Train Tickets, Buy now or buy later

Yes you can save a lot of €€ if you buy in advance. You can buy as far as 120 days in advance, BTW.

I ran your itinerary through Trenitalia using May 7 as an arbitrary date. You can save about €5.50 per person on Firenze to La Spezia, On La Spezia to Ravenna, you can save €16 per person, and on Ravenna to Rome you can save from €15 to €37 per person. This all depends on exact schedule and class of service, so play around at Trenitalia.com and see if you think the savings are worthwhile for you. If you know the exact days you plan to move between each location, why not buy in advance?

BTW, La Spezia to Ravenna takes 4 trains....

Supereconomy tickets are at least 40% savings and Economy 25% savings over the base price of Freccia and intercity train tickets. But they lock you on that date and time. If you change plans you lose your money, they aren't changeable nor refundable. However for your itinerary the savings would primarily from Ravenna to Rome. The other portions are mostly on regional trains and those don't offer discounts.

OK so it is better to book in advance. Should I be using the Trenitalia and Freccia websites for booking because so far I have been looking up fares on the Rail Europe website?

Absolutely do not use Raileurope. Their prices are inflated. One thing, Florence to La Spezia can be done using all Regionale trains, which are all-2nd-class trains that make lots of stops. They are unreserved and there is no advantage to buying on line as there are no advance discounts and the tickets are quite cheap to begin with. Raileurope generally does not show these as there is no profit in it for them. You can use the website www.bahn.com to look at the schedules. The tickets can be bought a few days in advance at a station (simply to save time at the ticket window) and they must be validated before boarding or you are subject to fines.
There is only 1 Regionale train from Florence to Ravenna and it leaves Florence at 7 am. All the other connections require the use of Freccia or IC reserved trains. Ravenna to Rome you will need to take the Freccia train from Bologna.
When you use www.trenitalia.com, you will need to hit the "Tutti I Treni" ("All the trains") button at the start to see Regionale trains. The price will be displayed only if it is 7 days from today, since that is the maximum time for on-line advance sales, but the schedule should stay the same.

On the Trenitalia site, click the British flag icon near the top of the page and "all the trains" will automatically show up. Note that you need to use the Italian station name (a pull-down menu appears after a few letters). For example, Florence's main station is Firenze Santa Maria Novella

Thanks for the information! I suppose what I'm hearing is that there are some trains that you can reserve online in advance, like intercity ones, and then there are regional trains which you can't reserve online because the fares don't become available until one week prior to when you want to travel.

You do NOT want to buy Regionale tickets on line because they come pre--validated. You are correct that they are only available on-line the week before but absolutely no reason to buy on line. No discounts ever. It is an open ticket. You validate, get on and go, no seat, you stand till someone gets off. ALL trains except Regional trains have reserved seats which come with the ticket so you will have a seat on any train except Regionale.

I'm adding a question of my own since this seems an appropriate thread. I had thought that a reservation had to be made (including seats) for a specific date and time. A friend who has been to Italy said there were tickets for purchase in advance that cost somewhat more but make it possible to pay the difference between the advance purchase price and the higher cost of a ticket purchased on the day of travel or closer to it if one must change the time of travel (I'm not sure whether he said it could be done if the date changed as well). Is this possible? I have not found this on the Trenitalia site. It would make me more willing to buy in advance.

If there is a strike, does one lose the money paid for a ticket purchased in advance or can the ticket be exchanged for another date and time?

We will need tickets from Milan Malpensa to Bellagio (Varenna), Bellagio (Varenna) to Venice, Venice to Florence, and Florence to Rome, which involve the use of regional, Freccia, and sometimes Eurocity trains.

Thanks for your help.

The Super Economy ticket is non-refundable/no charge under any conditions. The next ticket up - Economy - can be exchanged for a full price ticket, paying the difference, prior to train departure. The full price ticket can be exchanged any time. However, all tickets, including full price, must be exchanged prior to train departure. Once a train departures all tickets are dead. In the event of a strike, all tickets are exchangeable IF your train is affected. Some trains always run during a strike. And, of course, Regionale tickets can be used at anytime so exchange is not a problem. And it is always better to start a new question than to hijack someone else question.

Ben,
If the Regionale segment is part of a trip on a Freccia, the ticket can be purchased in advance for the whole trip. The La Spezia to Ravenna trip I posted above included non-Freccia segments and is bookable in advance. The only discounted fares are on the Freccia, however.

Laurel is right, if your trip includes both fast and regional trains, you can buy the entire trip in advance. These regional tickets will expire several hours after your first segment begins. I just bought a ticket with both types of trains for €9, which is the lowedt super-economy I have ever seen, even for a single freccia segment bought separately.

To Frank - Thanks for the information you provided. I have never heard of hijacking a post. Sorry if you perceived it that way. I thought that it would add additional information that the original poster (and others reading this post) might find helpful, as well as answering my own personal question.

I was reading all of the replies to Ben and have a question as well. I tried to purchase a train ticket on-line through Trenitalia from Rome to Monterosso via La Spezia for May. Everything comes up fine, but when I try to purchase it, I'm told that I have to "register" in order to buy the Regionale train portion of the trip (La Spezia to Monterosso). When I tried to register, I was told you have to live in Italy to register. Does anyone know how I go about completing the purchase? Thanks!

Jane
2/23/14 - 11:35 a.m.