Actually two questions -- how far in advance (within the 60 day period) does one recommend buying your ticket to get the 29euro special? In other words, do the seats go very quickly like frequent flyer seats on an airline? Secondly, when using the Trenitalia website, when I get to the page after selecting the 29 euro promotion fare, the seat map for the mandatory reservation section does not display. Does that have something to do with my computer or their website? It's showing me the 58 euro total (for two people) so I know the tickets are available, but I don't know how to make the reservation. Thanks for any help for this pc-challenged ex-mainframe programmer.

Just tacking on to your question as I too would be interested in the answer.

One more thing....when I try and buy the promotion tickets, I get red x's everywhere. (Was that your problem as well, Angela_m?)

Does this mean they are unavailable or is it just graphics not coming up on the web site?

Apologies Angela_m for jumping in on your thread. *S*

yes, I get 10 boxes each with a red x in the corner and 'finestrino' in four boxes (I know that is a window seat) and 'corridoio' or aisle seat in two boxes. I've tried just haphazardly clicking on two boxes, but I get an error saying that the seats I selected are not available. I'm glad you jumped in, Dejais, at least I know I'm not the only one having the problem.

I could be wrong, but when I purchased my tickets last fall I noticed that their website does not seem to run 24 hours a day - more like business hours, I think. Sometimes I would get the same errors you are getting, but other times it worked, so that was the conclusion I came to. I ultimately bought them online and had no problem using them .... the Eurostar from Rome to Venice was a nice train ride.

I just made my first booking on the Tenitalia site. I found that I could not make the seat selection using the English version. There were inactive boxes for seat selection. The Italian version worked just fine and was easy to decipher. This is for travel in three weeks.

Gavin...Your information was invaluable. I booked my tickets on the Italian site and as you said I had no problem. I got the fares for 39 Euros each and saved a total of 54 Euros that I absolutely would have spent had you not posted your suggestion. So thank you very much.

Angela_m...To help you if you do this open another window and go to http://ets.freetranslation.com/. It will translate (fairly well) any phrases you are unsure of. And I can assure you, it does entire paragraphs!!! As I do not speak Italian fluently I found this extremely helpful. Good luck.

Thanks Gavin, I never thought to try the Italian version. I've gone through the English version so many times, I knew precisely what each box meant. It turns out that the seats on the trains I am selecting are apparently sold out for first class. I found that odd since we're travelling on a Monday morning in June. I chose a later train, second class and it brought me to a page which showed me the seats I selected and gave me a booking code. Thanks for everyone's help!

I must have gotten lucky as I simply went through the English version and got my tickets. I ignored the red X's and simply "hit" the window X and my reservation went through OK. Mike