Alitalia MilleMiglia - can a US citizen buy a "promo" fare on alitalia.IT

Ciao,
This is my first post. I have been researching this for a week now and haven't found a definitive answer. Can a US citizen buy a within Italy Alitalia ticket (example, from Rome to Lamezia) on the "IT" site? Using a US issued credit card. That site has a "promo" fare that is a lot cheaper than what can be found on alitalia.COM. I am afraid to just "try it and see what happens" because if there is a problem on the website when I enter my info, I will not know if it was because I couldn't do it or because Alitalia was just having website issues. We have to make a connection from Rome to Lamezia and can't afford a screw-up that prevents us from joining up with our tour group. I did try calling the 800 # at alitalia.COM last week and the rep who answered the phone claimed there were no promo fares. A follow-up question would be, if I can't do it, can an Italian friend buy the tickets for me using her Italian credit card?:confused:

Grazie, luccapaperone!

I've purchased via the .it site before with no problems, from the USA. In fact, a few times the system would not let me purchase some intra-Italia flights via the .com system. Granted my MM # has an Italian address in the system.
But I can't tell you right now if that is the case or not 100%, only that I have done it in the past 12-18 months a couple of times.

When you bought your tickets on the "it" site did you buy the promo fare which is much cheaper and not offered on the "com" site?

I fail to see the problem here. Of course you can buy promo fares through alitalia.it. I'm based in Britain -for instance- and bought a few domestic flights (mainly LIN-PSR) with my Amex (issued over here) without any problems. Just go for it.

I fail to see the problem here. Of course you can buy promo fares through alitalia.it. I'm based in Britain -for instance- and bought a few domestic flights (mainly LIN-PSR) with my Amex (issued over here) without any problems. Just go for it.

US airlines sometimes do check the issue place of the credit card to restrict access to some fares, so I can see the point in asking. AFAIK the Alitalia website does not check that.

In case you find issues, just let us know, and we can probably direct you to a few good travel agents in Italy who will book that for you. Of course in that case you'll have the agent fee on it, so you'll have to weigh that.

Thanks for all the help. I guess I will just try it and see what happens. As far as purchasing online from the UK, the UK "site" for alitalia already has the promo fares listed so it's not an issue. It seems like, with the exception of Venezuela, all of the countries listed on their "choose a country" option that are on the other side of the pond don't have the promo choice. I am also looking into the Italian travel agency suggestion! Grazie a tutti!

I've brought off the it site, us site and Belgium! Have an Australian credit card and Bo dramas with payment, logging into mm etc. However one leg I didn't get an email for, but I called my local office who resent it.

Thanks for all the help. I guess I will just try it and see what happens. As far as purchasing online from the UK, the UK "site" for alitalia already has the promo fares listed so it's not an issue. It seems like, with the exception of Venezuela, all of the countries listed on their "choose a country" option that are on the other side of the pond don't have the promo choice. I am also looking into the Italian travel agency suggestion! Grazie a tutti!

Usually all the websites except US version and Canada have all fares available, and there is no restriction whatsoever on buying tickets from any of the sites.

I did try calling the 800 # at alitalia.COM

You can always try calling the Italy call centre at +39 06 65649 where they should be speaking english as well as italian.

I frequently purchased those fares from the .it site, but using an Italian credit card (I'm a US Citizen). I have found that many Italian sites have problems with US credit cards, (including Trenitalia and Vodafone) but this is due to a higher security requirement on the Italian sites. Once I verified an American visa card with an online Visa verification program (sorry, I can't recall the details at the moment) I was able to use the US card. However, I didn't try it on the Alitalia site.

I was able to buy very inexpensive Alitalia 'promo' tickets -- FCO-CTA and PMO-VCE -- on the .it site using a "Visa verified" U.S. credit card. Also had no problem using these e-tickets.

Here's a link to the "verified by visa" page on the visa.com website:

https://usa.visa.com/personal/security/vbv/index.jsp

We encountered this just the other day -- promo fares available on alitalia.it but not on alitalia.com. I called the US toll-free number for Alitalia's ticketing department and the agent quoted me the same price available on the alitalia.com website. I asked her if, being a US resident, I could purchase the flights off of alitalia.it for the discounted price and she said "Sure. Some tickets are priced differently on our different language websites." So, I went ahead on alitalia.it, using a US credit card and a US cell phone number for contact information, and the purchase went through quite smoothly. The promo fare was about 40% of the fare for the same flights on alitalia.com. You just have to be able to read Italian or else figure out what you are doing from the context (the purchasing steps are similar, but not identical, on alitalia.it and alitalia.com).

The Belgium website is in English and should have a further €5 p.p. discount compared to the Italy website:

http://www.alitalia.com/BE_EN/

Yes, I have bought PROMO fares on the alitalia.it site, witha US issued credit card.