Trenitalia site frustrations

This site http://www.italylogue.com/train-tickets is supposed to allow you to buy with a US credit card in US dollars and still qualify for any discoutns available. I have not used it but others here have reported success. Good luck!

Thanks for the info, Laurel! Grazie!!!

Trenitalia has been taking U.S. credit cards for a few months now. If your trip is after the June 11th schedule change that may be why you're having problems. If the schedule for when you wish to go is already posted you may be trying to book a train that is already very full. If you can book the tickets but can't get seats together it's usually not a big deal. You can always ask someone on the train to switch with you especially if you have kids. Italians are usually very nice about this type of thing. donna

I just did a quick price comparison with the site listed above and they charge a lot more than trenitalia does. I picked a random date and entered your information and for the trip to Florence you'll pay 20 more euros at that site than if you book through the trenitalia site. This is just for the trip to Florence, I didn't check for the trip back but I imagine it will cost you less by using trenitalia. Donna

Barb, a couple of things. The page for booking for a family is the same page for everybody. It's not a separate page. Just pick the run you want and press "continue". You can book your family on the next page that shows up. Second, you don't indicate the age of either the youth or the child. Children under 12 can travel for 50% discount. A child under 4 can travel free. Third, what dates do you want to travel? Last, you may be looking out too far. It is so unfortunate that Trenitalia shows incomplete train schedules beyond their twice-yearly schedule change dates of mid-June and mid-December. Travelers looking in May and November looking just 60 or 90 days out get incomplete results. I'm not aware that any other train website in the EU does this. The U.S. traveler is just not aware of this.

Sending thanks to everyone who gave advice and solutions, and a cautionary tale for others who are attempting to book train tickets online for the 1st time. What I discovered that I was not actually on the Trentitalia site, but the site of RailEurope. When you google Trentitalia, it comes up first and even appears to a novice like me to be the actual Trentitalia site. It is certainly more user friendly compared to the real Trentitalia site so it is easy to feel excited (I still keep getting error messages from Trentitalia, but others say to just keep trying or buy in Italy.) For some, it might make sense to use this service. But what I learned is that they only offer paper tickets (you need to pay an extra $18 for shipping to your home/extra if you need tickets quickly). And worse yet, if you need to make the one-time change to your ticket reservation that it appears is offered on base tickets bought through Trentitalia, it is not possible! You need to have that ticket canceled at the station, buy a new ticket, and then can apply by mail for a refund from RailEuope but they will chop out a 27% fee! I'm still not an experienced Italy traveler, but just wanted to offer a caution to know what you're getting before you click "buy". :)

The Voice of Experience, folks! Barb, just search this Helpline for "Rail Europe"; I'd guess approx. 99% of the posts will be warnings to stay away from Rail Europe for some of the very reasons you very clearly pointed out! It's a good thing you backed out of your purchase...:-) The site mentioned by Laurel does have it's share of fees, too, but nothing like RE. AND it's supposed to be foolproof as far as actually successfully completing a purchase. In my limited experience, the prices I've found on the BootsnAll site were identical to those on Trenitalia; don't forget you'll be comparing € to $...!!! Most reservation sites will start off as if you're traveling alone, then only later do you specify how many travelers and their ages, etc.