I already bought 1 leg of train from Venice to Florence from Italiarail.com. When I got the e-confirmation, looks like Italiarail made about $22 more than the actually cost of both tickets. I did check prices with Trenitalia and it look like same if not more than Italiarail.
My question: Is it wise to just buy on the same day of travel instead of advance? My guess is the prices at the train stations are less expensive than these web sights?
Posted by
Brooklyn, NY
4327 posts
When we were planning a trip to just Rome during the month of February, my sister and hubby thought they would go to Florence for one of the days. In October the tickets were around the same price $22. She thought is was cheap enough and their favorite city. They hesitated till we arrived in Rome on a Saturday. By Wednesday the tickets were about $86 pp. needless to say, they didn’t go. Figure it out.
Posted by
OP
97 posts
Thanks Barbara! Good example.
Posted by
Forest Grove, OR
11835 posts
If you are certain of your schedule, buy your tickets for journeys that involve high-speed freccia trains in advance and you will save money. Buy up to 120 days in advance, BTW. You can buy from www.trenitalia.com, www.italotreno.it, or www.trainline.eu. None of these do additional markup.
Pisa to the Cinque Terra is not a freccia therefore nothing to be gained by buying in advance. Florence to Rome is a freccia so if you are sure of date and time, book now.
Posted by
Ontario, Canada
5647 posts
Not sure how that happened, unless you failed to deselect the RailAid option just before checkout. There is also a service fee added on, which is itemized before the total amount is given. The direct websites for the 2 train companies is trenitalia or italotreno, not italiarail.
There is no difference in price between advance purchases and day of purchases at the station for any Regionale tickets (Italotreno doesn't run these; only Trenitalia). Tickets for Freccia trains bought day of at the station will likely be full fare - more expensive than advance nonrefundable base tickets (supereconomy on Trenitalia).
Posted by
OP
97 posts
Thanks Barbara, Laurel and CJean!
Posted by
19 posts
we bought in advance which was huge for us as we weren't familiar with ticketing system and it saved time especially since we were doing transfers..i we bought directly from trenitalia web site.
Posted by
OP
97 posts
Once again decurreri
Thank you! We already bought 1/2 of trip in advance. We are continuing to do so. Unfortunately on 1st leg of train rides I got sucked into the italiarail.com. Paid about 33 euro more. Lesson learned. Now using trainline.eu instead. (Thanks to Laurel on this post). This has been fun and frustrating putting this trip together. Yet I'm still very optimistic!! Grazie everyone!