Italy Train - base, economy, super economy ?

Not too confusing. When Trenitalia puts seats up for sale on its reserved trains, usually 120 days prior to the departure date, they put a certain number of seats in the Super Economy bucket, and a certain number in the Economy bucket. The Super Economy seats are for sale at about a 70% discount, but are totally nonrefundable for any reason. The seats in the Economy bucket are sold at about a 40% discount and are also nonrefundable, but exchangeable with some restrictions. The rest of the seats are sold as Base at full price, but refundable up to train departure.
When all the Super Economy seats for that train are sold, that's it and only Economy and Base seats are available. When all the Economy seats are sold, only Standard full fare seats are available.
So as time goes on, all the cheap (Super Economy and Economy) seats sell out. That is an incentive to buy early and commit absolutely.
They don't tell us how many seats they put in the buckets, probably their computers determine the optimum amount to maximize revenue.
When you walk up to the ticket window and ask for a ticket on the next train, it will be Base at full price.
You can buy the tickets on-line at www.trenitalia.com, there are no commissions and you print out the tickets yourself with a seat assignment and bring them with you on the train and show to the conductor when he/she comes by to check tickets.

I suggest booking directly with www.trenitalia.com rather than through third parties.

Economy and super economy tickets are simply types of advance purchase tickets that are cheaper than base fare. For example, a super economy ticket in business class will be cheaper than an economy ticket in business class which will be cheaper than a base ticket in business class. Tickets for the high speed services you are interested in can be booked up to 120 days in advance and supereconomy and economy tickets can sell out quickly.

For Super Economy, refunds, change and access to a different train are not permitted.

With economy tickets you can change date and hour once up to departure, choosing a journey on the same category of train, according to the ticket change procedure and paying the difference between the full price (Base) applied to the train used and the sum already paid. Refunds are not possible.

With a base ticket, before departure you can change your base ticket free of charge and unlimited times; after departure, up to 1 hour, free of charge once at train ticket office at the departure station only. If you no longer intend to use the ticket and want to cancel the journey, you can request a refund before departure with a deduction charge of 20%. After departure refund is not allowed.

As well as choosing a ticket type, you need to choose a class. Seat 61 gives a great summary of the differences between the classes on Italian trains, including showing photos. Generally, I just travel in the cheapest class available, although I have traveled in business when I have got supereconomy tickets. For example, on a frecciarossa train I would book standard class (higher classes are premium, business and executive)

china,

"I suggest booking directly with www.trenitalia.com rather than through third parties."

FWIW, I've had good luck booking tickets on both Freccia and Italo trains with www.capitainetrain.com (prices are the same as Trenitalia). They don't charge any extra fees and they access the same data network used by Trenitalia.

The others have provided an excellent description of the different types of tickets, so I can't add anything there.

Regarding using Italo vs Trenitalia, a few points to note.....

• In some cases, Italo uses different stations than Trenitalia, so that's something to consider when planning journeys. For example, they mostly use Roma Tiburtina rather than the more widely used Roma Termini. If you'd like to arrive at Termini, you'll have to use a Freccia train (or take the Metro from Tiburtina to Termini).
• As Italo trains only have high speed service, they don't go to the same number of destinations as Trenitalia.
• On routes that they compete, Italo and Trenitalia will both get you there in about the same time.

Thanks everyone for the info- we were thinking BASE, ECONOMY, SUPERECONOMY had to do with the seating (1st class vs 2nd class) - now it makes sense. We ended up booking on the ITALO website - the options and stations were perfect for us and they do have plenty of options for ROMA TERMINI. The prices were the same or maybe only 1-2Euro difference than Trenitalia. The ITALO site was VERY EASY to use, w/photos of the different classes/seat/etc.
We really appreciate everyones help.

And a reminder to validate any train tickets at the station before boarding unless your ticket has a specific time & seat marked on the ticket. You don't want to save money on the tickets and then be fined for non-validation. The validation boxes are easy to use and just stamps your ticket with the date/time activated.

Enjoy your trip!

"And a reminder to validate any train tickets at the station before boarding unless your ticket has a specific time & seat marked on the ticket. You don't want to save money on the tickets and then be fined for non-validation. The validation boxes are easy to use and just stamps your ticket with the date/time activated."

Thanks, that is the only question we still had - the tickets do have times & seat on them . . . so does that mean we DON'T need to validate?

That is correct. Validation is only required on "open seating" Regionale trains. You have seat reservations on Italo trains, so you just show the ticket to the conductor when he/she comes around.

As the others have mentioned, if your tickets are on the fast trains such as Freccia, InterCity and also Italo, tickets don't have to be validated as they're specific to one train, date and departure time, and can only be used on that ONE train. Regionale tickets MUST be validated since they're not specific and could conceivably be used more than once on different trains. Note that tickets for Buses, Metro, and other forms of transport also have to be validated.

I purchased tickets from the Italo website from Naples to Rome Termini for about E12 pp in the Coach XL seats, when they went on sale (120 days). I have also been looking at a one day trip from Rome Termini to Florence, which were about E25 pp each way. Maybe because I had purchased tickets already, I received an email from them Friday about a 40% sale. I was able to purchase coach XL seats for $15.60 pp each way. The website was so very easy to use and all I have to do is show them my confirmation number. Hopefully all goes well. I wonder if you went and signed up for the news letter you would get the same email?

I really appreciated the ease of the website and the price of the ticket of course!!
Good luck,
Heidi

I also ditto everyone's comments about the ease of the Italo website. As my 120 days came to book on Trenatilia, I was pretty nervous from reading all the issues people have from over at TA. I even had a little list of things to do and not to do when using their website. I wasn't particularly happy about some of the arrival times they had for one of my destinations.

So, I took a look at Italo and they had the time I needed leaving from Rome Tiburtina instead of Rome Termini...no big deal. I went to purchase from the website and it was SO Easy! Printed my boarding pass right away and even scanned it and emailed it to my phone so I'd have it electronically. Prices were great! Decided to do first class on one of the legs of my trip just to see the difference between that and 2nd class on another leg (but with the wider chairs still).