Credit Cards on Trenitalia website

Unfortunately, this is a good news, bad news answer. The Bad News -- it has been frequently report on this site and others, that it is very difficult to use an Am CC on the Trenitalia site. No one seems to knew exactly why because some folks have been successful. BUT the GOOD NEWS -- you really don't need advance reservations on Italian trains -- generally one or two days in advance is more than adequate. We have traveled the last two Junes in Italy and never bought a ticket more than a day in advance. And never had any problems.

I agree with Frank. Buy your tickets when you get there. 1-2 days in advance of travel is just fine. In fact, it's what the Italians do.

There are 8,000 train runs a day in Italy. 55 trains a day go from Rome to Florence. The high-speed trains hold more people than a 747. Train runs are everywhere throughout Italy. You will rarely encounter full trains. And even then, you can stand on the Regionale trains.

If you really MUST have tickets for Italy train travel, you can buy them on www.italiarail.com. They are a ticket broker so expect the cost of tickets to be a bit higher than at the train station in Italy. They call themselves the official site in the U.S. for Italy train travel.

Thank you both for your replies........i guess I'm just the type of person who, when going on a trip wants to have all my "i"'s dotted......so perhaps I need to relax a little and get into the spirit of italy.....i will look at the italia train website and see how much higher the prices are and then see, as we will only be there for a week I just wanted to make sure all was set........thanks for your replies........terry

I had the same experience with Trenitalia in April 2008. i even called Trenitalia in Italy and had them enter my credit card data and that didn't work either. It seems you have to have a credit card that is issued in Europe. The clerk that helped me said that American Express cards will work. It is easy to buy train tickets in Italy except on Sunday. Just go to a travel agency - there is no extra charge - and you don't have to deal with a long line and a cranky sales clerk at the train station. On Sunday you have to go to the train station.

There are some really helpful train ticket sales clerks in Italy. Or maybe I've just been lucky? I did try to speak Italian to them, sometimes that helps.

Trenitalia is difficult to work with. I have a registered account with them. I use an American Bank issued Capital One Mastercard. In the past few months I have had success using this card, but I do live in Italy. Recently I got "dropped" from Trenitalia as I used my card to buy tickets for MULTIPLE friends and I must have exceeded some limit - After "reapplying" through email I got this note:

Dear Customer,
Following your request, we provided to enable again your user in order to allow you to utilize Trenitalia On Line ticketing service.

PRIVACY AND RIGHTS - With reference to the data that you have supplied to us for the activation of the service, we remind you that your rights in matter of privacy are protected by Trenitalia in the respect of the enforced norm.

INFORMATION - To find out the reasons why your user can be disabled, please refer to: Trenitalia.com

ATTENTION - If your user has been disabled for one of the following issues:

• Using more than two credit cards,

• Using the same credit card by more than two users,

• Exceeding of the monthly plafond of the credit card used for the payment

you could be disabled again at the time you utilize Trenitalia On Line Ticketing service.

If you wish to exceed the plafond of the credit card associated to your user or to use more than two credit cards, you can request the authorization by sending a fax to: 06/44104036 indicating:

• your user id

• your telephone number

• the photocopy of an identification document

• the photocopy of the tax code number

• a short description of the reason for requesting the increase of the plafond and/or the authorization to use more than one credit card

---- Long story short, after not being able to use my MC for three weeks, I'm not back in "good standing" with Trenitalia - but I do not know why they blocked me in the first place??? This is why I just buy my tickets at the train station!

Ciao,
Ron

Hello, and thank you all for your replies and suggestions....just because I didn't want to be wandering around and checking my watch during our trip to leave enough time to buy tickets.....etc, i purchase two legs of our trip Rome to Venice, and Venice to Florence on italia rail.com and the tickets are coming via DHL delivery service to the house............I still need to go on a Friday afternoon/evening from Florence to Rome and I think I will just purchase those that morning, or the day before in Florence........thank you all for you great replies, and I can't imagine how any of us, got anywhere in years past without the help of such great internet friends and communities..........wish us luck, as we are supposed to fly home on the 14th on Alitalia.....and I guess their financial numbers are not looking so good these days, but I do have travel insurance......we're off on the 5th...........any last minute suggestions about anything would be greatly appreciated.

Terry

I purchased a ticket on Trenitalia 2 days ago. The problem may be trying to select the home delivery option. I've tried that and it and I can't get it to work. I selected the self-service option and viola!. It worked just fine. My receipt gave me a booking code number which is good at any self-service kiosk. Note that the self-service option may not be available on all purchases if the location where you are originating does not have a self-service machine. I haven't tried the ticketless option yet for train runs within Italy.