Using rail passes

You can travel as much as you want on as many trains as you want on a single day with a pass. You must validate the pass before its first use. A station attendent will do that for you. You must fill out, in pen, the date for each day of travel you use the pass. Do this prior to boarding your first train of the day or you'll be fined. Remember that Europeans use day/month/year. Keep in mind that the train to Milan will likely require a seat reservation. This is an extra charge. You can make a reservation at the station with an attendent and tell them you have a pass. If you have a 1st class pass, you can choose to reserve in either 1st or 2nd class. If you have not already bought your pass, you might consider just buying individual tickets. It's hard to make a rail pass work financially in Italy, especially if you can purchase tickets in advance online at discounted fares.

I don't understand why people persist in claiming that open-jaw tickets are too expensive. We almost always use open jaw tickets and have priced dozens of other open jaw tickets for friends and have NEVER found the tickets to more expensive if you allow a few dollars difference. Sometimes open jaw are actually cheaper. See the last posting in the following discussion: http://www.ricksteves.com/graffiti/helpline/index.cfm/rurl/topic/74830/rail-travel.html Second, you can only use a first class pass on the Leonard Express because it is all first class. You validate once a day BUT you will need to pay for a seat reservation for every leg during that day. (L Express is an exception while it is first class there are no reservations.) Only the regional trains do not require a seat reservation so you can just hop on and off regional trains at will during that day. If you have not purchased the rail pass you need to do your homework and price p2p tickets before making that decision. Rail passes with the additional surcharges are not the great deal they once were especially in Italy.

Re open jaw tickets, I wonder if some people are pricing two one-way tickets instead. Almost all air travel websites have an option that's called something like "Multiple Cities." That's the one you want to pick. Gerri, it would be interesting to know your situation and how much more it appeared to cost to fly into Milan at the start and then leave from Rome at the end of the trip. Once you factor in the train ticket price and the lost time, you might want to reconsider (if it's not too late). If you've already paid for the tickets, would you mind sharing the info anyway? It could help another visitor to this board. Happy travels.

Douglas, Thank you! Frank and Michael: Maybe I am doing this wrong! As you surmised, Michael, I was putting in two one way trips! When I determined which airline (Delta) and which flights I wanted, I found out that it cost $2,590 to fly one way from Milan. To fly round trip from Richmond, VA to FCO and back, it is $1,212.60. I really am happy with the Delta flight times and layover times (1 layover) and also with the fact that it flies out of Richmond. I realize that I could have gone cheaper if I changed any of those. I will go back and look for multiple cities!
As for the railpass, I intend to use the train very frequently, and when I worked out the Math, it was similar in cost to p-p and more convenient for me. I intend to reserve a few of my "big" trips in advance and purchase the other reservations in Milan or Venice. I am very nervous about having to do so with the ticket agent, and I don't like "self-serve." Now that you know I'm a fussy old lady, (haha!) maybe you won't want to help me any more!

Will you be using regionale trains for your frequent usage or higher level? If higher than regionale you will be dealing with somebody because they all require reservations with a rail pass, and they add up really quickly.

Most of my train trips are on regional trains, with exception of the big cities - Milan, Venice, Rome and Naples. I know that I have to reserve seats in advance, but isn't the reservation fee for each pretty reasonable?

It will run you roughly 10E per leg. But I am still concerned about your math and the pass. A pass never pays with the regional trains because they are so cheap. If still convinced that a pass is need, then consider reducing your days and only use the pass for the premium train days and buy p2p for regional trains. Give me your dates and I will run the open jaw comparison. I will bet you can do an open jaw ticket for less than a hundred dollar difference and have the same connections home from Rome.

If you are using Delta's site, move over the link towards the top that says "planning tools". Click on "book a flight" from the menu that comes up. then click on the tab that says "multi-city. Enter RIC for Richmond then MXP for the to airport and your departure date. On the next line enter FCO and then RIC for the to airport and your date to leave italy. I cranked in a date for this October and it was cheaper to go RIC- MXP FCO-RIC than FCO roundtrip.

I am still debating the wisdom of buying the railpass for at least part of the time. I can't seem to grasp the concept of "supplements."
Are supplements required on all ES,EC, and IC trains? (everything but Regionale?) If so, is this in addition to the rail pass and reservation fee? If a supplement is required, is that fee already part of the point2point ticket cost posted on Trenitalia? If so, maybe it makes sense to purchase p2p for all trains that require a supplement and use the rail pass on those days when I am taking a lot of Regionale trains? Also. how do I determine the fare for a regionale train? Neither Trenitalia nor Der Bahn lists the fares for those trains ( I am trying to compare p2p with railpass cost and fees.) I assume the reservation fees are the same whether you are using a railpass or point2point ticket? Help!

Es Ec and IC trains require a mandatory seat reservation if you use a railpass. the price for ES and EC is 10 euro for each train. The cost for the IC train is 3 euro. those seat reservations get you a seat with your pass on a specific train. If your trip has you changing to another of the fast trains both legs of the trip would require a seat reservation. Point to Point tickets have the seat reservation included in the price. My understanding on having to pay something more than the fee for the seat reservation would be if you wanted a sleeper berth etc. Regional trains are not priced out much more than a week in advance. So pick a day of the week that is the same as your proposed travel day and look at it in the up coming week. the scehdule will be aboiut the same and the price will be closer or the same depending on how far out you are looking.