For under 100€ per person you can book all your Italy train travel in advance with Trenitalia online.>

So the near impossibility of using American credit cards on Trenitalia online have been cured - for months now we have heard that it was virtually impossible to do. So seriously since I have not seen any posts about it bourbon is it now possible for Americans to easily purchase via trenitalia.com - if so a good thing. Is it as easy as you portray? Have you done it?

thanks

another thread mentions www.italiarail.com as a North American agent selling tickets for Trenitalia - the Italian Railways at discount prices similar to those Trenitalia offers online - like even a $15 Rome to Naples fare! This in case you, like legions of Fodorites for years now find Trenitalia.com so so frustrating to navigate and actually get a ticket thru - these complains have been posted regularly for years now so www.italiarail.com, for folks who can cope with non-changeable trains, etc may be a more relaxed way to get similar prices as with fickle trenialia.com

another thread mentions www.italiarail.com as a North American agent selling tickets for Trenitalia - the Italian Railways at discount prices similar to those Trenitalia offers online - like even a $15 Rome to Naples fare! This in case you, like legions of Fodorites for years now find Trenitalia.com so so frustrating to navigate and actually get a ticket thru - these complains have been posted regularly for years now so www.italiarail.com, for folks who can cope with non-changeable trains, etc may be a more relaxed way to get similar prices as with fickle trenialia.com

We are still debating about 1st and 2nd class. Luckily, we have a few months left to decide>

and you will I guess have already ridden in first class on your first-class Eurailpass - take the time to traipse thru second class cars and you will instantly see IMO a big difference. I do indeed believe that those who say there is little difference between first and second class on trains simply have not ridden in first class ever.

For under 100€ per person you can book all your Italy train travel in advance with Trenitalia online.>

repeating the question if trenitalia.com now works routinely for Americans with American credit cards - if not irrelevant and you should expect to pay a lot more.

Man in Seat 61 You're the man - can Americans buy thru trenitalia.com as bourbon above implies - the credit card snafu is solved?

Thanks

The efficacy economically of a Eurailpass could depend on whether, if in the States at least, you buy a Eurail Select Pass before the end of March, 2011 whereby you get, on 6-day passes and longer ones one free extra day - about a $80 value based on per day pass costs. And this would be great if say you needed 7 days of a pass to cover long rail trips and traditionally you have to chose between 6- and 8-day passes (no 7-day pass sold normally) - so that could make a difference in calculations - just thought I'd throw that in.

>>>I do indeed believe that those who say there is little difference between first and second class on trains simply have not ridden in first class ever.<<<<

You would be wrong.

From Maninseat61 website:

>>>Update 2011: Have they finally upgraded their payment processing system?
It seems that a new payment processing system was introduced in November 2010 at Trenitalia.com which may have finally solved the credit card problem. Most emails I have received since then report success in using Trenitalia. So give it a try, and do let me know if your card works!<<<

There have been multiple reports of success by Fodorites buying Trenitalia tickets online on Fodor's since fall (and evidently on Maninseat61).

>>>>another thread mentions www.italiarail.com as a North American agent selling tickets for Trenitalia - the Italian Railways at discount prices similar to those Trenitalia offers online - like even a $15 Rome to Naples fare!<<<

In the past, Italiarail was quite a bit higher than Trenitalia and didn't offer the discounted tickets. I just took a quick look and it seems they do have them now. Their mailing fee is $5 which is cheaper than other sites, but they are taking you a bit on their exchange rate (a few dollars per ticket). This would work if the OP is from the US (Italiarail is a US company that operates Railsaver.com and railpass.com), but if they are from another country the mailing fee may be much higher (if they will mail to other countries). If purchasing on Trenitalia, you would not pay a mailing fee (they won't mail to the US) as you would select either the ticketless option (e-mail code) or the self-service (print your own ticket using the self-service machines at the train station).

As usual a wealth of info from kybourbon! Thanks for the update. Italiarail is owned by ACP Rail, based in Quebec, Canada and a rival of RailEurope - ACP Rail bought the old CIT Tours Italian Railways railpass operation some years ago (traditionally only the Italian, German and French and Swiss as a team had a monopoly on issuing railpasses and selling Eurail Tariff (point to point) tickets - the French and Swiss (RailEurope) bought DER Tours, the Germany railpass entity and ACP Rail bought the CIT or Italian - thus ACP has inroads into Trenitalia that RailEurope does not but otherwise the two act similar to each other. Funny that railsaver.com is often mentioned as a means to gauge the cost of individual tickets vis-a-vis a railpass and the much despised by Fodorites it seems www.raileurope which does the exact same thing with mainly the same, often inflated, fares, never gets mentioned.

Their website says they are a US company.

ItaliaRail.com is the official North American Website for travel by train in Italy. It is owned and operated by International Rail LLC., a U.S. corporation specializing in web-based software, sales, and marketing for the rail industry.

http://www.italiarail.com/about-italiarail

bourbon - thanks for that - will investigate more -esoteric to many but intrigues mor.

then again Rail Europe is also a registered American corporation I believe but is owned for ferriners.