sweetjen

Help! Any suggestions for a family of 7 trying to fly to Italy around June 12? Would prefer to fly into Rome & then out of Venice 2 weeks later, leaving from Chicago.

CarolA

Venice killed me last year. I wound up taking the train back to Rome so you might consider that


Right now airfares for summer are running over $1,000 which can be high for 7.

One thought , when you put your trip into the search engines only look for one ticket. That gives you the lowest fare. There may not be 7 at the lowest price. You may have to book x tickets at the low price and x at the next price point.

qwovadis

My wife and I go a lot aa.com
for us cheaper this year ORD into MXP(Milan)
In the past also to LON has been cheapest then
ryanair.com or easyjet.com from 15-20 euros
into Venice out Rome or vice versa back to LON. Open jaws
ROM VCE usually cost us hundreds more. regional train like a local cheap fun and not far seat61.com/italy.

eurocheapo.com great budget tips for us.

Have fun!

CarolA

When you have a party of 7 just moving around is a hassle. Then you have to make sure EVERYONE packs within the VERY tight restrictions on Ryanair or Easyjet.

Also, remember this would be a 'non protected' connection. Allow LOTS of time between the flight to London and the flight to 'wherever" and vice versa. Otherwise you cuold be buying full fare walk up tickets when things don't go well.

koen

Just keep trying on various websites (kayak.com, vayama.com), and maybe some other airports nearby. For us, the prices to one of the airports suddenly dropped to $800-ish.

Note there are two major sports events in Europe this summer, the Olympics (July/Aug) and the European 2012 Soccer Championship (June). Lots of folks travelling. Good luck.

sweetjen

Thanks for the advise. My husband & I took a 15 day trip to Italy in 2010 and have been saving to take our kids this summer. I forgot about the Olymipics, thanks for the reminder. We've set a budget limit & hope we can find airfare within that limit otherwise we'll have to postpone a family trip to Italy.

dutyfree

Where are you flying from? There are several airlines that you can fly into from the states and out of another city which will save you time and energy-called open jaw.

sweetjen

Plan to fly out of O'hare. But really we can do O'hare, Midway, or Indy

surfmom

We flew into Milan and out of Venice this past fall - from PHL - LHR - MIL on British Airways.

Overall, it was a great flight and things went well - but the flights were PACKED due to a BA sale. However, we did enjoy connecting in LHR - good food options for a family and the kids liked the Olympic store!

Just keep checking... and checking and checking. Try different options. If you get lucky and find something reasonable, be ready to jump on it quickly.

good luck