Italy Trains
 

I had taken a trip to Italy and pre-booked all the non-regional trains about 3 months in advance with some pretty big discounts from what I remember at the time of booking. I was giving advice to someone else for their upcoming trip and apparently there isn't much difference in the price of the tickets. Did they overall reduce the price of them or do they just offer more "super economy" and "economy" tickets now for them to still be available a few days in advance? I don't really remember seeing any "CartaFreccia" special before. It hasn't even been a year since I traveled there.

CartaFreccia is for residents of Italy. You have to apply for the card. If you select a CartaFreccia fare on Trenitalia, you will be asked for your card number.

The price generally rises as the cheaper tickets are sold, but some super-economy or economy fares remain available even a day before departure. But probably not at the cheapest rates!

Super economy and economy tickets have a fixed price on a particular route. If you get a super-economy ticket the day before you travel, it will be the same price as a super economy ticket was when they first went on sale. What happens is that the super-economy tickets for second class get sold out, then the economy tickets for 2nd class start going, along with the super-economy tickets for 1st class, and so forth, so that you see continually rising lowest prices. On the Frecciarossa trains, where there are four levels of service, it's even more complicated. The main timetable page shows the lowest available price for each train, and you'll often see a wide range, depending on what's left.

For all about Italian trains check Man in Seat 61 who posts above his commercial site www.seat61.com for great info on discounted tickets - not as current as bvieni or kybourbon IMO - Fodor's two Italian train gurus but online - and for general info on Italian trains check www.ricksteves.com and www.budgeteuropetravel.com.

At times discounted first class tickets can be nearly as cheap as the cheapest available 2nd class ticket - especially as the train date nears and there are many first-class seats unsold - they often, someone in the business told be recently, then as the train date nears reduce first-class tickets to help sell empty seats.

<i> they often, someone in the business told be recently, then as the train date nears reduce first-class tickets to help sell empty seats. </i>

I don't believe they ever reduce ticket prices. If first class is nearly empty, it means that there will still be super-economy tickets available in first class, but they'll be the standard super-economy price, which, as I said above, is fixed for a particular train class, type of train, and route.