trains- Italy, is Raileurope legitimate??

so far the prices dont seem too marked up

Compared to what? The only way to find the real price of tickets at the counter over there is from the Trenitalia website, but you can't use American Credit Cards on the site, so you can't buy tickets from them. So far prices on RailEurope don't appear to be too marked up over the counter prices in Italy, but that is not generally the case for the rest of Europe.

So, you won't lose too much money buying the tickets from RailEurope, but you will lose flexibility. You can easily buy tickets at the counter over there (that's what the Italians do).

Jenny,

We purchased tickets from Rail Europe for a trip in May 2008 from Nice to Paris and from Florence to Venice for 4 adults. While we may have paid a bit more (according to others) I was thouroughly happy with them, and will use them again for an upcoming trip in June. In fact, when I bought the Florence to Venice tickets, the tickets they sent me were for a non-high speed train (which was not what I thought I had booked on-line). I called them and they swapped out the tickets at no charge to me (even paying for the Fed Ex charge to send them back).

Patti

I should mention that, unless you’re planning on using Eurostar Italia or a fast train that requires reservations, it’s quite convenient and inexpensive to simply purchase point-to-point tickets at the counter as you go. A couple of years ago, we travelled all over Italy this way and never had a problem purchasing cheap, second-class tickets at the counter. Rail Europe sometimes has fares that match the official rail system offers (Eurostar from London to Paris is an example). More often, you’ll see fares that can be significantly higher than what you can get through the official rail system. Rail Europe is legitimate.