Do I need a travel agent?

Hi Megan,, don't know where you are interested in spending some time at,, but you could fly into Barcelona on your international air carrier,, spend some time there( perhaps visiting a smaller town for a few days, we are going to visit Tossa De Mar on friends recommendations) then fly to Palermo on Vueling from Barcelona,, then on Vueling you can fly back to Barcelona for return flight, or Paris or quite a few other places. You would just purchase your international flight on your own, and then seperately purchase your flights to Palermo on Vueling. I have flown on Vueling, they are a Spanish airline and they are fine,, I will be using them again this summer.

Personally I haven't used a travel agent in over 15 years.

Thank you! I have looked into Vueling, but they unfortunately don't do that flight on Wednesdays, which is when we'd need it. I'll give it another look - maybe things will change before then. I'd love to go to Barcelona - great suggestion!

I have actually never used a travel agent, and I've traveled quite a bit, so I'd love to figure this out myself (or with the help of this forum!).

Thanks again.

Go to ITAsoftware.com and use the " multi-city" option and just input your itinerary---I suspect it will have one stop in Rome to connect.

Here's a list of airlines that fly direct into Palermo

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palermo_Airport#Airlines_and_destinations

From JFK I'd say your best options are Alitalia through Rome, Lufthansa + Air Dolomiti via Munich, Air Berlin via Stuttgart, or maybe Lufthansa via Frankfurt.

Personally I don't like booking the different legs separately, unless I have a several day layover. If I'm trying to get to my destination with as little hassle as possible I prefer to book start to finish with one airline, or at a minimum the same airline alliance.

All can be done one-stop (if there's service that day/season).

And don't limit yourselves to Wednesday. You could fly into Palermo on Tues -- might give you more choices

Assume your Sicily tour is June 27 - July 8 (not August)

The reason you are heaving trouble is that there are only a very few places you fly direct to from Palermo.

Rome is the simplest choice by FAR - avoiding as many connections as possible. Of course, the more connections you can swallow, the more options you have and the cheaper it gets. Here's what I came up with - It has only one connection (on the return home from Palermo):

New York (JFK) to Rome (FCO) - Sat, Jun 23
Alitalia Alitalia 609 Dep: 5:25PM Arr: 8:00AM 8h 35m Airbus A330 Premium economy (A)
Sun, Jun 24

Rome (FCO) to Palermo (PMO) - Tue, Jun 26
Alitalia Alitalia 1799 Dep: 3:25PM Arr: 4:35PM 1h 10m MD-80 Economy (Y)


Palermo (PMO) to New York (JFK) - Sun, Jul 8
Alitalia Palermo (PMO) to Rome (FCO) - Sun, Jul 8
Alitalia 1782 Dep: 11:10AM Arr: 12:20PM 1h 10m Airbus A319 Economy (V)
Layover in FCO 2h 20m

Alitalia Rome (FCO) to New York (JFK) - Sun, Jul 8
Alitalia 610 Dep: 2:40PM Arr: 6:15PM 9h 35m Boeing 777 Economy (V)

Cost per passenger (including taxes & fees) $2,239.90 x 2 (2 adults)
Cost per passenger (including taxes & fees) $216.40 x 1 (1 infant in lap)
Total cost for 3 passengers $4,696.20

There are other cities that have flights to Palermo but not as regularly (you could go Lufthansa and stopover in Munich instead of Rome, for example), but may have to add a day or suffer a long layover. Something like this:

New York (JFK) to Munich (MUC) - Sat, Jun 23
Lufthansa Lufthansa 411 Dep: 5:30PM Arr: 7:45AM 8h 15m Airbus A330 Economy (Q)

Sun, Jun 24

Munich (MUC) to Palermo (PMO) - Tue, Jun 26
Lufthansa Lufthansa 1970 Dep: 9:15AM Arr: 11:20AM 2h 5m Embraer RJ-195 Economy (Q)

OPERATED BY AIR DOLOMITI

Palermo (PMO) to New York (JFK) - Sun, Jul 8
Lufthansa Palermo (PMO) to Frankfurt (FRA) - Sun, Jul 8
Lufthansa 339 Dep: 7:25PM Arr: 9:55PM 2h 30m Embraer RJ-190 Economy (W)

OPERATED BY LUFTHANSA CITYLINE GMBH Layover in FRA 19h 10m

Lufthansa Frankfurt (FRA) to New York (JFK) - Mon, Jul 9
Lufthansa 404 Dep: 5:05PM Arr: 7:50PM 8h 45m Boeing 747 Economy (W)


Cost per passenger (including taxes & fees) $1,945.70 x 2 (2 adults)
Cost per passenger (including taxes & fees) $183.40 x 1 (1 infant in lap)
Total cost for 3 passengers $4,074.80

If you want somewhere besides Rome, I would opt for a return home flight that involves two connections. You would actually get home much quicker with two 1-2 hour layovers than one 20-30 hour layover.

Wow, you have a nice long vacation. Welcome to Fodor's also.

We went from Dulles DC: British Airways to london to rome and then al italia to Palermo. Plane very late in London and we "hot footed" from one end of the Rome airport to the other but made it as did our luggage! We did this with a travel agent who has since retired.

Using J62's link above, why not fly into one of the cities mentioned and stay a few days before going to Palermo? My hub and I did the above in 2002. You can do it directly with the airline(s) easily these days.

We also worked with American Express (you don't need an account) in 2008 for a trip from DC to Barcelona to Montpellier to Nice to Paris and they got all of our plane travel tickets and hotels for us. We bought our own train tickets once there.

To work with a TA or not, I would say depends on your comfort level. With a baby, maybe it makes sense to have all the other details taken care of for you.

Will you be driving in Sicily? Bus ticket buying was slightly convoluted when we were there but it worked out fine. Also, are you flying in and out of Palermo or working your way Eastward and flying out from there?

Have a lovely time!

Read the reviews on Alitalia I think I would look at other airlines. Just google for reviews on them.

I think its hard to work out a plan when you have literally got it all down to day to day,, I mean, wouldn't it be easier to work out flights, then plan around them, fly tuesday instead of wednesday perhaps

Have a good trip no matter what you end of doing.

You guys are great, and I feel very welcomed by the community! Bardo1, you are correct, it's July 8 - I guess I was just wishful thinking with that 6 week vacation!

Unfortunately, the dates in Sicily are set - I'm traveling and performing with a choir and don't have any leeway. My interest is in filling up the days immediately prior. I'd rather not fly into Palermo early, as that's one less day elsewhere and one extra day in Palermo, when I'll already have plenty of time there (relatively speaking). And yes, we'll be traveling as a group from Palermo to Catania and seeing a lot of sights along the way - can't wait!

My problem with multi-city searches is that I don't yet know what that first city is! That's why you guys are so helpful .

We've already been to Rome so that wasn't my first choice, but it might be easiest (and who would complain about an extra trip to Rome?!), but those German cities are a very interesting idea... It will explore going that route.

I can't thank you all enough! I hope to be able to offer advice to others... My DH and I did a RTW 3 years ago so we've been around the block, so to speak, although that was baby-less .