Confusion with advance train ticket purchase

On trenitalia I just found a May 31 train from Vernazza to Bolzano - Bozen for under 62 euro. That's a departure at 10:13. There are three connections. Earlier and later departures are less expensive.

@Zoe -- are you sure? I see that 62 euro offer for the 10:44 option involving 4 changes. The 10:13 is showing up as crossed out for me. I am assuming that booking so far out in advance will get us a cheaper deal (there's 3 of us)...

You need to understand how the discount system works. Booking early should gives you an opportunity for discounts but not a guaranteed. The number of discounts tickets at both levels varies by train, time of day, and day of week. Obviously less desirable times, schedules, etc., will have more discount tickets available while popular times and schedules will be fewer. And there is no discount on Regionale trains regardless of when purchased so Regionale tickets should always be bought at the station (never on-line) on the day of travel or a day or two before. And discounted tickets are limited in number. When they are gone, they are gone. More will not be available later.

I was able to get the 7:12 and the 10:44 to show as bookable.... Not the other two and I do not know why. Trenitalia can be persnickety. I suggest you keep trying, or consider just booking the segments in Eurocity or Freccia trains, then buy your regionale connections at the time of travel. Be sure you know the connection times of the regionale before you book the high-speed trains.

Hi Laurel,
Thanks for replying. It seems to me there is a problem with Frecciabianca listings... Anyway I decided to break up my search in Milan. So I did separate searches for Vernazza to Milan Centrale & then Milan Centrale to Bolzanno, and found choices that worked. I will end up having an hour long layover in Milan, but I can deal with that.
Today is my day for making all the train reservations. I have another question pertaining to travel between Val Gardena/Castelrotto & Bolzano. I will create a new thread for that to avoid confusion...
Thanks!

Vishal,

Be sure that you're using the correct spelling for Bolzano.

I'm finding the same results as Laurel mentioned. Some of the solutions are listed, but no sales are possible. I'm also not sure why that is, but it's possible that they don't have all the details loaded into the website yet.

In the same situation, I'd probably try to break up the journey into two parts....

• Vernazza to Milano Centrale: you might look at the departure at 07:29, arriving Milano Centrale at 10:55 (time 3H:26M, 1 change at Genova Piazza Principe).
• Milano Centrale to Bolzano / Bozen: Although it means somewhat of a long layover, you could use a train departing at 12:05, arriving Bolzano at 15:14 (time 3H:09M, 1 change at Verona Porta Nuova).

It's possible that if you were to wait a few days, the other solutions would be offered for sale (not sure?).

What you recommend is exactly what I did, Ken. Thanks!

Vishal,

One of the other forum members posted this in another thread....

"Yesterday night Trenitalia's booking system crashed and they are slowly loading all trains in the system again.
That's the reason why some trains display the barred cart instead of prices even if you chose a date within the 120 days limit."

That might explain why your ticket purchases have been so difficult.

That is entirely possible and reasonable except that there can be substantial savings if you are willing to lock into a Super Econ ticket. If you are not interested in the possible savings, then your recommendation is the way to go.

Ken: Ah, that explains it. No matter, I already made the reservation as per the option you described.

Thank you, rest, for your insights -- very helpful!