Purchasing tickets for trains

Don't read entire posts sometimes they veer off topic = confusion (there are 40 responses on trains)

You can buy eticket print at home on the national rail site Trenitalia; the early you buy the lower the price generally; you can also buy when you get there at a machine in different languages at most stations with a credit card or cash
http://www.trenitalia.com/tcom-en?gclid=CPX_-r7K_9ECFQExaQodxEINqA

Go to the swiss train or trenitalia site and try to buy Domodossola to Stressa

or use rio2rome and it will tell you which train companies sell tickets for your destinations
https://www.rome2rio.com/s/Domodossola/Stresa

If you buy on-line roughly 90 to 120 - days out, you can take advantage of the deep discount tickets - Super Economy and Economy. However, those tickets come with severe restrictions - no change, no refund. The ticket are limited by train, day, and time. Once sold they are gone for that train. In the station or at a ticket machine you buy the standard, Base ticket, at anytime. This applies to all trains in Italy EXCEPT the Regionale trains. Those are the local trains - bus on rails - bought at anytime, no discounts ever, and never sell out. No seat - stand till one becomes available.

You can buy any ticket at any ticket window or machine in any station or a travel agency in any town. So buy you Italian tickets when handy. All tickets (again, except Regionale trains) come automatically with a seat reservation. You must buy the ticket before you get on the train but that can be five minutes, or five hours, or 5 weeks before you get. You must have the correct ticket in hand when you get on the train. If it is a Regionale train ticket it must be validated (time stamped) in a little Green/Blue/Yellow box near the head of the platform or the station. Watch the local do it.

Some of the responses on the Train question were misleading if not completely wrong. And then the poster adds more confusion by trying to defend the earlier misleading responses as being correct. Sometimes the happens when someone may have read too many guidebooks with min experience. It is called sorting through the static.

If you have a specific question or something is not clear - ask it.

We mostly bought train tickets from machines at stations. Doing things like that the first time is hard, then you get used to it. Some stations have humans. Once we bought ahead and you just show your proof on your device.

Look at seat61.com, I found that helpful.

mp,

You don't need to buy the Italian train tickets in advance, but it will be easier and may be cheaper if you do.

Depending on which departure you use from Zermatt, you may be using a combination of EuroCity, InterCity and Regionale trains in Italy. The discounted tickets are applicable on the EC and IC trains, but as mentioned above these have restrictions. There are no discounts on Regionale tickets, whether tickets are purchased in advance or purchased on the day of travel. The EC / IC / Freccia express trains have compulsory seat reservations which are specific to train, date and departure time.

One important point to note is that if you purchase tickets for Regionale trains locally, either at a Kiosk or staffed ticket window, these MUST be validated prior to boarding the train on the day of travel, or you'll risk hefty fines which will be collected on the spot! If you buy Regionale tickets online, these will be pre-validated, but have a few restrictions.

You can buy advance tickets either on the Trenitalia website or at trainline.eu, which sells tickets at the same price as the rail operator.

In the same situation, I'd probably buy advance tickets online for Domodossola to Stresa, Stresa to Varenna and Varenna to Tirano. If you use the 09:13 departure from Zermatt to Stresa, that has a 46 minute layover in Domodossola so you could just buy tickets at the station there. On that particular segment, the ongoing train to Stresa is a Regionale, so it won't make any difference in price whether you buy the tickets in advance or on the spot.

Note that the Bernina Express has compulsory reservations, which I don't believe are included with your Swiss Pass. As I recall, the panoramic B.E. cars are only used on one departure each way every day.

One night in Varenna won't allow much time to see anything.

Hi there. I just bought a handful of Italy train tickets for the first time. (Venice-Manarola one day; Manarola-Pisa another day; Pisa-Rome another day; all for two travelers.) I agree with the other poster who said that purchasing a ticket for the first time is tricky, but then you get used to it.

I used Trenitalia for all of those purchases with the website changed to the English option. I chose the super economy tickets for all of the train travel we're doing. The process was fairly similar to using an airline website and purchasing airfare online. Because the super economy get bought up quickly since they're the cheapest, I think it's best to book in advance opposed to purchasing tickets in person at the train station. The cheaper tickets will likely be gone at that point!

Of course the super economy are nonrefundable and cannot be changed. Our train travel is not taking place right after a flight (ie: delayed flight might mean missing the train,) so we figured the restriction with being nonrefundable is fine for us.

I did also check out Italiarail and Italo to compare the routes and prices, but I found that Trenitalia had better options when it came to itineraries and prices.

You don't need to purchase you tickets in advance but you can get some pretty good discounts if you do. However, these discounted fares are non-refundable so if flexibility/convenience outweigh savings, just arrive 20 minutes or so before your departure and purchase you tickets at the station. If, however, you are traveling as part of a large group and you all wish to be seated in the same carriage of a high-speed train, it may be wise to purchase your tickets in advance (especially on more congested routes).

Italian ticket kiosks require a "chipped" card and a PIN. (Both my 'chip & signature' and 'chip & PIN' cards worked equally well.) If you don't know you PIN, contact you bank at least 4-6 weeks before leaving... Non-chipped debit cards will not work! And, not all train stations have "attended" ticket windows and it seems the lines for an attended window get longer with every passing year...

In Italy, there are generally two kinds of trains - regional (to include intercity) and high-speed trains. The regional train tickets are good for a period of time (90 days?) from issuance but aren't specific to a train or seat. These tickets need to be validated using the time-clock machine in the terminal or on the platform BEFORE getting on the train. Being caught by the conductor with an un-validated ticket is criminal offence and dealt with as such. No exceptions. The high-speed (Trenitalia Freccia- and the Italo) train tickets are specific to a particular train, carriage and seat assignment (just like an airline ticket). These tickets do not need validating.

Thank you for all your responses you have been very helpful. I know one night in Varenna is not much but our intention is to get to the Bernina Express route (not necessarily on that particular train). We just so happen to be going through Italy to get to it.