I need to book fast trains on following routes:
Milan to Venice (Sep. 30)
Venice to Florence (Oct. 2)
Florence to Naples (Oct. 5)
Naples to Rome (Oct. 7)
How early should I book these tickets? And is there a preference between Frecciarossa and Italo?
Also, what platform should be used for better prices and reliable services? Directly Italo and Trenitalia? Or ItaliaRail and Omio?
You should buy tickets at the latest 10 minutes before departure. Buying them earlier however can save you quite a bit of money, And you should be able to book all these trains already. Personally I think Italy has nicer interiors, but apart from that it is pretty much the same.
The other important thing to know is that buying in advance you can trade lower prices for flexibility; that is to say, cheaper tickets have more restrictive rules.
Italo sometimes is a little cheaper but Frecciarossa have more frequent services. I always buy directly from the business running the train.
Buy directly as mentioned. I've already bought all my high speed tickets for dates similar to those and got some great deals... some were 2 for one tickets. No reason to wait if the lower priced tickets are available and if you know your times. Some tickets you can change times others can not be changed at all. I prefer Trenitalia because there are many more trains and if something goes wrong it is easier for me to get another train.
You'll want to use the official site of Trenitalia which is the state train company of Italy: https://www.trenitalia.com/en.html
Use the Italian city names for best results when searching on train sites: Roma for Rome, Firenze for Florence etc. They also have an app for use in country that also let's you track trains in realtime and validate tickets etc.
.Italo website is here: https://www.italotreno.com/en and they also have an app.
Fast train tickets with assigned seats do not need validation and those are good only for that train and that seat. As others have said the service is largely the same between the two companies. There are also classes with each train that are largely the same. Some people have a strong opinion on which seats are most comfortable but with short trips of a couple of hours I can't say I think it really matters. When you book early the differences between classes is usually just a few euros. I will sometimes pay a couple of euros to go from standard to premium on Trenitalia - which is 3 seats across versus four - but unless it is a very long trip paying full price I wouldn't the 20e for it or for any upgrades beyond that.
And no, there is no way to know for sure the direction of train travel when you book a seat.
The man in seat 61 is a really good basic primer on Italian train travel: https://www.seat61.com/train-travel-in-italy.htm
Have a great trip,
=Tod
Thanks for all the help and tips. As suggested, I did not need to go with any third party aggregators, trentialia and italo have good tech.
Booked all tickets with Italo as they were slightly cheaper and flexible than Frecciarossa for my time slots.
