Q- How long in advance can one book tickets on those two sites - Sweptember is so far off.

Right now TrenItalia is selling up to mid October. Italo is still only out to July. Soon enough both will be selling up to mid December.

Trenitalia doesn't have sales in the sense of lowering prices. At least until now they haven't .Their prices start out low and increase as you get closer to the date. Maybe they'll begin to have sales; it looks as though they're changing lots of things. What they do have is limited time special offers, like 2-for-1 or kiddies-free fares. These are applied to the full base fare, and are never cheaper than the original Super Economy fare.

I think it's Trenitalia who are pressuring Italo, not the other way around. When Italo first arrived on the scene, their fares were virtually the same as those of Trenitalia. They had plans to expand their routes, and enter the regional train market. Not only have they not expanded, they've cut back on their existing routes.

Italo has one big problem: their limited routes. I've never used them because of this. They don't serve the region where I live.

What routes have they cut back?

They started Turin to Venice a month or two ago. Totally new trains.

They've added new stops. They've got the bus service going to smaller cities.

Italo route map

It's kind of hard to cite specific routes and trains they've cut, but one route I know for sure, because it used to pass near where I live: They used to have trains running along the Adriatic coast line from Rimini to Ancona (and maybe further south). That route has been eliminated. I never used it, because it didn't stop near us.

I was very enthusiastic about Italo, considering that Trenitalia needed some competition. When I heard they were planning to operate on some regional train routes (non-high-speed lines) I was hopeful they would run a train from Ancona to Rome, which would have been very much appreciated. I still hope they manage to prosper.

Quick update . I booked the train tickets about 2 months in advance and booked the economy fare. They emailed me the tickets which I printed at home. I took a taxi from the drop off at the car rental agency at the airport. Cost about 22 euro. Had lunch nearby, boarded the train with no difficulty, they took my printed tickets and we were off to Venice. Got off the train in Venice and walked across the street to board the Vaporetto (bought tickets right there) and off to Venice we went. The hardest part was finding our hotel? What a maze of tiny streets . We did find it and had a wonderful time. Thanks for all your help in my booking process.

Curious as to what you paid for the train tickets two months out? And how was the train - pretty spiffy right! Need not answer if don't want but thanks for getting back! Ciao Ciao!

I paid 39.80 euro for 2 tickets. The train was great.

bookmarking

Wow that's a great fare - thanks.