Challenges Using Trenitalia for Booking

You should be able to buy any ticket with a price. When I check Trenitalia for those cities on that date, I see fares for all trains. The train to Milan is s FRECCIAROSSA (reserved seats); the train from Milan to Varenna is a regional train (no reserved seats so can't choose them).

When I click on the 7:20 train, I have to choose a fare for the FRECCIAROSSA train; there is only one regional fare for the other train.

Then I click the checkbox that says "choose seats" and I can choose them on the first train; click on a seat, then click the red CONFIRM button. Were you not able to do that?

As far as the credit card: last month I bought a ticket on the Trenitalia website (Genoa to Nice) using my US credit card from a big American bank. It went through the first time. But I was already traveling, and I had notified my bank of my travel plans, so maybe they didn't reject it on that basis. Could be your credit cards all block the payment because it's an overseas company and they fear fraud. You could call your bank and ask...

I also bought many tickets while in Italy using the Trenit app on my phone. The app lets you use not only credit cards but Paypal (I used Paypal on that). Note that Paypal has a form of Dynamic Currency Conversion (DCC) - that is, they charge you a surcharge to pay in USD (if that is your home currency). If you have a credit card with no foreign transaction fees, you can register that in Paypal, then tell Paypal not to do the conversion - let the credit card company do it. That's what I did, so I wouldn't be charged any foreign transaction fees, and my card has none. Trenit emails you a PDF of your ticket that you can print out or just show on your phone on the train, which is what I did.

You won't be able to register on the Trenitalia website (if you are a US citizen, anyway) - you'll have to checkout as a guest, which is what I did.

I haven't used Trenitalia for a few years, but lately people have been reporting credit card problems with European train companies including OeBB, SBB, and Bahn.de. So maybe Trenitalia has joined the club.

Try using trainline: https://www.thetrainline.com

They offer the same price structure as Trenitalia. I don't know if Rail Europe does that.

Edit: I agree with the above post that you may need to call your credit card company to report that you are buying tickets from Italy. They may be blocking it as fraud.

Yes, Trenitalia has "joined the club" as far as requiring the extra security feature of Verified by Visa, MasterCard SecureCode, or a similar feature with AmEx. If you don't have this feature, you may not necessarily get a decline message but the process just goes nowhere and your bank will tell that they never received the request.

Rail Europe allows you to request a preferred type of seating but not to choose specific seats. Their prices should be pretty similar but you'd confirm that before check-out.

The 1-hour regional train from Milan to Varenna does not offer reserved seats.

Try using www.trainline.eu as it's more user friendly. Once you've registered on the site with a credit card, you shouldn't have any problems.

The website listed above is affiliated with the one that Lola mentioned, but more direct for trains on the continent.

Thanks for the help! I was able to book on the site mentioned by Ken with no problems!

I booked 3 tickets from Milan to Venice yesterday; had a pop-up box
generated by American Express, they sent a code to my email which I
had to insert before they allowed the transaction - Brilliant!