Train Passes for Italy
 

Hi,

I am contemplating buying two adult Trenitalia Pass Savers from www.raileurope.com for my upcoming trip to Italy in May. My husband and I will be traveling together and apparently this pass is a good deal for two people traveling together at all times. We will travel 4 days on trains total (not consecutive): from Venice to Verona, from Verona to Lake Como, from Lake Como to Cinque Terre and from CT to Milan. Rail Europe quotes $163 U.S. each for these passes.

Has anyone bought tickets from www.raileurope.com? Is this a reputable site? Do you recommend buying the passes elsewhere? Are there other passes that are better? Would single tickets be better?

Thanks very much.

Daria

We bought the Supersaver Pass about 2 years ago for both my brother and I. We thought it would be more economical since we would be using train travel for 13+ days. We found that our passes went unchecked/unvalidated and we actually lost money on them because got all 13 days of travel with only 8 days' validation. We probably should have bought a fewer days pass, but hindsight is 20-20.

IMO, it is not very practical to buy a pass for only 4 days of travel. Rail Europe is certainly a reputable, reliable site; however, they charge a shipping/handling fee to mail the passes to you, so you will actually end up paying more for them. We bought our passes from a local Council Travel office and there was no additional fee. I feel it is best to purchase your point to point tickets in Italy once you have arrived there. What I have done in subsequent trips is actually buy all my tickets at one time. Rome's Termini, Milano's Centrale and some of the larger train stations do this. It saves you time from individual buying each and every time at the various train stations.

Before buying the Trenitalia Pass Savers from www.raileurope.com, I would go directly to www.trenitalia.com (which can be accessed in English if you know the names of the stations to which you will travel) and price the individual trips. You may well find that the individual tickets would cost you less.

That's a great idea Eloise. I'm going to do that.

Thanks for that info about the shipping charge Huitres. I usually buy individual tickets, but I thought this might be better because the pass I am talking about is for 4 trips; just what we need. But, I do want to figure out if it is actually cheaper.

I doubt if those 4 legs will cost you 100E point to point--but check it out.

Thanks everyone, but I am having trouble with the trenitalia website. I tried the English and the Italian version. The English site doesn't seem to be working at all. The Italian works, but doesn't provide the prices of the tickets. I tried for Venice to Verona and Verona to Como and got schedules on the Italian version of the site, but no prices.

Any suggestions?

It works to price the tickets; it's just not obvious that you click on the train you want to display the price(s).

But even easier is www.railsaver.com - - you might want to check the difference between "rail pass only if it saves me money" - - and I forget what the other choice they offer is called.

Best wishes,

Rex

I just went to the Trenitalia site. Yes, as is often the case, the English site isn't working, it goes to a window with a few blanks after entering the information, and the locks.
And although the schedules are coming up on the Italian site, there is no pricing information -- a message about temporarily being unavailable.

I would also be very surprised if the pass saved you money compared to point to point on those four journeys.

Look into the kilometric ticket. Don't know if its the best value for you. You get to ride 3000 kilometers/1800 miles or 20 individual trips in Italy only. You can share pass with other people. You buy it overseas at the train station. You pay supplements for fast trains. Eg. if there are 2 of you, you can each take 10 individual rides or each ride 1500 kilometeres which ever you hit first. Its approx $120-$160 for the pass. Haven't priced it lately.

OK, I priced out your point to point tickets. They total $91 each person as opposed to $163 each person for the pass. Save your $ 144 for a really grand dinner.

la_dolce_vita, the reason you haven't priced out the kilometric pass lately is that it no longer exists. I think they stopped that either last year or the year before.

Thank you Patrick! That was so nice of you! For future reference, were you able to get the trenitalia site to work or did you use that other site www.railsaver.com that Rex mentioned?

fyi,

I went to railsaver.com as recommended by Rex and it is very easy to use and works very well! It tells you the cheapest option--single tickets or a rail pass. That site quoted the total for my tickets as $93 per person. Thank you very much Rex (again) for that great suggestion!

Daria

Hi daria,

For train schedules and prices use
www.trenitalia.com/en

The railpass is a good deal if you are making lots of long journeys, but for short journeys in the north of Italy, ordinary train tickets will be much cheaper. Italian train fares are low by western European standards.

Daria: I recently purchased the Trenitalia SaverPass for a similar trip. After more research and help from the Fodorites, I found that Point to Point was so much less expensive that I am still saving money even after the 15% fee to return the pass. You are making the absolute right decision. Have a great trip!