Venice to Zermatt Train travel

Have a look at www.sbb.ch and you see the options. It can be done in 7 hours with two changes, Milan and Visp.

That journey above is the 11:48 departure from Venice, arriving in Zermatt at 18:50. If you depart Venice earlier, you will have 4 changes instead of 2, because there are few trains that go from Milan straight to Visp with no changes.

The regular price is 124 CHF (assuming you buy it on SBB), but if you buy 3 months or so in advance, you can save about 30 CHF per ticket. That would be a Saver ticket which is inflexible—-the ticket is good only on those specific trains and cannot be changed. There is also an option for a semi-flexible ticket for a bit more money.

In this case it seems that Trenitalia give the better travel solutions than SBB-

Venice d 1148, Milan arrive 1415, depart 1510, Visp arrive 1725, depart 1737, Zermatt arrive 1850- all on one ticket, fares from 94.40 Euro or 196.60 first class.
https://www.lefrecce.it/Channels.Website.WEB/#/search-results?handoff=true

You can pick and choose which of the 3 trains you want first class on, if booking on Trenitalia.

So you may only want first [aka business class] on the Frec. from Venice to Milan, or also on the Euro City Milan to Visp, but not on the Swiss Train where it arguably has less benefit.

I'll throw you a curveball and suggest you think about the Bernina Express from Tirano to Chur, then change and Go Chur to Zermatt so that involves you getting a train from Venice to Tirano by 14:24 to catch the Bernina Express. If that time doesn't work, they do have normal regional trains hourly but you don't get the panoramic windows.

Yes you do book seperate tickets. See here: https://www.seat61.com/trains-and-routes/bernina-express.htm

I'll throw you a curveball and suggest you think about the Bernina Express from Tirano to Chur, then change and Go Chur to Zermatt so that involves you getting a train from Venice to Tirano by 14:24 to catch the Bernina Express

That solution does not work unless you want to take 2 days and spend a lot more money.

Help needed: I am confused on what happens if a ticketed specific train is missed due to delay. It appears that l should purchase Venice to Visp on Trenitalia and buy on SBB Visp point-point to Zermatt to offset any delays and invalidating specific Swiss train ticket included in Trenitalia ticket to Zermatt.
On Trenitalia I found Venice - Visp "Freccisadays" and Milano - Visp I found "Smart" and "Smart 2" what if the train is late coming into Venice , or arriving late in Milano? Which is the better option to buy?

I also looked on ItaliaRail and found same 11:48 Venice - Visp routing, but they the class and flexibility names are different than Trenitalia, which is the better website? Is it wise to purchase now? Can my trains be cancelled/changed due to too early booking and scheduled change? Which website is preferred?

ItaliaRail is a 3rd party website- Trenitalia is the actual train operator. Thus if you book with them you will be kept directly in touch of any timetable changes.

The train starts in Venice Santa Lucia, and you have almost an hour to change in Milan.

You would have to check with the station departure boards in a morning, but I will bet that the inbound service to Venice is FR9709 which arrives at Venice at 1042. Thus the train set has a 66 minute turn round in Venice. With the hour in Milan the chance of a missed connection at Milan has to be very, very small.

If you do miss it because the train is 2 hours or more late Trenitalia will put you on the next direct EC to Visp at 17,10, 1805 or 1910 all of which have connections at Visp for Zermatt. Trenitalia are not Amtrak, but anyway Venice to Milan is more like the Amtrak North East Corridor than a transcontinental route

Missing a connection at Visp doesn't matter. In Switzerland a ticket is for the route, not the train. So just take the next train 30 minutes or 60 minutes later.

My brother, doing several times Florence to Geneve that partially duplicates your route, suggests never to plan to board the last train in the day from Milan to Switzerland. These days delays in Italy are frequent and you want to have a second choice if your first train is delayed. - So do not plan to take the 19:20 EC from Milan, but you should really aim no later than the 17:07 one; if you miss it, there is a train at 18:20 but works under different tickets so you are rerouted to 19:20.

You can buy that ticket for the whole way (Venice to Milan to Visp to Zermatt) on SBB, but those tickets are only up for sale through 31 March right now.

Checking the train arrival and departure boards this morning for Venice Santa Lucia shows that the 1048 and 1148 trains to Milan are both turnbacks of trains which had arrived in from Milan 66 minutes earlier. At least today both departed from Platform 9 although anywhere you can get platform alterations for many reasons.
The 1048 (the train before yours) was 20 minutes late arriving but started boarding 20 minutes before departure and departed on time.
The 1148 arrived a few minutes late, started boarding 18 minutes before departure and departed on time. It arrived in Milan right time on Platform 13 and the 1507 connection to Visp also left on time.

The tickets can be purchased from Trenitalia now. They will increase in price but equally are not going to sell out months ahead of time. That is not how Europeans travel by train- booking months early.