Purchasing Italian train tickets through Rick Steves

I always have purchased direct from Trenitalia.com or ItaloTreno.it, the other carrier in Italy. Lately I have been using CaptainTrain.com as it presents you with both options and all the discounts. Very easy to use site, too.

Thank you Laurel. I have been on all three of these sites you recommended, however, there is a problem. They all want "round trip" and the date in May will not register. The only website other than Rick Steves is the italiarail.com site which gives me the dates, etc. I want. I guess I'll use either one of these two. I know you can make reservations up to 120 days in advance, so that's not the problem. Thanks again.

As you saw, pricing is about the same, so you can use whichever site is working best for you. Italy does not have roundtrip discounts, so you should have no problem to book each trip as one-way. One-way is the default setting through our Rail Europe link as well as at www.trenitalia.com.

Ruth,

I normally purchase tickets for rail travel in Italy through www.captaintrain.com as they have a very user friendly website. The prices are the same as buying from the rail networks, and they sell tickets for both Trenitalia and Italo so it's "one stop shopping".

Have any of you purchased through Rick and what is your recommendation.

Bear in mind that you are not purchasing individual tickets from Rick. As Laura from RS notes, they just give a link to RailEurope for convenience. If you use that link you are buying from them.

I have no problem entering one-way requests on the captaintrain site. Just put in a departure date and click "search", don't fill in a return date on the form. Tickets in Italy are only available 4 months in advance, so if you put a date farther out most sites will return something like "not found" or "unavailable" RailEurope may quote tickets farther out, but that's because they expect to be able to buy them when they are available from the rail carrier. RailEurope also has a markup and does not show all the trains possible or necessarily the lowest fares.

If any of the trains you want are NOT high speed - i.e. if they are Regionale or Regionale Veloce, you can't get tickets more than 7 days out. The prices on those trains don't vary so look at the same day in the next week for information. The only time you can get them earlier is if they are on the same ticket as a highspeed train, and you then lose all the flexibility inherent in a R or RV.

I want to thank all of you for your suggestions. We have decided to book directly with Trenitalia.com. We found some good fares and discounts and will probably book this week.

Thanks again.
Ruth

Hello, I'm back with another question. I decided to try again to reserve on captaintrain.com and am unable to choose the fare I want and also the seats. The seats are automatically picked for you. If this is normal, than don't think I like that option or am I doing something wrong. However, there is another post out there regarding someone having a problem with Trenitalia site and not knowing whether their reservation has been made or not. Seems like a problem both ways? Maybe going through Rick is the better way, maybe I would know that the tickets are booked, etc.

Thanks
Ruth

Rail Europe also doesn't offer a way to pick your seat assignment, but the tickets will show you the car number and seat numbers that were assigned. I think that Trenitalia only recently added free choice on their site, but it is there now. Any booking service will automatically try to seat you together.

Trenitalia lets you choose the seat, I buy one-way tickets form their site frequently (last time was Monday for a May 23 trip). They have roundtrip options but you can choose one-way. Sometimes a roundtrip, same-day ticket is cheap, good for a daytrip.

I've been choosing seats on Trenitalia for at least 2 years.

The person Ruth talks about not being sure if the ticket was bought clearly didn't complete the process. It sounded exactly like Verified by Visa which is put in to protect both the vendor and buyer in that sort of transaction. She didn't do that step.

Later she returned to say that she was successful but I don't think she ever said how she had done it.

Hello, this reply is to Nigel. I believe you may have read my reply wrong as I never ordered the tickets and didn't go as far as using my credit card. As I stated, I had read that on another thread.

As for others who have replied, thank you. We will be using captain train. It seems like the best and easiest of them all.

Again thanks much.

Ruth

Hi everyone! Just wanted to quickly let you know I made reservations today through captaintrain.com and it was very easy and no problems at all. Thanks to all of you who suggested captaintrain.

Ruth

Ruth,

It's great to hear that you got it all sorted.

Buon Viaggio!

Wonderful information...I have an additional question that relates to this conversation. We will be traveling in Italy for the first time in May and I am a bit intimidated by the rail system. I was going to buy tickets through Rail Europe but now think I will try CaptainTrain. I am fearful of missing a train or not knowing which car to get on...do the tickets from CaptainTrain have the car number and seat reservation number on it also? Any tips? Thank you much!

And the part about Rick just offering you a link to Rail Europe...it's probably a business deal rather than just being nice to RE. Businesses don't usually just offer nice free links to other businesses through their own websites. RE more than likely "rents" the space from RS or perhaps RS receives a certain amount of commission from readers who click through to the RE site.

Mlofgreen, to answer your question, yes the tickets show rail car and seat numbers. You can't choose your seats (or at least I didn't find a way), but it was fine. First time making train reservations and first time using captain train. Very easy to do.
Ruth

Mlofgreen, be sure to note the final destination of your train, intermediate stops will only be listed on the departures poster, on the electronic board, and on the scrolling part of the train sign at the track.

miofgreen,

It might have been better to start your own thread on this topic. A few comments on your questions.....

To begin with, forget Rail Europe! Their prices are often higher than purchasing from the rail networks or other sites, and they don't sell tickets for all routes.

If you're only travelling between the three cities you mentioned, you'll be using the high speed trains, either Trenitalia or Italo Treno. You can use either rail network on those routes, however one point to mention is that Italo Treno sometimes uses a different station in Rome (Roma Tiburtina).

You can purchase the tickets for either rail network at Captain Train, often at considerable savings (depending on how far in advance you purchase). However, it's important to note that those trains have compulsory seat reservations which are specific to train, date and departure time and can only be used on the ONE train listed on the ticket. If you board the wrong train by mistake, you'll be subject to hefty fines which will be collected on the spot.

Before boarding the train, check the electronic board to determine which track no. (Binario) your train is leaving from. Your train number will be shown on the ticket (ie: AV-9718). Your tickets will specify a Car No. (Carrozza) and Seat No.'s (Posti), and you must sit in the assigned seats. You may find it helpful to watch THIS short video tutorial. If you place larger items on the luggage rack, as shown in the video, keep a close watch on them so they don't "disappear" (I've had some "close calls"). Smaller carry-on size items can be placed on the rack above your seats.

One other important point to mention is that if you'll be using any Regionale trains, Buses, Metro or other transit, you MUST validate tickets prior to boarding on the day of travel, or again hefty fines! In most cases, validation is accomplished by inserting tickets inside the track side machines and getting a time & date stamp. If riding the Vaporetti in Venice, this is done electronically by "tapping" the ticket against the reader. If you get a green light, you're good to go. If you're going to be travelling by train from Rome to Civitavecchia to connect with your cruise, you'll likely be using a Regionale train, so you'll need to keep that in mind.