Trenitalia website - help!
 

Has anyone recently booked tickets through Trenitalia's website? I got to the payment screen and entered my CC information (including the security code) and payment was denied. There's nothing wrong with the CC.... I tried entering my card # with dashes, and without. Any suggestions? Thanks!

Hi S,

Sometimes it is the trenitalia site, sometimes it is the CC company computer.

Have you notified your CC company that you will be making purchases in Italy?

((I))

This happened to me as well. I had not called my credit card to tell them I was going to make a purchase in Italy. Once I called my CC, I got back online immediately and it went through fine.

You might as well tell them your dates abroad while you are at it and if you plan to make any international internet purchases before you depart.

Make sure you also get your credit card's international number to call if you have a problem while on vacation. I had a fraud alert put on my card when one of the hotels I reserved on Venere tried to charge one night deposit (which, BTW, venere says they aren't supposed to do). When I called the credit card company (Citibank MC) they said they routinely block anything from Italy because of high fraud rates.

Thanks. I called Capital One and they said that they didn't see the authorization hitting the account. Will try again, or switch to another CC. Thanks!

One final thought: you can't buy tickets on trenitalia.com more than 60 days in advance of the ticket date.

Citibank is being particularly difficult at this time. I've had no troubles in the past, until 2 months ago, when I was in L.A. on business (I liver near SFO), most things were denied.

I called them about some upcoming business travel and a trip to Europe. They wanted to know the exact dates and a contact phone number for each trip.

I asked what was going on, and they said that they'e had some recent 'difficulties', which sounded like they were hacked and got spooky.

I've never been scrutinized like this before, and I've traveled all over the world in the last 3 years, using the same card.