Trenitalia is Italy’s state owned train operator. They run the high speed Frecciarossa trains (alongside two other Freccia types, and the slow speed lines), there’s also Italo as a private high speed operator, apparently it started with high speed offers before Trenitalia.
When doing an Interrail/Eurail trip within Italy, one has to pay 13EUR per seat reservation on the Frecciarossa. This cannot be booked online through Trenitalia’s website, and must instead be booked in person at ticket offices (which is slow), or booked through Interrail, which issues reservations through SNCB 🇧🇪, and charges a 2EUR booking fee on top (SNCB doesn’t let you reserve directly with them either).
Trenitalia also sells the “Trenitalia Pass”, which is potentially a better offer if you plan to do book with flexibility, not ahead of time. Despite it being a 1 hour train, Trenitalia was charging 52EUR for a Napoli→Roma train in the last 24 hours of it (and the Firenze→Bologna was 33EUR last second despite it also being an hour). The difference is that Interrail is x travel days in y days, and Trenitalia pass is x trips in y days, so it might make more sense if you’d be taking one train per day.
So, what we did was book a “Trenitalia Pass Easy Young”, which gets us 3 trips within 7 days for 119EUR, and an Interrail pass for the parts of the trip that’s not Italy-domestic (e.g. crossing to Switzerland, traveling there, then traveling back home from Switzerland). We booked some cheaper trips along the way out of pocket (Intercity and Regional trains).
disaster strikes 🌋
On our first trenitalia train (we did take the Circumvesuviana the day before, but that’s not trenitalia), going from Napoli to Roma, we came to a grinding halt halfway through. The specter of Deutsche Bahn had followed us.
(We didn’t get served. at seat. because they ran out 5 rows ahead of us, then didn’t bother to continue as we were pulling into Roma by then.)
First, it was a 40 minute delay, then it was a 61 minute one. Eventually, we arrived 66 minutes late, which gives us rights to a 25% compensation under EU Regulation 2021/782. The friend I was traveling with automatically got a link via email to request compensation, I didn’t. We played around a bit, and the main refund website was rejecting the compensation application when going through the ticket number, saying that we have to request through the relevant purchase type.
Available options are as follows:
We had a “Pass”, so my friend tried Other, and it said that we had to wait until we had used our entire pass before we could apply for compensation. Sure, we said, on a later train it is.
onwärts
We traveled. We only had minor delays on the trains ahead, 20 minutes to Bologna, 1 minute to Zürich and Vaduz (unacceptable), 9 minutes to Hamburg, etc.
porca madonna
Yeah, turns out Trenitalia sucks at this.
First you gotta figure out what this means:
Which apparently is about going to the last booking’s PDF (actually the “Code Pass” is the same on all 3 bookings, but different from the “Pass Number” on your pass booking) and finding this little number here:
Then you put it in, pray, and get hit by this:
Okay, you say, maybe I’ll try the “Carnet” or “Season Ticket” option, as the bookings show up as Carnet Bookings in the mobile app:
Okay, you say, I’ll try the regular “Smart Refund” system that’s mentioned at the top of this page for high speed trains, just in case (which is only available in Italian, ma non che questo mi abbia mai fermato):
(It’s sending you back to the other form as it’s booking through a carnet or subscription.)
Then you sigh, and go back to reading.
Then you try the website, why not, it’s mentioned at the top after all:
So for fun you go and verify if you can be excluded from compensation, even though e.g. even the Bahncard 100 gets some amount of compensation on delays. EU Regulation 2021/782 says:
Article 19, Compensation
Without losing the right of transport, a passenger is entitled to compensation for delays from the railway undertaking if he or she is facing a delay between the places of departure and final destination stated in the ticket or through-ticket for which the cost has not been reimbursed in accordance with Article 18. The minimum compensation for delays shall be as follows: (a) 25 % of the ticket price for a delay of 60 to 119 minutes; (b) 50 % of the ticket price for a delay of 120 minutes or more.
Paragraph 1 shall also apply to passengers who hold a travel pass or season ticket. If those passengers encounter recurrent delays or cancellations during the period of validity of the travel pass or season ticket, they shall be entitled to adequate compensation in accordance with the railway undertaking’s compensation arrangements. These arrangements shall state the criteria for determining delay and for the calculation of the compensation. Where delays of less than 60 minutes occur repeatedly during the period of validity of the travel pass or season ticket, the delays may be counted cumulatively and passengers may be compensated in accordance with the railway undertaking’s compensation arrangements.
Without prejudice to paragraph 2, compensation for delay shall be calculated in relation to the full price which the passenger actually paid for the delayed service. Where the transport contract is for a return journey, compensation for delay on either the outward or the return leg shall be calculated in relation to the price indicated for that leg of the journey on the ticket. Where there is no such indication of the price of the individual legs of the journey, the compensation shall be calculated in relation to half of the price paid for the ticket. In the same way, the price for a delayed service provided under any other form of transport contract entitling the passenger to travel for two or more subsequent legs shall be calculated in proportion to the full price.
[…]
That’s potentially a lot of text, but notably, paragraph 1(a) establishes a 25% compensation, paragraph 2 even includes “travel passes” (defined as “unlimited travel in a given number of days”, so interrail-likes), and paragraph 3 establishes how the compensation should be calculated (total price divided into amount of legs). So, I’m entitled to my 10 euros.
At this point the account UI is not working, web forms are all throwing errors, I’m no longer in Italy and can’t get to a ticket office, and I don’t want to pay for an international call (should’ve called while I was still EU roaming, I guess).
EU has this helpful website for figuring out what to do in relation to rail passenger rights claims, which says that I can use the EU-wide form (a PDF) for this. I think I saw a form on the Trenitalia website as well, but notably, they want it sent as registered mail to their office in Roma, and that’s 4.90EUR with deutsche post, and I’m not in the mood for spending half the compensation money on postage.
Surely it’s like GDPR and I can send it wherever online, and they have to route it internally, right?
Article 19, Compensation
- Member States may require railway undertakings to accept requests for compensation by particular means of communication, provided that the request does not create discriminatory effects. Passengers shall have the right to submit their requests using the common form referred to in paragraph 5. Railway undertakings shall not reject a request for compensation solely on the grounds that the passenger has not used that form. If a request is not sufficiently precise, the railway undertaking shall ask the passenger to clarify the request and shall assist the passenger to do so.
Well, that sucks, but arguably I’m left only with the option for a phone call, which is very much discriminatory. Post may also be possible despite not being in that list above (I did see it mentioned elsewhere in the website, but tbh it’s a maze), but that means incurring significant costs and delivery delays compared to an Italy resident due to where I am located within the Union, and I’m willing to take my chances of arguing that it may be discriminatory.
So, email? Their website is awfully low on email addresses, only really listing their DPA email. You can find their PEC (Posta elettronica certificata) emails ([email protected], [email protected]), but lo and behold, sending to a PEC email from a non-PEC email to FSitaliane is not possible (the one for the transport authority works and sent back a delivery certificate, but IDT that’ll work):
A PEC account also costs 5-10EUR/yr, so that’s also out. There’s a few places online that refer to [email protected], and the emails arrive from [email protected], so I also sent my form to both:
Well, I guess that means at least info@ succeeded?
I tried asking their whatsapp bot to talk to a human, but it kept saying there were no online support agents. It kept recommending the PEC address of the transport authority as well.
As I had also emailed them, the transport authority replied (from their PEC email) saying that they cannot forward to trenitalia for me, and didn’t reply to my email asking if me exhausting my options to contact them was sufficient grounds to escalate to them. Let’s give it a month, I guess!
what’s next
Unfortunately for trenitalia, even though I don’t need that money back, I’m quite spiteful, and since the resolution of the sbgg topic, I’ve got enough space on my plate.
I’ll see if I get a reply or not, and then I’ll try to escalate it to the relevant authority (which is where that [email protected] email comes in). I may end up going the route of european small claims, which will no doubt cost quite a bit, but may be cheaper and fairer than ADR on this. Italian rates are harder to decipher, but if I can get the case heard in Germany (as trenitalia is active towards germany, it may be possible) that’d be 114eur, which I’d get back if I win. Let’s see!
cliffhanger! cya in part 2 maybe!