I’m looking to book a train from Milan Central to Venice, but want to book a train ticket time based on when we land in MXP. If we land at 10:00 am, would I have enough time to catch a 12:45p or a 1:45p train? Is MXP easy to navigate; going through immigration/customs easy?
Thanks
Don’t book anything. Buy the ticket when you are at the airport station. Air travel is unpredictable. Flights are sometimes delayed by a multiplicity of factors (like weather) so you don’t know if your flight will arrive on time. Immigration procedures are not the issue.
Trains don’t run out of seats, and the full fare (called BASE fare) does not increase between now and your time of travel, so you have no reason to book ahead. Of course booking well ahead of time might give you a chance of getting a discounted fare. But discounted fares have restrictions and if your flight is late you can’t get reimbursed so you lose it all. The highest discount you can get to Venice is about 25€ savings per person. If that savings is worth the risk to lose it all for you, then give yourself at least 4-5 hours buffer between landing and the departure from Centrale. From the time of landing to the time you are at the Milano Centrale station you can expect to take two hours at the very least, one of which is the train ride, and the rest is deplaning, immigration, baggage claim, the long walk from the airplane door all the way to the station, and the wait for the next train (there is one every 30 min to Centrale). I never pre-purchase when I take the train after landing. I just pay full price whenever I get to the station (in my case it’s usually the train from Rome airport to Florence).
The least expensive tickets for that multi-leg journey bought well in advance run around $35. (There are actually some available tomorrow for that price). With the price averaging about $65, the most you might save is about $25 to $30 if you pre-book.
But with the potential for delays due to train/airline strikes, maintenance delays, weather, flight delays etc—- the reward just isn’t worth the risk that, ultimately, you could be stuck holding a ticket that you are unable to use.
If you are travelling from MXP to Venice you should book MXP to venice, not Milan Centrale to Venice. Trenitalia lets you do that. And you can just wait till you are landed with doing this. This is easily done using the Trenitalia App, or at the ticket office at the airport.
