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Purchasing Train Tickets -- Advice needed, please

Posted by (kensington, ca, u.s.a) on

Hi!
I'm looking for advice regarding purchasing train tickets.

We are arriving at Milano Malpensa airport at 7am in October and need to get to Parma. What would be a reasonable amount of time to expect to debark from International Terminal 1, get luggage, clear through customs and immigration and get to the Milano Malpensa train? For trips, such as this, that include an airport arrival or departure, do folks recommend purchasing a ticket early (let's say 1 month before our trip begins) or wait until that morning?

Next we are traveling from Parma to Venice and then finally from Venice to Florence. We've been searching the italiatren.com website for train tickets. Is this the best way to get tickets? Will it list all of the possible options?

Finally, will trains run out of seats? The website says there is a lot of demand for the routes and to hurry up and purchase tickets. We are looking at business class seats. Do we need to purchase seats in advance? If so, how far in advance? If we are late and miss a train, can we use the fare we paid toward a ticket on the next train? How does making changes on your train ticket work? Is it easy to do?

Thanks so much! Really appreciate your guidance on this!

Best, Amberko

Posted by
1266 posts

Hello karen,

I believe the site you are using is the US version of the official Italian site: https://www.trenitalia.com/en.html if you want to check what you're seeing. The biggest difference is you need to use the Italian city names (Firenze versus Florence) on the Italian site.

The only other site to be aware of is https://www.italotreno.it/en which is a privately owned company that runs fast trains between the big cities.

Time in an out of airports is hard - especially when you factor in flight delays which is usually the biggest issue. There are tickets you can buy for the MXP to Milan train that are good for 4 hours to cover the time but it doesn't help you with the big question which is when is it safe to book Milan to Bologna.

Fast trains have classes, assigned seats and are for a specific time so you need to know you are going to make that specific train if you buy a ticket for it. Paying more can allow you to rebook that fast train ticket for another train if you miss it but you will need to go to the ticket office and handle that yourself. (Having done that in the Milan train station on a busy day I can tell you the train ticket office seems a bit like a Fellini film.) If you miss a booked train because of the train company they are required to rebook you, but if you miss it on your own and you didn't buy a changeable ticket that's on you.

Fast trains can run out of seats and they get more expensive the closer you get to the departure date. So you're right to wonder about buying timed ticket early and risking waiting two hours for the later train versus missing one because of flight delay. It's a basic risk/reward question.

In broad terms there are fast trains and local trains called regionale. Regionale are all the same class, don't sell out and there is no reason to buy those tickets until you need them. My wife and I call these "Get your butt on the train" class tickets.

When are you trying to book? The tickets tend to come out in large date chunks so it's pretty predictable.

Get the Trenitalia app to check schedules, track trains and buy tickets through the app.
Great advice and information on trains in general here from the man in seat 61: https://www.seat61.com/Italy.htm

Have a great trip,
=Tod

Posted by
21522 posts

italiatren.com is a travel agency.

To get to Parma from Malpensa, you could just buy the tickets when you get to the Malpensa train station as you can do this with all regional trains which never sell out.

You can buy the Parma-Venice and Venice-Florence tickets now to get the best price for nonrefundable, train-specific tickets. You could also buy all regional ticket to Venice that is only 45 minutes longer than a fast train. You will have to take a regional train to Bologna to start regardless.

I use the company that operates the trains, Trenitalia, https://www.trenitalia.com/en.html

For Venice to Florence, you can also use a competing operator of high speed trains, Italo Treno,https://www.italotreno.it/en Their trains are just as nice (nicer some say), just as fast, and often a bit cheaper.

Posted by
8071 posts

I always buy my train tickets a month or two ahead except for any the day I’m arriving. I just don’t like either waiting around for my train when I could have taken an earlier one, or stressing that I will miss my train and have to purchase new tickets.

I just figure the amount I save on the other tickets for the rest of the vacation justifies the full price for the day of arrival.

If you need to purchase a ticket and want to go to a manned ticket office for some reason instead of purchasing it on the app, it’s nice to write the name of the city, how many people and return or no return trip. That can simplify your conversation and speed up the transaction for the people waiting in line behind you.

Oh, no need for business class, etc. for normal travel.

Posted by
8071 posts

One comment off the train topic. Parma has my absolute favorite church interior! Hope you get a chance to see it!

Posted by
10 posts

Thank you all so much! This is very helpful!

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