Italy 3 Day Rail Pass vs. Point to Point Tickets

First, there are some additional thing we need to know.

· Are you traveling alone, or with someone? Are you 25 or younger (Youth price), or are you an adult? 1st or 2nd class?

· Are you going from Rome to Venice and back to Rome, and then to Florence and back, or is it Rome to Venice to Florence to Rome?

· Are you willing to ride on slower trains to save money?

Where are you getting your point to point fare estimates? RailEurope is not a good place for cost estimates. Their prices are more than the counter prices over there.

Real quick.

2nd class ticket prices for Italian Eurostar, the fastest trains, from Rome to Venice to Florence to Rome are €73, €42, & €44 respectively, €159 total, $228 at today's exchange rate. An adult 2nd class rail pass is $225 (plus shipping?) but you will have to pay at least $25 per leg reservation charge to use those (ES*) trains. That's $300 with a railpass, $228 without. Additionally, there are some discounts on point to point tickets for advance purchase, so your total might be less than $228.

Additionally, if your major objective is to save money, you can use IC trains for €42,50, €22,50, & €28, total €93, $133.50 vs. $225 for the railpass.

Good for you for doing your own research. Every itinerary is different.

Just a caution, though. You didn't get your point-to-point price quotes from Rail Europe, did you? They inflate their ticket prices precisely to sell rail passes.

True, you can get the real over-the-counter prices for tickets in Italy from Italian Rail.

The point to point prices came from this website and the Italy map in the Railpasses section. Further, the travels from Rome to both Venice and Florence would be round trip travel within the 3 day pass period. It seems evident to me that the rail pass is much cheaper than point to point tickets, even with the added expense of reservation costs. Further, I am looking to travel in 1st class on fast trains.

Thanks.

I agree that a rail pass is the best option. Along with Eurail's complete product range, you can also visit www.ACPRail.com to buy a Eurail Italy 3 day within 2 months pass.

If you indeed use the cost map from this website to compute the point-point fares it does make the rail pass look a lot better. The map shows Rome to Venice (or back) at $125 ($65 to Florence, $60 to Venice, 2nd class, or $187.50 Rome to Venice and $97.50 Rome to Florence, each way, 1st class. That adds up to $570 for the two round trips.

HOWEVER, as I have repeatedly pointed out, that map is not accurate. According to Trenitalia (Italian Rail), the 1st class, point-point fares are actually €94 ($128.78) between Rome and Venice and €59 ($80.83) between Rome and Florence. The dollar values are times $1.37/Euro, the exchange rate a few minutes ago.

Two reasons for this discrepancy. The exchange rate varies, the map doesn't. The exchange rate used for the map was probably higher than today's. Second, the actual 1st class fares on Trenitalia are less the 50% higher (more like 33%) than 2nd class.

The actual fare for Rome-Venice RT and Rome-Florence RT is $419. This is still more than a rail pass. A 1st class adult pass is $268. Adding four €20 "reservations" makes the total $378, only $43 (10%) less than P-P. I wouldn't call that a "big" difference.

I don't know what the reason is for going back to Rome in between. Maybe he has one. Maybe it's just to justify using a rail pass, but the sensible thing to do, since you go through Florence anyway, would be to stop in Florence, maybe spend the night. That would make the P-P fare €209, ($286), $60 less than a pass.