train ticket purchase online

I encountered the same problem just last week. After getting help from other travelers on this forum, the trick is to leave out the emails and phone numbers when filling out the passengers. Then when you click on unregistered user, you can put in your email address there, so you can get your confirmation and e-ticket. Before learning this, I also registered on Trenitalia's website using one of the hotel's address as my Italian residence. That seems to work as well. But try the first option and let me know if it works. There is definitely a glitch with the website. Good luck!

Or you can use the ItaliaRail website, "http://www.italiarail.com/?aff=S61" (this web address has a reference to Site 61 which reduces the fee). There is still a small fee involved but the site is so much easier to use that I find it worthwhile. If you have a no foreign transaction fee credit card I would recommend that you make your purchase in Euros.

I registered on the Trenitalia website years ago and have never had a problem purchasing tickets.

I'm sure that you will be able to make the Trenitalia site work, or it's also easy enough to buy the ticket at any train station in Italy, with no deadline to do so. I would not be too worried about that departure filling up, but there's no guarantee until you buy the ticket. You know how committed you are to that particular departure.

The reason the site wants you to register is because from Vernazza to Sestri Levante or Levanto it is a regional train, those train tickets require registration and to provide an Italian address, buy that ticket in Italy, no reason to buy in advance. The second part of the trip is on an Intercity train where you could get a discount if you buy in advance.

Look at the schedule on Trenitalia and purchase the Sestri Levante or Levanto to Milano ticket in advance, you might get a super economy ticket for €9! However, if you miss the train on that particular ticket, you have to buy a new one, hence the special price.

Thanks for the information. By only buying the Intercity portion of the trip (Rapallo to Milano Centrale) I was able to use Trenitalia and buy the 9 Euro super economy ticket. I will buy the regional ticket Vernazza to Rapallo in Italy no more than 7 days in advance.

If you buy your regional ticket when you're in Italy, you can do it more than 7 days in advance (the limit is up to 60 I think). Just make sure to validate it (stamp it in the yellow box) before you board the train!

The yellow boxes for validating train tickets are being replaced by green/white/red ones that actually look geen/grey.

The problem isn't what kind of ticket you are trying to purchase. The Trenitalia website has gone squirrely once again. For a couple of years, USA credit cards could not be used. That was solved a couple of years ago. Then, you could buy tickets as a non-registered person. Now, if you try to register, it seems you have to be a resident of Italy.

You still can purchase tickets online as an unregistered user but you have to carefully navigate the system. For me, I am a long-time registered user so I have no difficulties buying tickets. Thus, I tried a dummy purchase using a different name, email ID and phone number. Lanialii in the first post above has the answer. Under Passengers, enter your first name and surname (last name). Do Not Enter your email address, contact number, corporate ID or loyalty code at this point - it seems to confuse the system if you enter information here and then go through the next step and re-enter it. Second, under Contact Buyer-required, check the Unregistered box. Third, enter you name, email address and phone number at this point. Fourth, select your method of payment. I checked the credit card button. Fifth, check box on the lower left to accept the General Travel Conditions. For me, I then checked Continue at this point and Bingo - up came the credit card payment page to purchase the tickets.

We've been going through the same thing tonight, multiple times. We followed Larry's suggestions, which enabled us to get farther in the process. However, we were stopped again by an error code when it tried to process our actual credit card. We are going to try again with PayPal.

Does your bank/credit card company know you are making foreign purchases? Your card may be blocked for suspicious activity. You should also notify them of your travel dates.

We FINALLY got our tickets purchased online, after numerous tries. I do not think it was because our credit card was being blocked (we did let our credit card issuer know we will be going to Italy, but we are a few weeks out, so it is possible that they stopped the charge). We switched browsers (from Firefox to IE) but also used PayPal. Not sure which of these did the trick, but once it worked, it was great.