Travel on the Cheap: Trenitalia Promotions

Your chariot awaits.

This fall, in honor of Italy’s 150th birthday, Trenitalia is offering some pretty sweet deals, with super low fares across the country.  The first is the MINI Promotion, with discounts of up to 60% to many of the top locations, determined by what looks to be some kind of arbitrary algorithm.  There are a limited number of MINI fares available for every train (i.e. 5 people can purchase MINI tickets for the 6pm train to Milan on October 7th), so if you’re looking to travel at all in the upcoming months, get thee to a Termini (self-service ticket kiosk). In order to see if a particular train still has a MINI fare available, you’ll need to go through the motions of selecting and proceeding toward purchase (unfortunately, there isn’t, say, an option to see a list of all Rome-Milan train times with MINI fares still available, you gotta pick your train and see what they got).  However, once you’ve selected your train and before you pick your seat and pay, you’ll see a screen listing fare choices.  Select the “Promozioni” button, and it will show you the price and availability for MINI fares on your train!  If it’s available, select and proceed to payment.  You can also do this on the Trenitalia site, but as a heads up, they can sometimes be a little fussy with foreign credit cards. Also note, MINI tickets must be purchased at least two days before departure, but considering the limited availability, it would behoove you to check it out the second a thought of travel crosses your mind.

Additionally, Trenitalia is now offering something called Sabato Italiano, from now until December 10th. These two-for-one deals must be purchased by the day before travel (so…Friday), and allow two people to travel on a single ticket on all AV, ES*, ES* City, Espressi, IC, or ICN trains for Saturday trips.  Again, the number of available fares for this deal is limited, so if you’re thinking of daytripping in the near future (or just want a good deal on one leg of your journey), you could save some serious cash by getting your tickets now.

Buon viaggio!