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Do you have questions about booking train tickets in Europe, or in North America? Then you&#;re in the right place! I&#;m simplifying the process in this guide, and comparing the best options for buying tickets in different situations, with the pros and cons of each service.
This is a sustainable travel blog, and there&#;s no denying that traveling by train is much better for the environment than flying. But booking train tickets is often much more confusing than booking flights.
Why?
Well, if you&#;re buying train tickets in Europe, each country has a different national train system, with its own website, language, sometimes its own currency, and definitely its own glitches.
To buy a flight, on the other hand, you just go to Skyscanner, and in a few clicks you have tons of options and routes, no matter how many countries you need to pass through to get where you&#;re going.
Those three are all legitimate companies, and established ticket resellers for European train tickets. (They&#;re official partners of the European national train companies.)
And they all put you on the same trains! (There&#;s no such thing as an &#;Omio train&#; vs a &#;Trainline train&#; vs a &#;RailEurope train.&#; It&#;s just a matter of who&#;s selling you the ticket.)
Latest Travel Deals: Save 10% off any train, bus, flight or ferry tickets from Omio with THIS LINK and the code MARCH . (Valid through March 20, . Maximum discount will be &#;10. First-time Omio customers only &#; or use a different address.)
My default is Omio, but there are some useful differences between these three resellers, which I know well from experience. So that&#;s what I&#;ll break down in this post, to help you find the best way to buy European train tickets specifically for your Euro trip.
First, the highlights:
[Looking a comparison of Omio vs. ItaliaRail? I&#;ve got all the details on that in my full Guide to Train Travel in Italy. In short, I prefer Omio over ItaliaRail for its simplicity and use-friendliness.]
Jump to the details here:
I&#;ve taken a lot of trains! After all, I lived in Europe for about four years, including one year spent commuting between my life in Italy and my job in France. Now that I&#;m based in the US, every trip to Europe involves visiting in-laws in both Italy and Prague, as well as friends scattered around the continent.
Plus, since the focus of this blog is how to travel more sustainably, I opt for trains over flight whenever possible (and in Europe, trains are actually possible quite often).
[Related: I get around by train in the US a lot, too, but it&#;s trickier and there are fewer destinations served. My Adirondack weekend getaway guide includes important advice for getting to Upstate NY by train. And this story about Detroit and Chicago is all about travel in the US.]
That&#;s me, freshly landed in Milan, taking the train from Malpensa to the city center. (Barely awake behind the glasses&#;)Because hey, some people watch their waistlines, but I&#;m more focused on watching my travel emissions.
So pass the croissants, I&#;ll take them for my train snack!
[Related: I&#;ve also written a detailed Guide to Train Travel in Italy, and a Guide to Ferry Travel in Greece.]
For quite a while, I&#;ve used and recommended Omio for booking European train tickets. It lets you buy train tickets, and nearly any kind of travel, in almost every country in Europe &#; and in North America!
(There are no &#;Omio trains.&#; It&#;s not a train company, just an easier way to buy train tickets, whether you&#;re traveling from Paris to Milan, or Chicago to Seattle.)
That&#;s the first thing I like about Omio:
I use Omio to quickly compare trains, flights, ferries, busses, and more &#; all in one search.
While it&#;s not global, Omio does already let you buy tickets in most of Europe and North America, which is a wider reach than Trainline or Rail Europe, and they&#;re expanding.
For the route variety and prices it finds, I&#;ve found Omio does the best job with trains and busses (vs. planes and ferries). But it&#;s still a useful starting point for any route, just to see what options exist and compare travel times.
But there are several alternatives to Omio, with pro and cons to each one. So I decided to test them all on my real travel plans.
I spent much of this summer in Italy &#; starting in Milan, my old expat hometown! From there, I took a train to the central region of Marche for a unique Italian bike trip with gorgeous views, wineries, an olive oil tasting, and other pleasures.
[Travel Opportunity! I&#;ll be inviting readers on this same Italian bike adventure in ! If you&#;re interested, be sure to get on my list below for updates!]
Anyway, back to the train tickets. I took a look at Omio first to book my tickets from Milan to Fabriano for the bike trip, but I didn&#;t stop there. Below are all the differences I found comparing Omio vs Trainline vs Rail Europe.
Omio lets you include many loyalty card numbers, or discount memberships when you book tickets.
The options include a CartaFreccia number, for Italian train tickets. (If you have one, great. But, as I explained here, if you&#;re not a current or former resident of Italy, good luck getting one.) Rail Europe also offers this for the most countries.
This is definitely unique: Omio offers a student discount on train and bus tickets!
The discount is 5% off, but it&#;s only available for students based in certain countries. (This link should redirect you the right page for your country, if available.)
UPDATE: Omio&#;s student discount is now applicable on Deutsche Bahn (Germain train tickets), Amtrak, and VIA Rail (US and Canadian trains), as well as most other tickets on Omio. However, it won&#;t work on Flixbus or Greyhound bus tickets.
Unlike the alternatives below, Omio doesn&#;t let you choose specific seats on the train, the way you choose your seats on an airplane. Normally, this isn&#;t much of a problem, since you can choose a seat preference. (Window, aisle, solo seat, quiet zone, etc. The options depend on the train type and country.)
This is usually free for train tickets within Italy, but in some countries, it costs a few euros.
The free seating preferences Omio offers for fast trains in Italy.That&#;s what I did when I bought our two tickets to Central Italy &#; I selected &#;window&#; as the preference. Then I checked the tickets that Omio issued, and they put us in the seats we would have chosen anyway &#; window seats facing each other. (Not spread out in random spots on the train, as airlines tend to do if you don&#;t pay.)
In Italy specifically, you can&#;t buy tickets on the FrecciaRossa&#;s &#;Area Silenzio&#; (that&#;s the quiet car of Italy&#;s main fast trains). I asked Omio about this and they said it&#;s a feature they&#;re working on and will be available soon. (That&#;s the latest as of writing this, in June of . I&#;ll update this here when it changes.)
Tip: As soon as you purchase, Omio sends you an with your official train tickets (no need to print them in the vast majority of cases. Just keep them on your .)
This has changed quite recently, as of writing this in June .
Before, Omio charged a flat, 3&#; booking fee for any purchase. But now, the fee varies based on multiple factors. From what I&#;ve seen, it&#;s usually from 2&#; to 10&#;, and sometimes there&#;s no fee at all.
(I reached out to ask them about this. They said it&#;s based on the location where you&#;re booking tickets, where you&#;re booking from, ticket class, and other factors.)
I wish it were more straightforward how much the fees would be, but at least you know how much it will cost from the beginning of the booking process. On Omio, you see the fee as soon as you put a ticket in your cart and select your ticket class. That&#;s better than many platforms, especially Trainline.)
Another unique feature is that Omio lets you choose the currency you actually pay in, not just the currency that prices are displayed in. (Trainline and Rail Europe just show the information to make it easier on us, but the charge will go through in the local currency.)
This is the biggest benefit if you don&#;t have a credit card without foreign transaction fees &#; but you should! Foreign transaction fees, which are around 3% on every transaction, will add up quickly.
Your bank or credit card company will always give you a better exchange rate than the merchant&#;s bank, so you&#;ll save money on every purchase during your trip. (Usually the charge is applied based on the currency of the transaction, not the location, but it&#;s worth double-checking this with your bank.)
If you have a travel credit card (with no foreign transaction fees) be sure to switch this option to Euros on Omio!!Tip: If you don&#;t have a good travel credit card already, Capital One is a good place to start. None of their credit cards have foreign transaction fees, and they offers lots of cards with no annual fee.
[Related: Stay tuned for my post about more simple ways to save money on your travels, coming soon!]
The Strasbourg train station, during what turned out to be a very&#; dramatic trip to Strasbourg!Trainline is the first platform I wanted to compare with Omio, because it&#;s the most similar. They both have apps, and let you book train tickets in most of Europe. (Although unlike Omio, Trainline doesn&#;t cover North America, and only works for trains and busses, nothing else.)
And at the beginning of this search, I had a bit of a crisis of confidence about recommending Omio. That&#;s because, at first, it seemed like Trainline didn&#;t charge a service fee, which would make it the better, or at least cheaper, option. (And I shuddered at the thought of having to rewrite my entire Italian trains guide.)
But as I went through the booking process on Trainline, I realized that was not the case. Trainline does charge a service fee similar to Omio&#;s &#; it&#;s just added at the end, which makes me prefer Omio. At least there it&#;s clear from the start.
The one benefit I&#;ve found of Trainline vs. Omio is that it allowed me to choose tickets in Business Area Silenzio (the &#;silent area&#; of TrenItalia&#;s Business class carriage). Whereas Omio doesn&#;t offer those tickets yet. (I&#;ve done multiple tests of this, looking at the same train, at the same time.)
Other than that one, slightly odd, difference I&#;ve found, Omio and Trainline seem to offer the same ticket class options at the same prices. (At least for trains in Italy.)
Trainline lets you choose your exact seats when booking Italian train tickets, while Omio only lets you choose a preference. (Window, middle seat, or solo seat.)
They charge the same fee (roughly $2 per seat) that the train companies charge when you book seats with them directly.
Trainline&#;s seat map &#; choose your exact spot for a couple of $.(Rail Europe, the Trainline alternative below, also lets you choose your seats.)
Unlike Omio and Rail Europe, Trainline doesn&#;t let you add any local loyalty numbers when booking European train tickets.
Trainline is the only train booking website I&#;ve seen that lets you request a personal or business invoice during the booking process.
Business Travel Tip: Trainline also has a specific Trainline Business platform, designed for business travelers. I haven&#;t used it, but it&#;s described as a free way to keep track of travel expenses, automatically receive invoices, and send calendar invites.
While Trainline doesn&#;t offer a student discount like Omio, it does have a legitimate 20% discount on Railcards. Those are the annual discount cards for taking trains in the UK, which can be quite valuable if you&#;re planning a trip there with multiple trains rides.
Tip: Yes, travelers can use Railcards, too! You don&#;t have to be a UK resident.
After this comparison, Omio is still my preference over Trainline. While the option to select exact seats on Trainline is a pro, I really don&#;t like how they bury the service fees at the end of the booking process.
It also seems bit glitchy sometimes. On my first test, I was actually going to purchase my Italian train tickets from Trainline, but when I got to the end of the process, it kept telling me the trip had expired. So I ended up going back to Omio.
Rail Europe is a bit of a sleeper here &#; I almost didn&#;t include it in this comparison. It&#;s less flashy than Trainline and Omio &#; no app, less of a glitzy website, and it&#;s been around since , for heaven&#;s sake.
But Rail Europe impressed me with several unique features that others don&#;t have:
This is definitely what I think is most interesting about Rail Europe: When you search for your train tickets, Rail Europe shows you the estimated CO2 savings from taking the train vs flying the same route!
Are you interested in learning more about European Standard Rails? Contact us today to secure an expert consultation!
It&#;s the only platform I&#;ve found that offers this information, and I think it&#;s great that they&#;re trying to make this knowledge more widely available.
[Related: Check out my Guide to the Best Travel Carbon Calculators! Spoiler: For comparing flights vs trains vs driving a certain route, I recommend TravelAndClimate.org. And for cleaning the up the emissions that have already happened, I recommend this organization.]
I&#;ve noticed that Rail Europe tends to do something smart for Italian train tickets with a connection: It automatically upgrades the FrecciaRossa part of the journey (where business class actually makes a difference), and automatically gives you second class for the Regional train connection.
(The difference is pretty minimal between first and second class on Regional trains in Italy. I described the train types and differences in tickets classes here in my Italian train travel guide.)
Smart class choices (the blue arrows on the left) and carbon calculations (the green arrow) on Rail Europe.If you&#;re looking for a Trainline alternative that still lets you choose your exact seat on the train, then Rail Europe is a winner. (This is the main feature missing from Omio.)
This might be the most useful, logical feature of Rail Europe for booking train tickets. The results for each Rail Europe search include a little flag when a route includes a short connection between trains. (Is it still called a &#;layover&#; when you&#;re not flying?)
Nice clear connection times &#; and alerts for short ones &#; on Rail Europe.Just like the next point, this information is available on the other websites. It&#;s just easier to see on Rail Europe.
This is another very useful feature that no one else has. Adding a &#;via station&#; on Rail Europe lets you essentially book multiple train tickets in one search, or choose which city you want to transfer in.
If you&#;re booking a popular train route that doesn&#;t require transfers &#; like Milan to Rome &#; you don&#;t need to worry about a via station.
But when I wanted to book a more obscure trip, from Milan to the small town of Fabriano, it was more complicated. If I took the route with a change in Bologna, I would have spent one hour on a fast train (the FrecciaRossa from Milan to Bologna) and then 4 hours on a slower train.
But if I booked a transfer in Ancona, instead, I&#;d spend 3 hours on a fast train (the FrecciaRossa from Milan to Ancona) then one hour on a slow train (Ancona to Fabriano), thus shaving an hour off the trip.
So if you know something like that, Rail Europe is the only booking platform that lets you specify which city you want to pass through or transfer in.
So again, this feature isn&#;t necessary. It&#;s just nice if you know you want it.
&#;More options&#; on Rail Europe lets you choose a station to connect in, or book multiple train trips on one ticket.Rail Europe lets you choose to add your membership number for lots of European train discount and loyalty programs before you even search for your tickets.
(Omio is also pretty good with this, while Trainline doesn&#;t seem to allow this option at all.)
You can&#;t buy EU Rail passes on most booking sites, but you can on Rail Europe.
Whether or not it actually makes sense to is another question&#;
EU Rail passes basically let you pre-pay for a certain number of &#;travel days&#; during a certain period of time (say, one month). Then you book your trains tickets without paying &#; theoretically. (But there are several significant exceptions, including many fast trains in popular countries like Italy.)
And whether a rail pass will actually save you money will take some calculation&#;
Personally, I think it&#;s usually a better bet to just book individual tickets at least several weeks in advance. But if you decide you do want an EU Rail Pass, you can buy it from Rail Europe.
I get this question all the time, and the difference is simple. EUrail Passes are for non-European citizens or non-residents.
To use an InterRail Pass, meanwhile, you have to be a European citizen or resident.
Finally, Rail Europe probably has the most straightforward fees I&#;ve found &#; but I think they mark up their ticket prices a bit more. (From what I&#;ve seen, the difference between Rail Europe and Omio is usually just a couple of dollars, but it&#;s worth checking two sites to compare if you&#;re trying to stick to your travel budget.)
Like Trainline, Rail Europe also charges about $2 per seat for seat selection in Italy and many countries. (If you care to choose specific seats. Omio avoids that fee by only letting you choose a seat preference &#; window, aisle, etc.)
Changing trains in Karlsruhe, Germany, during my train trip from Prague to Eastern France.Of course, I also compared going straight to the TrenItalia website for this trip. (Italy&#;s national rail company.) And of course, booking tickets directly with TrenItalia is still just as glitchy as I remember it being when I lived in Italy and used the site all the time.
The official TrenItalia website seemed much cheaper on the search results page, but the price changed when I clicked, with no explanation. Frankly, that&#;s pretty standard.
It&#;s always been a glitchy website, and I&#;ve consistently had problems paying with a US credit card. There are also translation issues. For example, if you type &#;Venice&#; into the search bar on TrenItalia, it won&#;t recognize it. You have to enter city names in Italian &#; Venezia instead of Venice, Roma instead of Rome, etc.
These lost-in-translation problems are why companies like Omio exist in the first place.
I&#;m glad all three of these companies are trying to simplify buying train tickets, because along with being much more sustainable, train travel is often also a better way to travel in Europe (as opposed to flying).
Buying the tickets is just the most complicated part.
But after that, it&#;s easy. There&#;s no security line to deal with. (Well, there often is some degree of security check, but you don&#;t have to give up your liquids or get to the station two hours early!) There are hardly any baggage restrictions.
[Related: For another way to stop worrying about luggage restrictions, check out my guide to packing lighter, with mindset tips to make it work for you. (Hint: It&#;s not a one-size-fits-all packing list.)]
The seats are bigger, and the prices are lower. (Especially in , with flight prices climbing, even for the famously-cheap short flights in Europe!)
Plus, train stations are almost always in the center of European cities &#; no long rides to the airport.
And the experience of train travel doesn&#;t mentally take you out of your trip, the way the sterile uniformity of an airport does. Instead, you stay on the ground and much more in the culture you&#;re visiting, and get to enjoy some views you wouldn&#;t otherwise see, along the way.
For everything in one place, check out my Travel Booking Resources page. It has the vetted companies that I use all the time for flights, ferries, insurance, hotels and sustainably-run, multi-day trips.
Going to Greece? Check out my guide to Greek ferries!
I skipped travel insurance for years, but after a recent incident with a bread truck in France, I might be finally learning my lesson!
Insure My Trip is my first recommendation for short-term travel insurance. For long-term travel, start with SafetyWing.
DETAILS: For more travel insurance options and what I like about each one, see this section of my Travel Resources.
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My husband and I have had the most dismal experience with buying rail passes with Rail Europe. Let this be a cautionary tale. After researching information and speaking in depth with one of their customer service reps and detailing the rail trips we were planning, it was recommended to buy a 3 day pass for travel and we splurged for 1st class.(they had a saver pass) Much to our dismay,when we tried to reserve an actual train, we had to pay an additional price to get an actual seat. At $70 USD. On an AVE train, the only train we could take to reach our destination, you MUST have a seat reservation. This was not included in the pass cost and is very difficult to find on their website. We think about returning them only to now find out you only get 85% of the cost back. I know, our fault for not realizing this, but this was NOT mentioned by our rep or at anytime during the confirmation and processing of our pass purchase. Our other travel also is an AVE train and we have a return trip so that is another $140 USD. As our pass is 1st class, we book a 1st class reservation. Find out 2 days later, oops, they don't have 1st class available and we will need to take 2nd class, and there are no other trains during our time frame where we can take 1st class. Even though the website let us reserve these. And only get a notice these are "subject to availability" AFTER the order was processed. The extra costs we paid for 1st class are now moot as we can't get 1st class seats. A pass seems to be only a good option if you don't need seat reservations for any parts of your travel. Meaning, no AVE trains. We would love to change and book via Renfe, but as we won't get a 100% refund, incurred costs will be lost. So do like these forums recommend, and use www.renfe.com
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