Comments on: The Italian Job – AKA Me vs. Trenitalia.com

By: Train Munich to Paris | Little Black Guidebook

Train Munich to Paris | Little Black Guidebook — Thu, 19 Aug 2010 23:59:35 +0000

[...] can book online direct with the German train website. (Don’t worry, its way better than Trenitalia.com and takes American credit cards just fine) You can book up to 92 days in advance. We booked exactly [...]

By: Driving Lessons for Europe | Little Black Guidebook

Driving Lessons for Europe | Little Black Guidebook — Tue, 15 Jun 2010 23:29:27 +0000

[...] Trains in Italy, no Cars Needed Here reminded me of how much I hate Italian trains (remember my Me Vs. Trenitalia.com post?). I hate booking them on their horrible website and I hate being hours late because the [...]

By: L.J.T.

L.J.T. — Sat, 28 Mar 2009 02:56:00 +0000

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.

By: Shannon

Shannon — Sat, 28 Mar 2009 02:49:00 +0000

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.

By: L.J.T.

L.J.T. — Sat, 28 Mar 2009 02:42:00 +0000

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.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 23:57:00 +0000

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?

By: Shannon

Shannon — Sun, 30 Nov 2008 01:36:00 +0000

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. :/

By: Brit Destefano

Brit Destefano — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 19:27:00 +0000

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.

By: Ken Hanscom

Ken Hanscom — Sat, 02 Aug 2008 13:50:00 +0000

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

By: Kimberly

Kimberly — Sat, 19 Jul 2008 21:39:00 +0000

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