I have been unable to buy online tickets from Rome to Venice. I keep getting a banking difficulty error message. My bank and my credit card ((Chaase VISA) company both say they are not blocking the purchase.
Any ideas, tips?

Yes, DITCH the Trenitalia site and use www.italiarail.com instead. Same prices and MUCH easier to use and better service IMO.

>>>My bank and my credit card ((Chaase VISA) company both say they are not blocking the purchase.<<<

Your Visa needs to be Verified by Visa. It's simple to do.

http://usa.visa.com/merchants/produc...d-by-visa.html

If you use MasterCard then you need Mastercard SecureCode which is similar to the Verified by Visa.

It clearly states this on the payment screen on Trenitalia.

If you decide to use Italiarail, know that they are a reseller, charge a fee for booking and add their own restrictions to the tickets purchased. They also state you can't make changes on tickets even if they are full fare tickets (you can if you buy from Trenitalia).

If you want to stick with Trenitalia and don't want to register your Visa card (although more sites seems to be requiring this to prevent fraud), then Trenitalia has the option of using Paypal. Also, in the past, Trenitalia said they didn't accept US issued AmEx (only European AmEx), I've seen reports recently that people were able to purchase with the US AmEx.

What RESTRICTIONS are we talking about here, Kybourbon?

The Verified by Visa feature is issuer dependent. If your Visa card is not eligible, you will get "Your card is not eligible. Verified by Visa is not available for the card at this time." message when you try to activate the feature on your card.

>>>What RESTRICTIONS are we talking about here, Kybourbon?<<<

You can read them here.

http://www.italiarail.com/terms-conditions

Thanks for the advise. Ended up using DW's PayPal on italiarail and all worked just fine.

I think you meant you used Paypal on Trenitalia.

On a related topic for those planning to buy Trenitalia ticket using ticket machines at stations, I found out that the new type (at least to me) installed in mass at Termini in Rome, while all the them have "capability" to use swipe only credit card, they require "PIN" to complete the purchase. Since I never use "PIN" with my CC, I did not know what to enter. However, when I looked at rows and rows of similar looking machines, there were two types of machines: ones that took only credit cards and ones that took both cash and credit cards. The one that took cash had bill/coin symbol at the top of the machine as well as bill and coin slots. So I found a machine that also took cash, went through the ticket choice and fed a 50€ bill and voila came out a ticket this morning.
I might also add that those large number of young kids swarming around ticket machines saying "Can I help you buy tickets?" were very annoying at Termini.

Yes, they sometimes are very annoying in the large stations and sometimes there are police that run them off.

There used to be cash only machines and only gave back a certain amount of change so you couldn't put big bills in if you were buying a low price ticket or you would get shortchanged. Perhaps that has changed.

I bought a 44€ ticket with a 50€ bill and it certainly gave me back 6€ change.

I am trying to register with trenitalia but it tells me I must have an address in Italy. Is there a way around this problem?

Trenitalia is in the process of updating schedules (they change mid Dec) and they don't have the registration page up at the moment. The page you are trying to register with is for discounts for Italians (Cartefreccia). Give it a week and try again.

Thank you, kybourbon. (I hope you live in Kentucky). It was driving me nuts. I am just trying to go from Florence to Arezzo and then from Arezzo to Venice. Any additional tips?

I just responded on your other thread about registering. For others that may search and find this thread, to register, even on the English version of Trenitalia, they use the Italian spelling. Instead of looking for USA or United States, scroll the S's and select Stati Uniti d'America.