on line ticket purchase with rail italy

Flying to Malapensa, by not much time I mean we land at 10:30 and want to catch the 13:55 train. 3 hours should be enough, we go through immigration in Frankfurt where we change planes from the US. It appears from the posts that we should buy the tickets at the station and not in advance, except that we are going on a Friday in late June, if that makes a diff. also I have been told that there is more room for luggage in 1st then in 2nd.

I had asked a question about trains - severalposts down from you. Someone told me they could not get their credit card to work over the internet. So after I tried several times I gave up and am going to buy at airport. Multiple people have said do not bother with 1st class. There is very little difference between 1st and 2nd class.

Agree about no need to purchase 1st class, particularly for your short trip. Clean, spacious facing seats with table. OK snack car. We used the train a little in Oct-Nov of 2006. Don;t know about height of tourist season. Florence to Rome nice fast trip. Had no problem buying tix in the station with Visa Card.

You have a couple of choices to buy online. First is www.trenitalia.com, the main Italian train website. Best of luck trying to conduct a transaction on this site. Second is www.raileurope.com. They are more expensive since they are a ticket broker but it's an easy purchase. Note, however, that with an advance ticket, you are tied into a date and time for the train. If your plane is late, you run the risk of missing your train.

That being said, if you don't have advance tickets, you have plenty of time to get to the Milan train station and purchase tickets. There are 29 trains a day to Padova from Milan. Once in the Milan train station, walk up to a self-service machine and 2 minutes later, you have a ticket on the next train out. The machine speaks English and will take your American credit card. Unless you have to be in Padova by a certain time, you do not have a time crunch.

I agree with Larry here. BTW you say you don't have much time between the flight and the train. I'm not sure what you have planned, but I hope you have factored in a couple of hours here (Milan to Padova). To get to Trenitalia you have to take a bus to the Centrale station, or you can take a train to Cadorna and then the subway to the Centrale station. See http://www.slowtrav.com/italy/trains/airports.htm

Every time you change modes of transport you have slippage. You're not going to step off your train onto a waiting bus/train that immediately whisks you to your next stop, where you board a train to Padova that departs soon after you get aboard.

The issue with the Trenitalia website hasn't really been credit cards...it seems to be getting thru the registration process before using a credit card. Many seem to report problems if they try to register as they're booking for the first time. You might try registering first, waiting until you receive your confirmation password via e-mail, then try booking. That way you'll hopefully get an Amica fare if it's available, and have the tickets in hand. Beware of restrictions on changing the ticket, should you need to.

From what I saw last week, in Italy, you can purchase tickets at an automated Ticket Machine, very much like an ATM. The first one i went to took about 3 minutes to figure out, after that, i was able to get tickets purchased with a Credit Card in less than 2 Minutes -- if you don't get them ordered on line, you can get them very quickly there.

barry

Well, after more frustration (I really ENJOY banging my head against a wall!), I tried Trenitalia's Call Center again: +39-06-68475475.

The good news is that someone actually answered the phone. But, he told me that the website only accepts Italian credit cards.

I know that other people have said that they have had success with U.S. cards, but I thought that I would pass this along.

I will try italiarail.com and discoveritaly.net and see if I have better luck with them. I am really trying to avoid paying an extra $300 by using RailEurope.

I just tried using the Trenitalia website to book 5 Cisalpino first class, one-way, tickets from Venice to Basel, Switzerland, for July.

I registered first, booked all the seats (after taking a few practice runs through the site to figure out how to do this!), got all the way to the payment page, and .....

Trying 4 different credit cards, all FAILED. Very frustrating!

I want to avoid using RailEurope. For our tickets, we're talking about a difference of $300 more than directly through Trenitalia.

I know that some will say that we can just do this when we get to Venice. But, we want to book these in advance.

Ugh .......

try italiarail.com they are in the US

I have contacted ItaliaRail.com and DiscoverItaly.net. ItaliaRail.com allows purchase of tickets on-line, but it appears that they will only accept dates within 30 days, whereas most others accept 90 days in advance. But, I'm waiting to hear back from them.

Discoveritaly.net only takes telephone and e-mail reservations at this point, so I have sent them an e-mail to see what they can offer.

And, being a firm believer in comparing "official" answers, I called the Trenitalia Call Center again. This time, I was told that only Italian credit cards are accepted, but that this is not by design. He said that they are having problems with "the banking system", and they're working on it, but, for now, only Italian cards work.

Discover Italy, Trenitalia's agent told me today that Trenitalia will no longer take US credit cards on line or over the phone due to the high level of CC fraud in the US. You need to either buy from them, Eurorail or some other US based agent or buy on the ground in Italy where they can swip your credit card. I will buy at the Milan train station.

Well, I falsely accused RailEurope of charging $300+ more than Trenitalia. It turns out that I was looking at a "flexible" fare. But, for the regular fare, the cost will be identical to Trenitalia.

And, unlike some of the other rail sites, RailEurope allows purchases 90 days in advance, whereas the others are all 60 days.

I just wanted to set the record straight ....

I hope this isn't too late. I too had a fit buying tickets with a credit card on the Trenitalia website. Then I discovered Italia Rail - www.italiarail.com. They are located in Massachusetts and since they are in North America, no problem with my US credit card and I got my tickets within 2 days. I bought 9 different tickets between various cities in Italy - the tickets are all accurate and I'm good to go.

Does anyone know if the Trenitalia website is still not accepting american credit cards?
Or does the Italiarail.com website (I think that's it, the one referred to above as being in MA.) charge the same amount as Trenitalia?

Italiarail will charge a bit more as they are a ticket broker. Also, I am successfully registered on the Trenitalia site and have purchased tickets with my American credit card. However, I tried to purchase a ticket today with a credit card that I have used before and it was immediately rejected. That hasn't happened before.

I have been trying to purchase several tickets online from Trenitalia all day! The first one went through with my US credit card with no problem. Then after that, it would not accept my card. I called my cc company thinking they might have put a stop on it but they say no. Also had a problem with using my U.S. credit card to guarantee a hotel in Italy. Again it went through on 3 hotels but not the fourth. Very frustrating but evidently there are sporatic problems with U.S. cards in Italy. Hope it doesn't happen while I'm traveling!!

Deborah, you now can buy tickets online with Trenitalia. You need a Visa card that has been registered with the Verified by Visa program. Trenitalia is a Verified by Visa partner. I've done it twice recently. See my previous post on how to do this.

CLICK HERE

Larry, I'm happy that you've been able to get through Trenitalia's mess, but I've registered all of my VISA cards with Verified by Visa. When I attempt to purchase on Trenitalia I get the pop-up screen from Verified by Visa where I put in my secret password. It's still rejected every time with every credit card.

What kind of visa credit card do you have?

Larry - I've had the same issues in the past few days. We're trying to get on the overnight train from Venice to Rome on 23Apr and nothing works for me either.

Trenitalia isn't even submitting the authorization to my bank; it's just getting rejected right away.