When trying to book on line for Sept 16 we are finding that the economy and super economy are sold out! We will be a party of 7. Is it advisable to book in advance or is there a benefit to buying the ticket the day of or couple of days sooner. We will be travelling with luggage so does that make a difference on what selection we should pick I.e would super economy work for us?
Thanks for the help
Supereconomy refers only to ticket price and restrictions on changes. Your supereconomy seat is the same as the base fare seat in the train car.
If you want to sit together, you might want to book in advance. Otherwise the trenitalia.com site will offer you a chart of seats to choose, or automatically try to seat you together. The longer you wait, the less likely you will find 7 seats together.
Are the tickets sold out, or showing not available because part of your route may be on regionale trains (only shows a schedule 7 days in advance of travel date)?
As I understand the question, the economy and super economy are sold out but not the base ticket. It is not unusual for the SE and E ticket since they are limited in number the number vary by train schedule. Your choice of class is first or second. SE is simply a super discounted ticket. We almost always use 2nd class. If base fare tickets is all that is left then there is no advantage, other than convenience, to purchasing on-line. The price is the same on line or at the station. With seven buying earlier will give a better chance of all sitting together .
If you are traveling from Rome to Poggibonsi, you will be on two different trains. On the most common runs, the first train will be a Frecciarossa from Rome to Florence. The second train will be a Regionale train. No economy or super economy tickets on a Regionale train. They are never discounted. No seat reservations either. You buy your ticket, validate the ticket before boarding, board the train and find your own seat. If no seats you can stand. This is different for your fast train where you must have seat reservations.
As for your Frecciarossa fast train, it will cost you 43Euro per person. This is the full base fare. Since you will pay full fare, you can easily buy the tickets when you get to Rome. I don't think that you can buy tickets online for more than five people anyway unless they've changed their policy recently.
Poggibonsi.
The most misspelled Italian town by Americans.
If Supereconomy are sold out now, they won't be coming back later. You are left with the base prices only. You can buy those just minutes before the train to Florence departs from Rome. base price tickets don't sell out except for very rare occasions, in which case you just wait for the next train 20 or 30 min later (or buy a higher class seat, which never ever sell out)
You're on the right track with the advice above.
