Too soon to buy train tickets?

If Trenitalia has opened the sales, your travel days are set and you want to save money... why not? Because of Covid?

Since you are travelling in September, you can wait two or maybe 3 weeks and expect to find some discounted tickets left either on trenitalia.com or on italotreno.it
On the other hand, if you wait up to the day before and social distancing is still enforced on all trains with reserved seats... you'll end up paying the top, walk-up fares on both companies.

What's the longest ride you are doing? Make a fake purchase on both sites, entering a day of travel next week and see which fares are still available. There are more passengers in August than in Late September, but you'll get an approximate idea. And you'll see how expensive the walk-up fares are.

I just bought our train tickets for October this year as the train schedule was out. And did pay a little extra for premium and the economy flexibility.

Generally schedules are not released until 90 days before. Just remember to purchase from Trenitalia's website directly. Any other site is a 3rd party site and may charge you more. There will be no site that will charge you less.

No not too soon. I buy my tickets as soon as they are published, someone mentioned 90 days and to use the Trenitalia website. When using the website make sure you know the correct name of the train station (Rome has many stations) and change the clock to 00 to get the most solutions.

The schedules are posted roughly every six months. In Italy the are two classes of discount tickets that vary in number available by train and date. It is Super Econ, and Econ. The trains have restrictions but generally it is no refund, no exchange. These are fixed number of tickets in each discount class and once sold there are no more. Train prices do not vary like our airline tickets. So that is the only reason to buy tickets earlier. Trains rarely sell out except on major holiday weekends. And even if the 10am train is sold out, there is probably space on the 11.

We rarely buy tickets more than a day or two in advance unless there is a critical need to be somewhere at a fixed time. We miss some discounts but we like the flexibility. Rail fares are cheap in Italy. BUT would not go that in England. Those trains are expensive and it pays to buy discount tickets.

The schedules are posted roughly every six months.

That's right.

On the Second Summer Sunday of June, Trenitalia publishes the schedules up to the Second Sunday of December. Then they do the same in December for the following six months.

Some trains schedules (typically the high speed ones running in July and January) are uploaded in blocks before the deadline and this can give the impression of different time windows.

These days everything is different because of Covid: Trenitalia has set up the schedules up to December 12, but they open the sales in blocks based on the "shelf life" of Government Decrees. This is a silly choice by Trenitalia due to their greed; they should publish the complete schedules up to December 12 and block only some sales using the Barred Cart icon. This way you'd know that the trains would run even if tickets are not yet available.

If you buy in advance, remember you are bound to that that train at that time.
No need to buy first Class...unless there is a sale!....Second is just fine.
I would be looking and buying now, you may find some really good deals in advance, and even sometimes a two for one if you're lucky.
Buy direct from Trenitalia or Italo, not through a third party seller.

I bought my train tickets online a few weeks before traveling to Italy and it was fine - the upgrade to first class rarely cost me more than 10 Euro and the benefit of more social distance in 1st class had a calming effect after battling crowds at museums, airports, etc during covid. That said, things are getting busier and busier! It was all so worth it to visit such a wonderful country and to be able to enjoy traveling again.