I have been trying to buy a train ticket....Venice to Vienna...on the Trentitalia web site. But each time I do a booking my Credit Card is not accepted. Finally I called up their help line and was surprised to learn that they only accepy Italian Credit Cards...or American Express Cards. How can one book tickets if the payment is so restricted. Any ideas of what to do?

Buy at the station in Italy? Only other thing I can think of have you checked the Austrian website? See if it lets you book the tickets. Just watch the price. The price might be higher with the Austrians.

Yes the OBB fares are much higher. Italian tickets with Smart fare are only 29 E as against 75E on OBB. Might make more sense to fly on a low budget airlines...but they too are so unreliable because of the economy down plunge.

Recently, I read on the Trenitalia website about the Bankpass Web service: http://www.trenitalia.com/cms/...000003f16f90aRCRD#14. It appears that you need to first subscribe to that service before you can purchase with a Mastercard or Visa credit card. They explicitly say that only American Express cards issued in Italy can be used.

I have been successful buying tickets online, but my most recent transaction was in 2007 when I bought Eurostar Alta Velocita (AV) tickets for the Salerno to Rome route.

You might look into subscribing to that service. Also, when I've used the Trenitalia website to buy tickets, I found using it early in the morning (EST) worked best. It seemed the response time was much better than later in the day.

Thanks....will try it out and see how it works...

Something is wrong here........I purchased tickets many times, using Visa. Are you a "member" of the site?

Once you get to Italy, Trenitalai takes all kinds of crdit cards, just not online

Check out this link : How I successfully bought Trenitalia tickets on the web

You can also use e-bay if you have credit card problems on this site check out Loophole for buying Trenitalia tickets on the web

good luck!

However IMO its better just to buy your tickets at the station, I have never heard of someone not getting a seat.

Thanks everyone for your help...but I am just too tired of repeatedly getting on to the Trentitalia website to try once more to book a ticket. So instead have changed plans and will fly off to Prague instead and forget Vienna....(there is always another time another year)
Wizz Air s offering a super cheap flight from Milan to Prague ...hope it holds up till July and not go down under like so many low budget carriers...

I just bought a ticket for Rome - Lecce on April 26. No problem whatsoever, regular Visa card issued in the US. I was actually really surprised that it worked after reading all this!

I usually buy my tickets in Italy but wanted to have the ticket for my first train ride the day I arrive. I have only a few times not gotten the train I wanted; last time was going from Foggia to Rome in early September. Instead of getting the EuroStar directly from Foggia to Rome, I had to take three trains, Foggia-Piacenza-Naples-Rome. Quiet the adventure!

Congratulations, Chiociola! Could you tell us what time of day you bought your ticket? I see you are in Washington, DC.

Suzy, I bought it this morning (Sunday) at 8am EST. I registered on the site last night, though. I used the Italian version throughout, although that shouldn't make a difference.