Credit Card Problems with Trenitalia

Did you contact you credit card companies and bank? Do this first.
You can also buy tickets through www.captainetrain.com. Their credit card vetting is not as restrictive as many of the state-owned railway sites.

Hi Sam: I did check with my credit card companies and they stated there should be no problem. I will take your advise on the other website. Thank you so much.

linda,

Did you notify your credit card firms that you'd be making an online purchase? I've noticed lately that their automated fraud detection systems are often a bit strict with "card not present" transactions (I had trouble with that recently also). Unless you were speaking with the "right" department at the credit card firms, they may not be able to give you all the details.

As Sam suggested, you might also try purchasing the tickets at www.captaintrain.com as it's a more "user friendly" website and they sell tickets for both Trenitalia and Italo at the same prices as the rail networks.

If I remember correctly, Trenitalia required me to input an Italian phone number before it finally accepted my reservation. I used the number of the hotel when we were staying. Also, immediately before I made the reservation I contacted my credit card company. They had to do a few things on their end so that the transaction would go through.

Try ItaliaRail. They are a service of Trenitalia. I have advanced purchased tickets from them and had no problems. Although the website states that its connection is temporarily unavailable, when I proceeded to enter Rome Termini to Ghivizanno and picked a September date, it worked fine.

Remember that this is a FOREIGN transaction taking place in Italy. You will need to make that clear to your credit card issuer so they can allow that transaction through.

Even though many credit card issuers claim you don't need to give them your travel plans any more, I have found that you really still do if you want the transactions to work. And even buying train tickets online count as foreign transactions they need to know about.

I had a similar experience on my cards. I tried using Paypal and it went through right away.

Thank you to everyone for taking the time to give me some feedback. I am going to try some of your suggestions and see how I do. I believe that some of the problem is definitely with the credit card companies.