Hello all and thanks for your friendly advice!
Our flight is scheduled to arrive at Malpensa at noon.
Then we will take the Malpensa Express into Milan and take a high speed train to Florence.
We only have carry-on luggage and will not need to wait at baggage claim.
We have read advice about NOT pre-puchasing high speed train tickets in advance because you cannot accurately predict exactly what time your flight arrives, unforeseen delays, etc. If you miss the train, your money goes down the drain. And that sounds like good advice.
However, we see that Italo Treno has specials in which the cost of the advance ticket is as low as €9. It is a gamble we may be willing to take as the full price regular base fare (which we would pay without advance tickets) on both this line and Frecciarossa is €50.
Taking that into consideration-
Assuming our plane arrives on time it looks like the Malpensa Express to Milano Porta Garibaldi where we would pick up the Italo Treno, is at 13:19, 13:43 and 14:19 (these times have no change of train). It looks like it takes about 40 minutes, arriving at 13:54, 14:24 and 14:54, respectively.
If we were to gamble (saving up to €40 each) we could take the Italo Treno fast train at 14:27, or 15:34 (the latter has a bigger discounted price).
I'm thinking of just booking the later one, giving us more leeway as far as time constraints, but am wondering if we could consider the 14:27 as well.
Any thoughts or advice?