Mini fares a month ahead?

Buy it now. It will either go up or sell out.

Mini fares are capacity limited so they may sell out by the time you get to Italy. To lock in the mini price you should buy now. If you buy a ticket for a high speed train online, you generally will get an electronic type of ticket. You should be able to print out a document at the end of your transaction which you can use as the ticket and also you should receive an email from trenitalia containing the same information which you can show to the train conductor. You will have reserved seats on high speed trains as they are mandatory. If you purchase all 3 tickets at the same time (ie input 3 adults as you are going through the website), the system will assign you seats together. If you purchase them as three separate transactions, you will have to manually input the seats you want in order to be seated together. If you are sure you are a group of three, I recommend that you purchase all three as one transaction. Mini fares purchased for a group are restrictive in terms of changes and refunds. I bought mini fares last year for 4 people and then one person did not come on the trip. Since I purchased them as a group, I would have had to have cancelled the entire trip and repurchased in order to get a refund, so I ate the cost of the 4th ticket. Mind you, the price was so cheap on the mini fare that it was still worth it.

Celeste, the advantage of discounts such as the Trenitalia MINI promotion or the Trenitalia Family Offer is that you can save substantial money. Yet, changes are virtually impossible so you have to make sure you have all your information correct before buying. In addition, you will give up your flexibility to get this price as you're now locked to a specific train at a specific time and day. Yet the savings can be incredible! You might look at the new competitor in town: Italo. Their service starts 4/28/2012 and their website is now booking routes. They will start with limited routes, so not sure if they will have your's up yet but finally we have an alternative to Trenitalia. I'm not sure how Italo will do as they are just starting out... but their website, ownership, and choice of trains is very impressive. They are a private company competing with the State-Operated Trenitalia and the French state railway SNCF has a 20% stake in the NTV group which operates Italo.

Celeste- If the fare is that much, maybe you should check into flying on Easyjet? Ron- I'm about to book a ticket Rome-Florence on Italo for 20euro each way! I'm very excited to try their new service as I find Trenitalia very frustrating plus Italo leaves from an alternative to Termini that's closer to where I will be staying. So far they haven't rolled out the service from Rome to Venice but if these early promotional fares are anything to go by, I'm in!!
www.italotreno.it

Grace (also in Austin - cool!), I just checked EasyJet and to leave the same morning, it is only 12 Euros cheaper to fly than take the train...and we would have to figure in another 45 Euro for the three of us to get to FCO, whereas we are within walking distance of Termini. Plus, none of us have ever been on a high-speed train, so we're actually looking forward to that and seeing the countryside somewhat. But thanks for that suggestion - I'll definitely keep it in mind for future trips!