My family and I are going to Italy for 17 days in July/August and I would like to purchase train tickets before going on the Trenitalia website to take advantage of the super economy and economy fares. I have registered on the site, but have found no information about purchasing with a credit card and tranaction fees. Does anyone know if you are charged a foriegn transaction fee? My credit card charges 3% foreign tranaction fees. I've researched the prices on italiarail and have found they are alittle higher, but in US dollars. Which site would anyone recommend. Thanks. Mario
Posted by
Elk Grove, CA, USA
6898 posts
Mario, I purchased super economy tickets on Trenitalia this morning for a trip to Florence from Venice. I can see the charge on my Visa. The conversion rate seems to be about 1.30 which is about right. At this time, I see no foreign transfer fees or charges. On our trip to France 18 months ago, I began to see FTF on my Visa card. Now I see that several credit card companies are dropping them. I suspect that there was quite a bit of backlash on these extra charges. I won't know until Tues or Wed if FTF were added onto the transaction. I'll try and find your message if there are any.
Posted by
Green Bay
22210 posts
The Foreign transaction fees depend on your credit card. I use Capital One, so there are not any. I would not use Italiarail, as you are already registered on Trenitalia. I see Trenitalia is selling a Supereconmy ticket Rome-Florence for 19 euro, the same ticket on Italia rail is 26 USD. That comes to a rate of 1.37, with a credit card 3% FTF, the rate would be 1.34. So buy direct.
Posted by
Pittsburgh, PA, USA
712 posts
In the past few weeks I have made 3 separate purchases with Trenitalia. The process was very simple, especially once you are a registered user. Yes, it is your credit card that determines that the international purchase fee is, not the site. You can also explore using PayPal. I used it for one of the purchases and it worked nicely.
Posted by
Knoxville, TN, USA
7209 posts
Get a card with no Foreign Transaction Fee. Those fees are just EXTRA income for the credit cards...much like baggage fees for airlines. If there's a foreign transaction fee, get RID of it.
Posted by
OP
Lexington, Kentucky, USA
17 posts
Thanks Monica for the advice on Paypal. I used it three times to make purchases of train tickets. It worked like a charm. It sounds like registering with Trenitalia was the way to go, no mishaps and transactions went through with a breeze. I would definitly recommend purchasing train tickets directly from Trenitalia instead of through itailarail or any other third party company. You really get the best price this way.