HOW TO USE YOUR VISA CARD TO BUY TRENITALIA TICKETS

YEAH!! I DID IT. Thanks to William from Merritt Island, Fl for posting how to do this. He even got the AMICA fare. The Trenitalia website can be challenging when going through the purchasing process but it can be done. Don't worry about seat assignments. The system will assign them for you. I don't think that you can buy for more than 5 people at one time.

THE FLOOD GATES ARE OPEN. SEE YOU LATER RAILEUROPE FOR THOSE OF YOU WHO WANT THEIR TICKETS IN HAND. GO FORTH AND PURCHASE.

I was going to purchase tickets online and then spoke to the person I am going to visit who lives in Italy. He rides trains all the time and said it really isn't necessary to buy tickets in advance. I will be going from Milan to Florence in one day, then Venice to Milan on another day. Is it really necessary to buy advance tickets? I am a "plan ahead" person and will gladly purchase them in advance, but he tells me the trains are never full to capacity and I can just buy them right before I board. Please let me know what you think. Thanks for any advice.

Martha

Martha....two benefits to purchasing ahead....1) peace of mind and 2) better chance at getting the 20% off Amica fares (where applicable.)

Martha, your friend is absolutely 100% correct. You can easily get the tickets you need when you arrive in Italy. That being said, you wouldn't believe the amount of travelers that post on this site who completely freak out because they can't get tickets in their hands before traveling. Many turn to Raileurope and pay higher prices just so they can have their tickets in hand.

Being able to purchase in advance permits you to get the best standard fare possible and, as Norm says, get that peace of mind and the ability to take advantage of any available special discounts.

I just happened to be traveling from Rome to Naples and waited until I got to Rome to purchase the tickets because they are so "easily" available...guess what - the trains were slam full. It was a holiday and I nearly had a heart attack because our plans depended on it. We were able to get on a train at a very bad time and with no seats together. We were headed to Sorrento and on our return day we had to catch the earliest train available from Naples.

That was a HUGE disappointment because we had splurged on a really nice hotel in Sorrento with fancy breakfast on the terrace overlooking the sea. We missed that fancy breakfast because we had to get our butts on the earliest Circumvesuviana train back to Naples to catch the earliest EuroStar back to Rome...it was the only one available.

So I guess the tickets are usually EASY to buy - just not ALWAYS.

Larry--Thank you so much! I've made a hard copy of this to save so I can find it easily in the future.

If we want to take a train that requires a reservation, would we still need to stand in line to get the reservation in France or Italy, or would we get the reservation through Trenitalia, too?
Jinny

If you are indicating that you have a Eurail pass of some type and you want to know how to make the reservation on the Trenitalia website, I have never seen a feature to make reservations only on the website. It may be there - I just haven't seen it. Since I have never had a Eurail pass, I'm not sure if you can do the reservation at the electronic machines. Perhaps others can advise.

Note that with a Eurail pass, you will pay a reservation fee of about 18Euro for riding on the Eurostar class train. Its about 3Euro for the ICPlus trains.

If you are not talking about a railpass, the seat reservation, when required, comes with the purchase of the ticket. This you can buy online or at the train station.

So if I purchase a ticket online at the Trenitalia website for an ES/IC/IC Plus train, does this mean that I don't have to make any reservations when I get to Italy because it's already been reserved when I purchased online? Thanks!

Jessica....yes that is correct. As Larry noted, "the seat reservation, when required, comes with the purchase of the ticket. This you can buy online or at the train station."

Jessica, correct. The reservation comes with the purchase of the ticket. You will see an area where you chose your seat(s). Since you probably don't know how the train is laid out and unlike the U.S. airlines that will show you which seats are available, the system will assign the seat(s) for you. You will see them on your E-ticket. One slight note. You don't need seat reservations for an IC train but you can request them at the train station for about 3Euro.

Question. When browsing online for train tickets, it asks which coach you want to travel in. Does it matter? Also, if I have 3 people who want to sit together, do I just let their computer system choose the seats? I noticed that their system doesn't always assign seats in a logical numerical sequence. Can I assume that seats that are next to one another are not necessarily numbered accordingly?

Just bringing to the top.

Hey Larry, I followed your advice and went through the purchasing part several times with every different credit card I have and all my wife's credit cards and even my daughter's credit cards. Nothing worked. I finally just emailed my B&B in Venice and they took my credit card information and bought the train tickets. They were able to get the Amica fares and the train tickets were really affordable once you factor in the 20% discount.

So just in case someone else reads your instructions and still can't get it to work (like me)...don't feel stupid. It JUST doesn't work for everyone. But I'm glad it works for Larry.

Hey Larry, maybe you should open your own travel business for Italian train tickets!

I'm also not having any luck, my payment was denied. I also called visa and had them ok purchases made in Italy so I think the problem is from the TRENITALIA site. Anyone have any more suggestions?

In the past, there were troubles with people who logged on, registered, then went right to try booking tickets. At that time, it worked if you went on line, registered, waited for the temporary password, then went back to Trenitalia, signed in a changed the password to something memorable...THEN booked tickets. In other words, two separate sessions. I don't know if that still holds true, but it worked for me a couple of years ago.

I'm running into issues attempting to book bus tickets online via Eurolines'website and discovered something I thought relevant to this particular thread. I watched the screen change to see what was showing as it tried to process my transaction and saw a reference to Verified by Visa. Eurolines is registered with Verified by Visa so if you haven't activated your card through the separate website you cannot book ticket on Eurolines website (similar to Trenitalia). I also learned that it's now required (within last 2 years) that the issuing banks be registered with Verified by Visa. If they are not, you cannot activate your card. Both Bank of America and Barclay's are not registered. Thankfully my boyfriend has CapitalOne which is registered so we should be able to use that one after going through and activating it...

Let us know if it works, Ali.

Just an update...It would appear the verified by visa website is actually down for maintenance and the links within the CapitalOne website indicate the credit card is ineligible. Given CapitalOne is a registered partner with verified by visa I decided to just attempt to book the bus tickets via the Eurolines website and it worked!

We are planning to book train tickets from venice to rome on trenitalia - traveling on eurostar av9411. Are there any disadvantages to buying the 15% or 30% discounted fares other than the obvious more stringent change rules listed? also, is there any reason not to travel in second class seats which are cheaper?