any travel agency and you can get whatever you want. They will speak English and are very helpful.

I ran into the problem with not being able to purchase the tickets on line until 60 days out. If they are not allowing US credit cards then why bother. My concern is needing a reservation on Eurostar trains when traveling in the middle of June(high season). If I wait until I get there, won't getting a reservation be hard?

Another problem few people check is the fact that Trenitalia sets a monthly limit per account of approx €500. If the total purchase exceeds that it is simply rejected. Transactions are still being accepted from Canadian credit cards.

I had no problem using a credit card to get train tickets through Italia Rail http://www.italiarail.com/tickets/IR/IR.asp?AFF=TRE
They were the same price as at trainitalia's website. My tickets arrived in 2-3 days. there's a 15 dollar shipping and handling fee for the entire transaction.

I had no problem using a credit card to get train tickets through Italia Rail http://www.italiarail.com/tickets/IR/IR.asp?AFF=TRE
They were the same price as at trainitalia's website. My tickets arrived in 2-3 days. there's a 15 dollar shipping and handling fee for the entire transaction.