Trenitalia Pass Worth It?

If you have been "been reading that rail passes in Italy do make much sense. " I'd like to know who suggests that they are a good idea.

You need to make additional purchases of reservations at around 10€ per person per leg on Freccia and IC and EC trains, only the Regional and Regionale Veloce can be boarded without a reservation.

That would be 2 reservation fees for the Lugano to Florence trip (Lugano to Milan, Milan to Florence), then Milan to Naples, and Naples to Rome.

The Amalfi Coast isn't on the train. You can train to Salerno (main line including Frecce) or Sorrento (Circumvesuviana commuter train, passes not accepted).

Passes are not accepted at all on the other high speed train company, Italo, which is a pity because they are an excellent operation.

You can buy very inexpensive advance tickets a few weeks out which may well be not much more money than the pass holder reservation fees let alone the cost of the pass.

Do the math.

Nigel, The seat reservations are included in the cost of the new Trenitalia pass.
Sunshinegirl123, Both Trenitalia and Italotreno have already published the discounted and the walk-up fares up to December 8. Just Enter your days of travel and do the math.
Note the trenitalia.com displays the price per group of passengers, italotreno per person.

Nigel, I meant to say that I have read passes for Italy do not make sense. I appreciate you both offering your advice!

For information of others, here is the website page explaining the pass.
https://www.trenitalia.com/en/offers/trenitalia-pass.html

A 3 day pass requires the 3 trips take place within 7 days.

Apparently, there is a new Trenitalia pass for foreign visitors. Has anyone used this? There is a senior discount and different categories. I’m having trouble figuring out if the pass allows last minute reservations. The way I read it, some passes will allow you to book as you go, but I’m unsure.
Anyone have experience with this pass? Thank you.

Annie, the new Trenitalia pass is really quite new. There's no deadline to reserve Italian trains and they rarely sell out, so I would not expect any problem. Ticketed reservations are also changeable under the same restrictions as regular, Base-fare tickets. Note that this pass is counting travel segments, not full calendar days like Eurail passes do.

Forget railpasses in Italy where fares purchased in advance are dirt cheap.

I would prefer not to have the stress of making a specific train. We are traveling to quite a few places and I would love to have my options open. It looks like the pass allows that mode of travel.

Even if you have a pass where the reservations are included in the price of the pass...you still have to physically make a reservation on the high speed trains if you definitely want to travel on them. Sure I guess you could walk up and attempt to get on a train, but if there are no seats available you’ll be out of luck.

The fast trains in Italy (Frecce) require seat reservations, so you can't just hop on a train without going through the reservation process. I see that the charge can be up to $14 per seat if you buy from a US source. I imagine it's a bit lower if you figure out a way to get the reservations from Trenitalia, but I don't know whether that is even possible. The seat reservation fee is built into the cost of the rail ticket if you buy tickets rather than a pass, so regular passengers don't have to worry about how to get their seat reservations.

I would prefer not to have the stress of making a specific train. We are traveling to quite a few places and I would love to have my options open. It looks like the pass allows that mode of travel.

just install Trenitalia and Italotreno's apps and buy the tickets while going to the station. Like everybody else Who is not travelling on a budget.

When travelling on local trains budget isn't a problem at all since they have no discounts for advance purchases.

Online sales close 15 minutes before the scheduled departure time.

Dario,
You most likely didn’t see my earlier post. I was inquiring about the new Trenitalia pass for 3/7/10 days. There is a discount for seniors as I am indeed on a budget but prefer to reserve same day if possible because ideally, it’s great to travel at our own pace and the pass seems to allow same day reservations.
Thanks for your answer.

sunshine,

As we're about half way into September, I imagine you're now in Italy so have already settled the question of the Trenitalia pass. After reading all the terms & conditions of the pass, I'd probably still just settle for Super Economy / discounted tickets rather than use the Trenitalia pass, as that's a less complicated option.

If anyone's used the new Trenitalia Pass and wants to share, I'd love to hear it.

We'll be traveling in November and the 3 journeys in 1 week option would be perfect for our plans. And it would end up being a bit less expensive than buying them individually when I check the specific fares for the trains we want to take -- about 60 euro total saved for the 3 trips over that week.

Just wondering how well it works, and if the Comfort level (a step above the "Easy" -- WHO comes up with these names?) really does give you the ability to book any Premium, Business, or 1st class seats that are still open.