ripit

Has anyone had any success booking these fares? I've been watching these fares for an upcoming trip in July and now that we are within the 90 day window, I've been trying to book these fares.

I need the night trains from Spiez, Switzerland to Florence and from Venice to Munich. Both routes are advertised on trenitalia.com for 79 EUR and 69 EUR respectively for a bed in a double compartment and when I price out this itinerary it will give me a "Smart Price" option and will show the rates above, however whenever I try to add the tickets to the shoping cart a receive the message "Reservation system - Fare quota not available". I get this message no matter what dates I input. It will let me add the full fares to my cart. At one point, I was able to add the "Smart2" price which is a bit higher but still much less than the full fare but I got so excited that I inadvertently deleted the tickets from my cart. When I tried to add them again, I couldn't.

I even tried to email SBB.ch to see if I could get the Smart Price through them, however they would only quote me the full fare. Apparently the Smart Price is only available through them if you purchase in a train station or through an autorized travel agent.

Does anyone know if it is at all possible to book these fares? If so, how? This is driving me nuts because the full fare is nearly 3x the price, at which point it really doesn't make much sense for us so I'd probably change our itinerary. At the smart price, it works pretty well.

Any experiences/first hand knowledge would be greatly appreciated.

TIA

ira

Hi R,

SmartPrice tickets are from Italy to somewhere, not to Italy.

In addition:
"On the day trains, leaving from Rome, Milan, Venice, Verona and Bolzano for Munich, 29 euros for a seat in 2nd class.
On the Night Trains leaving from Naples, Rome and Florence for Munich: ..."

ripit

Hello Ira, thank you for the reply. Are you sure it is only one way? I ask because on sbb.ch they have a section that specifically talks about the EuroNight trains TO Bologna, Florence Rome:

>>Have you ever considered going to Italy? Benefit now! SBB and Trenitalia offer you a trip to Rome, Florence or Bologna from as little as CHF 61.–, all inclusive.

SmartPrice 1 + 2:

* Limited offer. Booking possible until 14 or rather 7 days before train departure.
* No exchange or refund.<<

And from trenitalia.com:

>>If you travel by night, take a Euronight to Munich

* EuroNight "Brenner Express" from Florence and Venice<<

Not as concerned about the Venice - Munich part, because we can fly that route pretty cheaply and easily, however the night train is really the only option that will get us to Florence from Switzerland (Berner Oberland region) with out spending an entire day traveling.

PalenQ

Other posts have claimed that such tickets on the Allegro day and night trains can no longer be booked by Americans as they funnel you to RailEurope and much much higher prices.

Not sure if this is true but one poster, LarryinColorado says so and he usually knows these things. So it may never be finalized for that reason. But again not sure about this.

ripit

Interesting. How would they be able to prevent US users from booking online do you think? Is it just US or all non-Italians? I can't imagine they would redirect all US IP adresses to Rail Europe as many people all over the world have US based IP addresses. You do have to log on before they will let you add anything to your cart, but I don't recall ever giving my mailing address or setting a country of residence.

PalenQ

I really don't know much about it but was relaying a possible reason. But like you say seems hard to distinguish.

ira

>How would they be able to prevent US users from booking online do you think?

Just direct all queries on the English Language site to RailEurope.

However, they don't.

ira

Hi ripit,

>..at sbb.ch they have a section that specifically talks about the EuroNight trains TO Bologna, Florence Romelt;

The sbb site says:

"You travel comfortably by night from Zurich, Basel and Geneva...."

"The number of places is limited. Book your trip right now at your railway station, the travel agency or at Rail Service 0900 300 300 (CHF 1.19/min)".

>Not as concerned about the Venice - Munich part, because we can fly that route pretty cheaply and easily,<

Gee, that's the one I would take the day train for. Beautiful ride over the Alps, if you're not in a hurry.

ripit

Right, I thought maybe it could have something to do with English vs. Italian versions, however as you said, it doesn't. At this point, I've tried to book these tickets so many different ways that I can get through the Italian version almost as quickly as I can get through the English one but both versions yield the same results.

ripit

Ira - the train from Basel stops in Spiez on the way to Italy. I belive the number to Rail Service only works within Switzerland. Even if I could get through to the number, I was told by email that they can only sell tickets to EU residents by phone.

Yes, I'd like to take the day train for Venice - Munich journey however we are traveling with 3 small children so we are trying to limit daytime train journeys to under 3 hrs. Beyond that the natives start to get pretty restless. Plus we are flying back home from Munich. We'd like to spend our last day in Venice and the catch the night train to Munich arriving the morning of our flight. If we can't get a resonable rate for the night train, we can fly for about 32 EUR each inc. all taxes but we would have to lose a day in Venice and spend a night in Munich instead. Not a bad deal, but we'd prefer and extra day in Venice and not to have to do a 1 night stay.

ira

Hi rip,

You have a lot of constraints on your itinerary.

Try calling www.budgeteuropetravel.com/

They have gotten many good reviews here.

ripit

Thanks, Ira - I'll check them out.