dhlemaistre

I’m traveling in a group of 6. When I tried to purchase rail tickets (business class) they preassigned our seats and none of us are sitting together and the website states seats are only being assigned by them. Any suggestions? I was booking on ItaliaRail. We will be railing from Florence to Venice on September 8th.

J62

did you try to book the same tickets directly through trenitalia, the operator of the trains?

edit
I just looked and trenitalia lets you select the seats as part of the booking process.

dreamon

I don't know ItaliaRail but assume it is a reseller. I'm also not familiar with business class for Italian trains, just first and second class, but that may be because I've never booked business class before. The official sites are trenitalia.it and italotreno.it (separate train service providers). Both are easy to use, for the next time you book tickets. Use Italian spelling for place names (Firenze, Venezia and mostly likely Firenze SMN and Venezia Santa Lucia).

The only thing I can suggest is contacting ItaliaRail or just sit separately. It's not a very long journey.

If booking in advance, I assume you got discounted tickets which would likely have corresponding restrictions on changes and cancellations - but it's worth checking if it becomes a problem for you.

Traveler_Nick

You're at the mercy of the reseller.

TrenItalia actually imposed a fee for seat selection I think two years ago. IIRC.

Are you in the same car? Even the cheap seats aren't huge cars. Those higher end seats have even less passengers per car. Assuming it's full.

kybourbon

** Any suggestions? I was booking on ItaliaRail.**

Italia Rail is a reseller in the US. The actual main Italian train companies are Trenitalia or Italo Treno. Do you know if your tickets are on Trenitalia or Italo (train number/time might be a clue)?

https://www.italotreno.it/en

https://www.trenitalia.com/en.html

**TrenItalia actually imposed a fee for seat selection I think two years ago. IIRC**

2€ on the fast trains. On Italo, I don't think you can select your own seats on the cheapest seats, but on the others you can (they might assign seats, but after you enter your details there should be a change seat option).

It doesn't appear Italiarail lets you choose seats.

In business class on the Frecciarossa, one side of the aisle is 2 seats (A, B) and the other side of the aisle is single seats (D). Are you sure you aren't grouped close together? What are your seat numbers?

annw

I've used Trainline as well. It asks for preferences for seating but unclear if they guarantee. We've always been seated together.

thursdaysd

The exact same 10:20 journey is cheaper on trenitalia.it....

annw

PS I inadvertently put in 7 passengers.

kybourbon

**The exact same 10:20 journey is cheaper on trenitalia.it....**

Yes. Resellers like Italiarail or Trainline make money by tacking on a fee. Often that is in the form of DCC.

kleeblatt

Good advice from above. As a side note, I didn't know we could actually use "railing" as a verb to express riding on a train. Interesting.