Eu- Rail Train Passes vs buying tickets at each station

In Italy the train pass is seldom cost effective. With some trains you still have to pay a reservation fee. One possibility, to save a few euro, is to buy your high speed (Freccia or Italo) tickets in advance. These can be highly discounted. They do have restictions. What you can easily do is check schedules on the days you would be travelling. See what fares are listed and then discuss whether or not you want to commit to a specific train or keep some options open. Last summer, on a 6 week trip, I saved about 80 euro on the Freccia line. You just have to play the game. Regional trains are probably not fully up on trenitalia. They'll go up closer to May. You can buy those early too, just don't think you'll get a big discount.

You will not save money with a rail pass if you have firmed up your schedule and are ready to buy the high-speed tickets now--and probably not even if you wait. Check the current Freccia fares on Trenitalia.com for the days you want to travel (or the first week of June if your days are not on sale yet). Do not ever buy point-to-point tickets on the RailEurope website, because you are likely to pay extra. If you have a problem with Trenitalia, use trainline.eu instead.

For Trenitalia you will need to use the Italian spellings of the city names: Milano, Roma, Venezia.

There are better places than Eurail or Rail Europe for buying train tickets. Personally, I like loco2.com - it's easy to use and supposedly they don't mark up their prices - like Rail Europe does - a lot.

The reservation fees for high speed trains can obviate the possible savings from a Eurail pass. I would just buy point-to-point tickets if I were you.

It may be too early to buy train tickets for your trip. With loco2, you can have them email you as soon as tickets for your dates are available for purchase.

https://loco2.com

I was looking at May to get a idea of pricing- for 2 people a Freccia fast train from Malpensa Aeroport to Rome at 5pm is $125.8 euros- and thats just the one train. Then we need Metro tickets from Roma Termini to hotel near vatican. A 3 day rail pass with a extra day free (4 days total) is $205 in US dollars for one person- so Im not sure why a pass wouldnt be cost efficient?? Can you please explain

Then we need Metro tickets from Roma Termini to hotel near vatican.

Demi, Eurail passes don't cover local transportation, like the metro or city buses in Rome. That's not a big deal, though, as your tickets from Termini to a metro stop near the Vatican will only cost 1.5 euro apiece. Maybe you knew that but it sounded like maybe you thought otherwise. :O)

You may be stuck with paying the full walk-up price for the trip from Milan to Rome, since you can't be sure when your flight will land and you'll be ready to board a train, but don't you plan to have the timing for the Rome-Verona train pinned down well ahead of time? Buying that fast-train ticket well in advance will be a lot cheaper than the walk-up fare from Milan to Rome. And the regional tickets are comparatively cheap, too:

Verona-Venezia regionale: €9.05
Venezia-Begamo regionale: €19.40
Bergamo-Milano regional: €5.50

Those are per-person fares. The tickets in and out of Venice will be more expensive if you choose a departure that includes a leg on a Freccia train.

Finally, don't forget that if you have a rail pass, you still have to pay for a seat reservation on the fast trains. I don't know how much that costs if you do it at the station in Italy. The ticket prices you see on the Trenitalia site already include the reservation fee if a reservation is mandatory.

See my PM.