In short
Tiqets is a Dutch platform that resells entry tickets and, increasingly, organised day trips. In Tuscany its advantage is convenience: you buy on your phone, the ticket lands in the app, and you can often find a place when the official channel is sold out or temporarily not selling. The drawbacks are price and rigidity: for the Leaning Tower of Pisa and Siena Cathedral you pay more than on the official site, and those tickets can't be refunded.
Tiqets is a partner of this guide: if you book through our links we earn a commission. It doesn't change our verdict.
Who Tiqets are
Tiqets International B.V. is based in Amsterdam, at James Wattstraat 77-P, and has been trading since 2014. Expedia Group has announced an agreement to buy it; according to press reports the deal closed at around 279 million dollars.
Tiqets isn't a museum or a public body: it sells tickets for monuments, museums and tour operators. On some listings the supplier shown is the body that runs the site (for the Tower it reads “Opa Pisa”), on others it's Tiqets itself, as with Siena's OPA SI PASS. In neither case are you paying the official price.
What it sells in Tuscany
At our last check Tiqets' Tuscany page listed about 50 experiences in Florence, 10 in Siena, 8 in Pisa, 4 in San Gimignano, 3 in Montalcino and 2 in Montepulciano. In practice the catalogue falls into three blocks:
- Entry tickets: the Tower and Duomo in Pisa, the OPA SI PASS and the Duomo with the Piccolomini Library in Siena, the Museo Civico in the Palazzo Pubblico, and the Duomo and Casa-Torre Campatelli in San Gimignano.
- Day trips from Florence: the day-trip category has 19 options, averaging 4.5 from about 285 reviews at our last check. Another 19 are wine tours, averaging 4.6 at our last check.
- City passes, such as the Florence Pass, which at our last check had cooler ratings (3.9).
There's one limitation to know about with the day trips: at our last check individual listings had few reviews, often a few dozen, while similar itineraries on GetYourGuide had thousands. That doesn't make them worse, but you have less to go on, and the €79 Pisa–Siena–San Gimignano–Chianti trip stood at 3.8 and couldn't be cancelled.
Tiqets vs the official ticket office
The official prices are those published by the Opera della Primaziale Pisana and the Opera della Metropolitana di Siena. Tiqets' prices move often: we update them regularly, but treat them as a ballpark figure.
| What | Official channel | Tiqets |
|---|---|---|
| Leaning Tower + Duomo, Pisa | €20; time can be changed and order cancelled up to 2 hours before | from €25, non-refundable and non-changeable |
| OPA SI PASS, Siena | €14, €16 when the floor is uncovered; audio guide included | from €21.50, non-refundable |
| Pisa, Siena and San Gimignano day trip from Florence | no official ticket: by train Florence–Pisa €9.80 and Florence–Siena €10.80 each way; for San Gimignano, train to Poggibonsi then bus | from €64 with a tasting; €105 with lunch |
On the Tower the difference is €5; on the Siena pass it's between €5.50 and €7.50. The “Fast Track” version of the Tower, from €30, adds an audio guide, but the climb is still by time slot at a fixed time: read what's included before paying the difference.
The €105 trip with lunch is run by CAF Tour & Travel (Gray Line), meeting at 07:15 in piazzale Montelungo, at the bottom of the ramp by the station, with free cancellation up to 24 hours before. The same operator sells similar trips on other channels too: compare the itinerary and price before you choose.
Pisa, Siena & San Gimignano: Day Trip from Florence + Wine Tasting
(18 reviews) from €64
Book on Tiqets
Florence: Pisa, Siena and San Gimignano Day Trip with Lunch
(11,722 reviews) from €49
Book on GetYourGuideWhen it's worth it and when it isn't
Tiqets makes sense if:
- the official Tower slots are sold out for the day you need;
- the Opera has temporarily suspended online payment;
- you want all your trip's tickets in one app and don't mind paying a few euros for that.
The official site is better if:
- there's space: you pay less and, for the Tower, you can still change your time or cancel;
- your plans might change, because a non-refundable Tiqets ticket is lost if you miss the visit;
- you're visiting Siena: the official pass costs less and already includes the audio guide.
For day trips from Florence the comparison has to be made listing by listing: check the meeting point, the length, what's included (see whether the Tower climb is part of it) and how many reviews there are.
Booking, cancellation and support
The ticket is a smartphone voucher, sent by email and shown in the app. Cancellation terms are set product by product and stated before you pay: as a rule, entry tickets aren't refundable, while tours can be cancelled free of charge up to 24 hours before.
Support is available on +31 85 888 4442, at customerservice@tiqets.com and, at any hour, by chat and on WhatsApp.
Tiqets reviews: what customers say
At our last check Tiqets had about 4.3 on Trustpilot from about 61,000 reviews, with 75% five-star and 7% one-star ratings, and on the App Store the app scored over 4.8 from about 35,000 ratings. Also at our last check, in Tuscany the Tower ticket had 4.5 from about 2,500 reviews and the OPA SI PASS 4.5 from almost 1,000.
The praise is almost always about how quick the purchase is and how simple the app is. The recurring complaints come down to four: mobile tickets that won't scan at the entrance, closing days that weren't flagged, confusion between “fast track” and standard tickets, and slow support when you need a refund.
The Colosseum fine
In the Colosseum tickets case, Italy's competition authority fined Tiqets €4.3 million. The charge: using automated software to buy entry tickets at the base price and reselling them only in bundles with added services. In the example cited by the authority, an €18 official ticket appeared on Tiqets from €35. According to press reports the fine stood up on appeal. Pisa and Siena have nothing to do with it, but the case is a reminder to always start from the official price.
Why 3 out of 5
Tiqets sells valid tickets, with an app that works and support you can reach at any hour. The score stops at 3 for two specific reasons: on Tuscan entry tickets it costs more than the official channel and doesn't refund, while its day trips have too few reviews to choose between them with confidence. GetYourGuide gets one point more not for its entry prices, which are only slightly lower, but because on day trips cancellation up to 24 hours before is the rule and reviews run into the thousands.
Alternatives
- GetYourGuide: more reviews on day trips and free cancellation up to 24 hours before as a general rule.
- Viator: the widest choice of English-language day trips, with prices in dollars.
- Headout: similar prices on the Tower, but as a rule no cancellation.
- To buy directly from the official bodies, read our reviews of the Opera della Primaziale Pisana and the Opera della Metropolitana di Siena.