My husband and I will be spending three weeks in Europe March 20-April 9, 2013... We will be traveling from -London to Paris -Paris to Fussen, Germany -Fussen to Venice -Venice to Florence
-Florence to Rome We are getting mixed advice about whether or not to buy our train tickets in advanced. I have found tickets for London to Paris for 100 euro each, Paris to Fussen for 69 euro each, and Fussen to Venice for 69 euro each. Is this a good deal? Should we wait until we are there to buy train tickets for some locations and not others? Thanks for the help!
Posted by
Green Bay
21159 posts
At this late date, I don't think you're going to do any better waiting, and almost certainly pay more if you do.
Posted by
Minneapolis
1261 posts
Hi Kristina. For the Italy runs, it's easy to see your options on trenitalia.com. Use stations Venezia SL, Firenze SMN, Roma Termini. The 'base' fare is what you will pay if you wait and buy at last minute. The economy fares are often a big discount (e.g. 19 euro vs. 43 euro). It's the same seat, but with the economy fare you are locked in to that exact date and time. Enjoy your trip!
Posted by
New York, NY, USA
11294 posts
To figure out whether or not you need/want to buy tickets in advance, go to the official website selling each route (other websites may have a markup): London to Paris: http://www.eurostar.com/dynamic/index.jsp Paris to Fuessen: http://www.tgv-europe.com Choose Great Britain as you country and France as your ticket pick up country, and do not allow yourself to be redirected to Rail Europe; they're the markup site I mentioned earlier. Fuessen to Venice: http://reiseauskunft.bahn.de/bin/query.exe/en
Venice to Florence and Florence to Rome: http://www.trenitalia.com/ For some of these, you will need to choose the British or American flag to change them to English. Look at the price for a train leaving tomorrow, and for one leaving on your intended travel dates. That will tell you how much you will save with an advance purchase, and if your route is likely to sell out. You can then decide if the advance purchase (with savings and the guarantee of a seat on the train you want) is worth the trade-off of non-refundable and non-changeable tickets. Be sure to put in that you need tickets for 2 people. This doesn't always save money, but for my trip from Berlin to Dresden, it was €19 for one person advance purchase, €29 for two people advance purchase, and €39 per person full fare (no discount for 2). So, with advance purchase tickets, we saved €49 each way!