The Italian Job – AKA Me vs. Trenitalia.com
The Italian Job
All the guidebooks and all of my friends who had been to Europe told me, just buy Italian train tickets once you get to Europe…unless you have specific trains and days you want to travel, then you should book in advance. We have a pretty tight schedule, 2 days in Venice, 2 days in Rome, 4 days in Paris and then 4 days in London before the conference and 3 days of the conference. I have hotels pre-booked at each location and it would throw everything off if I didn’t get the trains I want so I tried booking in advance.
First try was with the Trenitalia website. Their website comes in both Italian and English flavors, which is convenient. It is easy to search for trains; the fares are clearly stated and easy to understand what you’re booking with the pictures of the couchettes vs. beds. My first problem turned out to be that I was trying to book too early. Everything came up as not available and I freaked out thinking that all of the trains for the days I wanted were sold out. “Impossible!” my travel savvy friends declared. Some googling revealed that seats are not available for sale more than 60 days in advance.
I waited until 60 days in advance, hitting the reload button until it struck 12:01 am in Italy. I found my trains, one of which was available with an Amica fare (20% off for booking early), put them all in my cart, put in my credit card info and was declined. First step was calling the bank. They said they didn’t see the transaction as being denied and that no transactions had shown up on their end. After googling around I found out other people have the same problem and they suggested a variety of remedies. I tried them all. I am posting them here in case any of them work for you:
Verified by Visa or MasterCard SecureCode: “Ticketless online reservations require online payment, but the site only accepts credit cards if you have set up a “3D” security system, such as Verified by Visa or MasterCard SecureCode. Those plans require you to activate and use an additional password for all online purchases. Create a user ID before booking, then proceed through the booking quickly, as there is a time limit (15 minutes).”
I set up my MasterCard SecureCode and tried again, I actually got a little further this time. It requested my SecureCode password before denying my card. Called bank again, they still couldn’t see any denied transactions and to call MasterCard because that is where the hang up is. Called MasterCard and they said they can’t see any transactions and that I should call my bank. I repeated this dance about 6 times with different people. I finally intrigued someone at my bank enough that they checked into it for awhile. They called me back and said it must be a problem with the card I was using and that they would overnight me a new one. This also didn’t work. I did find that you can login to the SecureCode website and I could see all of the transactions as they went through, apparently my bank couldn’t see them though. At least I knew it wasn’t the Trenitalia website, the transactions were going somewhere.
Your middle initial: “Basically, in the Italian database there is not a separate field for your middle initial. While American credit cards all use the initial as an extra measure of security. I was able to immediately resolve this problem by calling my credit cards companies (American Express) and another debit card and having my middle initial removed.” I was quite hopeful when I found this anecdotal bit of internet advice, promptly called my bank, deleted my middle initial and tried again. No luck!
Browser Settings: “After four attempts using 3 different cards, I called MasterCard. They said it’s not their problem – they could see that they hadn’t blocked anything. So then I changed the browser Privacy settings (Tools, Internet Options, Privacy tab) to the next to lowest setting. I then went back and was able to complete 2 purchases with no problem. I hope this works for others because this is hugely frustrating and time-consuming. Good luck!” Tried this, didn’t work, but at least I didn’t get a virus trying.
Call them: “The TrenItalia Travel Help Center number is +39-06-6847 5475. (From the US, you would dial 00 11 39 06 6847 5475) Ask for an English speaking Operator and they will try and assist you. Here’s the same info from the “Help” section of their website: http://www.trenitalia.com/en/area_clienti/call_center/index.html “ Um, this didn’t work for me because when I called it said that number works only for verified foreign numbers. I tried several times on Skype and even GULP on my home phone, no luck, guess Alaska is part of Italy.
Fax them: I faxed in a request with all of my details and asked them to call me back to book. No response.
Use another website: www.Italiarail.com or www.raileurope.com I tried both and they presumably work. They aren’t scams that steal your money, they just overcharge you. What should have been 250 Euro ($400 at the time) worth of tickets was coming out at almost $700.00. They don’t give you any discounts or Amica fares or anything, and then they charge you to mail your tickets to you. Also, their search engine doesn’t pull up all of the same trains as the Trenitalia website and I couldn’t get the exact itinerary I wanted. A last ditch solution, but I wasn’t giving up.
US Travel: Call a travel agent, they can book for you. I did so and got great service, they called Trenitalia directly (why can’t I find their number?) and got us tickets. However, for some reason they were also in the $700-$1,000 range. Insane! Plus side is that they hold tickets for free for 30 days so I held tickets while I kept trying to book.
I was about to succumb to paying $300 and justify it to myself as an hourly savings vs. continuing my fight against travel agents. Then I called American Express to ask them one last time if they knew why their card doesn’t work on the Trenitalia website and only Visa and Mastercard do. They didn’t know, but asked if I would like to be transferred to their travel department. “You have a travel department? Sure, what could it hurt?” Their travel department gave me the direct phone and e-mail address of the American Express travel office in Venice, our first stop. I e-mailed our ticket itineraries to them, they gave me the price quoted on the Trenitalia website, no fees, no booking charges, no commission, nothing. Sweet success! We will pick up our paper tickets at the St. Mark’s Square office of American Express Travel the first day of our trip. You can do this at locations all over Italy, including Rome as well. Just make sure you do it at the first location you’ll depart from by train. Our credit card has been charged, the customer service was excellent and I didn’t have to pay a dime more than I would have if I waited and bought them in Italy. In fact, I probably saved, because even after wrestling with this for 2 weeks there was still an Amica fare available.
We have tickets Venezia to Roma, Roma to Paris for two people in two beds for 250 Euro. Man, I don’t wish this hassle on anyone else, so I post this to the blogosphere in hopes that it may save someone else some hassle.
July 19th, 2008 at 14:39
Trenitalia gave me the run around, too. I’m going on my bar trip in Aug/Sept, and I got tickets for all legs of the trip except those in Italy. I tried to get an overnighter from Rome to Venice, but Trenitalia would not cooperate, as everyone on the internet knows. I’ll buy at a kiosk when I get to Italy. As for the night train, I booked a short-notice-cancelable hotel just in case. Plan B — not just for birth control anymore.
Happy travels,
Kim
August 2nd, 2008 at 06:50
Looks like we had a similar experience as each other, too bad I your post was after I had my experience (Trying to buy train tickets from TrenItalia”). Lucky for me, I had relatives in Italy to do the booking. And, now that I am currently here — the kiosks in Italy are very easy to use and the Amica rates are pretty much available all the time if you know to hit the promotional button on the fares.
The only side-effect I had is that the verified by Visa (story here: http://www.somelifeblog.com/2008/07/tren-italia-website-gift-that-keeps-on.html) setup and verification cause Bank of America to flag my debit card as fraudulent. Luckily, I cleared that up before I left.
Best of luck on your trip!
-Ken
September 29th, 2008 at 12:27
Thank you so much for this post! I was having the same problems trying to buy tickets on Trenitalia yesterday and then found your post. I’ll be calling American Express for help or stopping by one of their offices my first day in Italy. Thanks again.
November 29th, 2008 at 18:36
Wow, thank you so much for your post. I have the exact same dilemma, except that I have a Eurail pass, so all I need is train reservations, not tickets. I am posting a comment here in hopes that it will also provide additional help for others.
I will be in Italy over the holidays, so I really want to book all the train reservations in advance because I need to make hostel reservations ASAP before they all fill up.
I did the exact same process as you described and encountered the same run-around. I finally just found your blog post and called American Express. I called their general 1-800 number, and they told me that only “platinum” card holders were eligible for the travel service (I just have the plain green ‘personal’ card). I hung up, called the same number back, and this time a different representative connected me to their cruise/vacation package booking office.
This didn’t sound like what I wanted, so I googled American Express Travel Offices. There are several in Italy, so I Skyped each of them. AmEx in Florence and Milan both told me it was not possible to book reservations over the phone. They said I had to be there in person.
Finally, the AmEx office in Venice, the same office as you mentioned above in your post, helped me out exactly as you described, except that they made me fax my request in because they had to have my signature writing. This was hard, because I’m currently in Spain, and sending faxes to a foreign country from a small town in a different foreign country is difficult. I finally figured it out (FYI, when faxing to Italy from Spain, you have to add a 0 after the country code and before the number).
Unfortunately, Venice is not my first stop.
So this means AmEx could ONLY book Venice through the end of my trip. I’m actually going from Paris to Nice to Milan to Venice to Florence to Rome to Barcelona. There is apparently NO American Express travel office in Paris somehow… at least not that I can find… so Paris to Nice I booked perfectly fine on the SNCF web site (but it only worked when I kept the page in French… also difficult).
But now I still have to book Nice to Milan to Venice. I have run out of ideas now, and I might have to chance waiting until I get there to book it. :/
March 27th, 2009 at 16:57
I tried calling American Express, and they were helpful, BUT buying from them would have ended up costing even more than the american sites. They wanted $268 for a trip that on Trenitalia cost me 86 euro and on other sites cost me $200. I’m trying to call trenitalia tomorrow morning. I currently have a French number, so maybe the only “abroad” number that work are european?
March 27th, 2009 at 19:42
I think you might have better luck calling a non-Italian number, post your success here please. Another option you might consider is booking once you arrive in country, there is often availability even up to the day of. You’ll have to build in a day or two of flexibility though. Good luck.
March 27th, 2009 at 19:49
So I wrote above about my experience booking Italian train reservations through AmEx, and then did my trip over the holiays. So guess what? The American Express office in Venice is CLOSED. FOREVER. Guss what day they closed forever? The day before I was supposed to pick up my tickets. They called me while I was on a train in Milan, and said – tomorrow, we close forever. Can you come pick up your tickets today? I said no, our reservations to Venice are not until tomorrow – so he said he would leave the train reservations at the Prada store next door. In disbelief, I arrived in Venice the next day, and found the American Express office looking like a tornado had ripped through it – empty boxes, paint peeling off the walls, with a hand-written scribbled note taped to the door – “we’re sorry, we have closed, thank you for letting us serve you for so many years, etc etc”. I went into the Prada store next door, got a LOT of strange looks from people in fur coats, while I stood there in my ‘I’m-on-a-three-week-train-trip-through-Europe-and-haven’t-showered-today’ clothing, and the person at the desk handed me an envelope that said American Express, with our reservations inside.
So… in summary… no more AmEx travel office in Venice. They are out of business. I am wondering if this is the end of that reservation service as well.
The reservations that AmEx venice made for me were exactly the same price as they were at the train station in Italy – I double checked while we were there.
One piece of advice though, after traveling through Italy for a few weeks on the train… honestly we didn’t need the reservations. We were in Florence on Christmas Day, and in Rome on New Years, and were traveling on trains on days immediately before and after those holidays – and none of the trains were sold out. We could have walked up and gotten reservations an hour beforehand and it wouldn’t have been a problem. I just really liked having piece of mind that the reservations were there, and waiting for us.
March 27th, 2009 at 19:56
Thanks so much for the comment Shannon. From our experience with the Venice Amex folks I am not surprised they took care of you by giving them to the Prada store, they really tried to make it easy and go out of their way. I hope that they set up shop somewhere else. Their current location was so close to St Marks I’m sure the rent must have been insane. I agree that reservations probably aren’t necessary unless you have zero flexibility in your dates as there pretty much always seems to be availability. I have had friends have to wait a day or two to get a train from Rome to Paris because of fullness, but the regional trains never appear full. Of course, if you have zero flexibility you probably don’t want to be in an Italian train anyway, they aren’t the most prompt or reliable. Our train from Rome to Paris took 3 hours longer because the Italian train conductor decided to stop in Dijon for coffee for two hours and see a friend. Hmmm…that would never happen on a German train.
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