Rail Pass can't be used for sleeper train?

Alicia, Have you purchased your Railpass yet? While the information you received may be correct, I'd want a "second opinion". I'd suggest calling or sending an E-mail to the experts at ETBD. I suspect you'll get a more useful and detailed answer to your questions than the one you received from Rail Europe. Happy travels!

I'm not sure that railpasses are no longer good on all sleeper trains. However, it is true for all Artesia trains that run from Paris to Italy. According to the Eurail website, the two major Artesia runs (Paris/Milan/Venice and Paris/Florence/Rome were suspended on Dec 11. They no longer run. Apparently, they will be replaced by a new service called "Thello". Initially, Thello will make the Paris-Gare de Lyon/Milan/Venice run. It will include a new night train run. Eurail further indicates that the Eurail pass is not valid on the new Thello run as of yet. Here's a news link. http://www.portal.gesac.it/portal/page/portal/internet/inVOLO/DestinazioniCompagnie The alternate run at this time seems to be either Paris/Ventimiglia/Florence or Paris/Bern/Florence. I don't see night trains on these routes. For Paris/Bern/Florence, I see fares of 184Eu (restricted and non-refundable) to 245Eu. All depending on the run. The journey will take 10.0hrs-14hrs, again depending on the run. Your adult 4 day Eurail pass will cost you about $327. If you want to fly from Paris into Florence, none of the budget airlines fly this direct route. One of the best direct budget flight routes is on Easyjet from Paris-CDG to Bologna. Bologna is not far from Florence.

Alicia, To add to the previous reply, if you decide to change your plans and travel that route via budget airline, you might consider using EasyJet from Paris/ORY to Pisa/PSA. It's a very quick flight and from Pisa airport it's only about 57 minutes to Florence SMN. Cheers!

Yes, you would need a France-Italy railpass. However, if you book well in advance (up to 90 days) on the Trenitalia site, you can get discount fares for the Thello night train from Paris to Milan. For example, the Smart fare for a bunk in a four-person couchette is €55. If you book in advance on the Trenitalia site, you can get a Mini fare as low as €19 for a high-speed EuroStar Italia train from Milan to Florence.

Thanks everyone. I spoke to someone else at Rail Europe and they verified that the passes can no longer be used on the sleeper trains. I didn't verify with ETBD though. In any case, we figured out that the price for the passes wouldn't make sense for our journey anyhow. Unfortunately, the prices on Trenitalia are pretty much identical to Rail Europe right now. Frustrating because I had been checking the Rail Europe site since September (I had the Artesia Night train I wanted all picked out) and always got the message that you could only book 60 days out. Then the Artesia Night gets canceled and I find that I should have booked a month ago with Trenitalia to get lower fares. Sigh. My husband didn't want to fly unless we could go right into Florence. And by the time we pay for the flight, train tickets from Pisa or Bologna and an extra night in our hotel, the price was almost identical to the sleeper train. We decided to just buy the full fare tickets from Rail Europe. For Paris to Florence and Florence to Rome it cost us $250 each. I really like that the sleeper train leaves Paris at 7:45 pm, giving us a pretty good last day there. The flights I saw left in the late afternoon and we'd have to be there a couple hours early.

Rail Passes are not valid on certain railway operations, such as Thello or Westbahn (Austria, operating trains between Salzburg and Wien). They will also be not valid on NTV, the new Italian private railway opening shop this March with their Italo trains. The case of Austria is particularly tricky because Westbahn trains do not have seat reservations, but you can't ride them with an Eurail Pass.