Treinitalia

[Lisa in Ottawa]

Wow have they improved their site over the years. I think it took me 5 minutes to read schedule and book. It took them about 30 secs to verify cc. I seem to remember incredible frustration when I last tried. Yikes that was 2010! How time flies.

Not cheap. Maybe I should have done it earlier. Friday May 29, Milano to Firenze. But we are leaving at peak time and day. Fast train. 1:40. Zip, zip.

I've been reading Tim Parks on Trains in Italy. I always love his stories about living in Italy. Not his fiction, though.

 

[Anne]

I found it quick and easy to book our tickets recently too, Lisa. I like that Trenitalia now has a PayPal option for payment...saves me having to dig out my cc and type out the number and cardholder name etc (yes, I'm lazy like that! haha)

We're happy with our fare - Firenze to Napoli, morning of June 10th for 58 euro for two of us. There was a slightly faster and slightly cheaper train leaving around the same time, but we were chatting during the booking process and by the time I clicked to book, the super economy fare had sold out on that train!

 

[Lisa in Ottawa]

I found it quick and easy to book our tickets recently too, Lisa. I like that Trenitalia now has a PayPal option for payment...saves me having to dig out my cc and type out the number and cardholder name etc (yes, I'm lazy like that! haha)

We're happy with our fare - Firenze to Napoli, morning of June 10th for 58 euro for two of us. There was a slightly faster and slightly cheaper train leaving around the same time, but we were chatting during the booking process and by the time I clicked to book, the super economy fare had sold out on that train!

That's pretty cheap. Our fare was 98 for 2. But as I said our time frame is very tight. Leaving at 5:30 am and it would have been 58 for 2 so almost 1/2. But that's fine. That's life.

I used to love Pay Pal but now not so much. I find they tack on all kinds of extra fees and if you aren't a US account holder the conversion is terrible. But they're easy to use for sure.

 

[Lisa in Ottawa]

The price really varies depending on day and time. I saw 35e for 2 leaving the next day at 5:15.

 

[Anne]

Fortunately I haven't been hit with any PayPal fees so far. Are you being charged on your purchases?

 

[Lisa in Ottawa]

Anne,
I haven't used Pay Pal in a while. but if I remember last time there was something on their site indicating Canadians had an additional fee. Plus, of course, conversion to whatever currency you are paying. I believe they convert 2x. 1x from Cdn to US and then from US$ to euro for example. One loses with each conversion. Then there is the extra fee. And their rates aren't fantastic. It just bugs me. They pretend they're providing a special and unique service but really are no different from any other financial institution.
Not to say I would never use them. Smaller rentals and companies all use Pay Pal. b/c it's easy.

 

[Anne]

Interesting, I didn't know about the double conversion method (I'm Canadian too - from Nova Scotia.)

Sorry for sidetracking your train thread, by the way!

 

[Lisa in Ottawa]

No problem with "sidetracking." Yes, PP converts first to US$ and then to other currency. I'm not sure where I read this but it was some time ago. It might even have been the small print on their site.

PP aside. isn't the rapid slide of the loonie a disaster for travellers? I'm glad it wasn't quite this low when we were in Oxford for 3 months.

 

[Anne]

Ugh, the loonie...yes, isn't it depressing? I'm more than a little envious of our American travel friends right now!