Purchased Italian Rail Ticket from agent - mistake?
 

The last leg of our Tuscan adventure is returning rental car in Florence and taking the train to Milan for return flight.

Our travel agent sold us first class tickets on a Eurostar train. The fare was $48 USD each for the one way. That seemed to line up with what I had found on this site. The agent then tried to sell me a reservation for $19 USD each. I declined thinking the fare on a Eurostar included the reservation.

The tickets came in the mail and they are not from Trenitalia but they are Eurail tickets. My question is: am I going to have to purchase a reservation in Florence?

Thanks.

jb

First of all, are they really for a Eurostar service? If they are, then the seat reservation is included as you know.

The $19 charge sounds about right for what an agency here such as RailEurope or others would charge.

This is confusing...that ticket should say if it is a Eurostar service or not.

I'd check the train number on the ticket against the Trenitalia website timetable.

Hi JB,

You can only get reserved tickets on the ES* trains in Italy or through www.trenitalia.com

Your TA got you an "open ticket" good any time for a ride on the ES* train.

Reservations are mandatory on ES* trains.

You must purchase a reservation.

This is not your TA's fault.

If Ira is correct, then here is what I would do:
since this is at the end of your trip, when you first get to Italy, go to the rail station if you are near one (you may also be able to do it through a local trafvel agent) and make the seat reservations THERE....that way you'll save a little money...it will be a lot less than $19 each.

Ira is correct. After further examination of the tickets they are indeed open tickets. Good for travel June 16 thru August 16 of this year.

We arrive in Rome and will be there for a few days before driving up to Greve for two weeks. It sounds like I need to find a Trenitalia agent and purchase reservations.

Thanks for the replies.

jb

Hi JB,

Any travel agent in Italy can sell you the reservations, or you can get them at any train station.

We are traveling from Brunnen Switzerland to Venezia S. Lucia and are going thru sbb.ch (the Swiss train travel). They say they can book a reserved seat for the entire travel for an extra fee of $45.00. Are we getting ripped off? We are also trying to decide on taking the overnight train (they only have 4 or 5 coachettes)or traveling by day and not taking advantage of the extra time in Venice. Any ideas on this?

Hi lake,

You will get more replies if you start your own thread instead of piggybacking on this one.

As far as I know, the sbb is the official Swiss rail site, and this is what the tickets would cost in Switzerland (less mailing costs to the US).