prices of train tickets

trenitalia is the official train site for Italy. Raileurope and eurail are resellers and will tack on fees. They also won't show all available trains. I find the trenitalia site very easy to use. You just enter your cities, time and dates and it takes you to the selection page. Once you choose the train you want you will see all available fares, including the mini fares which are not offered by the resellers. Remember, there is a schedule change due for June 12th so not all trains will be listed for after that date until we get closer to that date. The schedules won't change much so you can look at a closer date to get a good idea of what the schedules will be like. Donna

Marjorie, If you know exactly when you'll be traveling, it is well worth spending a little time getting used to the trenitalia site. I was able to save almost 200 euros by purchasing MiniFares for our upcoming trip next month. Some examples (per ticket): Milan to Venice (ES City train Mon-6:55) 2nd Class = 9 euros (regularly EUR32.50) Venice to Florence (ES Italia AV train Wed-9:30) 1st Class = 42 euros (regularly EUR60) Rome to Naples (ES Italia AV train Fri-7:35) 2nd Class = 19 euros (regularly EUR45) Naples to Rome (ES Italia AV train Fri-18:50)
2nd Class = 19 euros (regularly EUR45) So our savings was EUR 93.5 x 2 = EUR187!!! Just be aware that there are restrictions with the MiniFares, so if you miss your train the tickets are valueless.

Thanks all! I am leaving on June 10th, and really don;t want to wait until then to buy tickets a week or two later.... Is it safe to buy tickets with the schedules changing? Will my tickets be honored? One of my tickets especially is from Milan to Nice, and there aren't many choices that work, I'd much prefer buying them ahead of time. Any advice?

Marjorie, as Donna said, the schedules change around June 12. Trenitalia is generally the last national rail site to get the new schedules loaded into their system. Generally this is sometime in late May. Until they do put up the new schedules, you cannot buy a ticket on the trains that have reserved seats (this includes IC and ES trains.) RailEurope will sell you a ticket earlier, but they will inform you, after the purchase, that you will have to wait for the ticket, and they don't know when it will arrive. Since you are leaving June 10, that could be cutting it close. For that and other reasons you are better off using Trenitalia to buy your tickets once they become available. You should be able to get the Mini fares on some of your routes. RailEurope does not offer these Mini fares. If you can't get the purchase to go through on Trenitalia, try BootsnAll, a travel site that offers Trenitalia tickets, including Mini fares, at par value, then adds a small handling fee. Right now the schedule show routes from Milan to Nice every 2 hours. However, you cannot buy a ticket for the whole route as part of it uses regional trains. Put in Milan to start and Ventimiglia as your destination, and you should be able to buy your reserved seats on the IC train for your travel day. You can buy the ticket for the regional train from there to Nice once you get to Italy; regional trains do not have reserved seats and do not sell out. Just remember that Mini fares are for a specific train on a specific day, and are non-refundable. You are locked into that journey or lose the fare.

I have a related question – when purchasing the tickets in advance from Trenitalia, do they mail them directly to you or can you get an e-ticket via email? Similar to Marjorie, we're leaving for our trip shortly after June 12. Our concern was that they might not arrive in time prior to our departure.

Morgan, you can print e-tickets - or at least get a confirmation number to take to a ticket window/ticket machine to exchange for a paper ticket - from all three sellers. Rail Europe doesn't show all of your options; it omits many trains and even entire train routes! They've had a reputation for being much more expensive, but as of lately their prices have become more competitive...with all three, you have to watch for S&H charges (typically if they send you paper tickets), or 'processing fees' (for e-tickets); from time to time Rail Europe has 'free S&H' but typically requires a minimum purchase amount...But even with the 'processing fees' you can still save much more money with the "Mini" discount fares. http://www.bootsnall.com/eurail/passes/italy.shtml http://www.trenitalia.com/cms/v/index.jsp?vgnextoid=ad1ce14114bc9110VgnVCM10000080a3e90aRCRD http://www.raileurope.com/index.html