Joanne1928

Family of 5 flying to Italy in June 2007. Where can I find less expensive airfare. Currently seeing $1000 + per person. Any less expensive options available. Airlines? Timing? Deals? Ideas? Is it cheaper to fly into or out of another city. Going to Tuscany, but can fly in or out of several cities. Love to hear suggestions. Thanks.

buongiorno

Unfortunately, at that time of year and this far ahead you're not likely to find many better deals or sales. have you tried www.kayak.com?

Dukey

Have you cosidered a flight to someplace like London and then a budget carrier such as Easyjet or Ryanair to get to Italy?

Have you looked at consolidators such as www.onetravel.com and aggregators such as www.itasoftware.com or

www.mobissimo.com

Dukey

Have you considered flying out of another airport where there is more competition on transatlantic routes?

LuvToRoam

Joanne1928, We have had good luck going through Gemutlichkeit Travel. See their site at: http://www.gemut.com
Tickets to Italy were expensive this year though. We did fly in to one city and fly out of another, worked out best for us. We were around $800 a person with all taxes and fees. Sometimes the days you decide to travel to and from on make a $$ difference as well. Have a wonderful time planning your trip! Shirley

daveesl

I agree with the post about flying to and from different cities. It was weird, but flying from Orlando to Rome to Palermo back to Orlando, was much cheaper than Rome R/T or Orl-Rom & Pal-Orl. For some reason the leg from Rome to Palermo knocked several hundred off the price.

Oh, and we aren't flying to Palermo, taking the ferry with the rental car.

Who can figure out airlines, eh?

dave

Joanne1928

So, $1000 per ticket to Italy in June. Should I buy or wait. Need 5 tickets. That's alot of gelato.

starrsville

$850 was the cheapest I could find for Atlanta to Tuscany (via many airport options) for October. I postponed my trip. Deals may happen - but you can't count on them.

JoyC

I paid $1000 including taxes ($890 fare + $110 tax)from the Mid-west to Venice and Naples to mid-west leaving June 30, 2007 and back 2nd week of July, 2007. Also we are doing weekend departure and arrival so that increases the fare. I am satisfied with the fare I paid and I got the tickets (4) a couple of months ago.

Robdaddy

No disrepect meant, but how can anyone remark on whether it's a decent fare if you don't tell us from which city you are departing?

Are leaving from a major city on the east coast, or from, say, Cucamonga?

Big difference.

Flyboy

There can be differences between JFK and Council Bluffs. Give us an idea about what you're looking for in terms of departure point and your destination in Italy. Really, a grand per person in late June is not necessarily a bad fare from many origins in the U.S. to a number of destinations in Italy. In early June from an eastern hub, we might have different advice.

Leilei

Hi Joanne,
We also agonized over fares to Italy for our trip in May '07. As soon as we decided on dates,it seemed as if the rates took off. I checked several times a day and when the IAH-Milan and then FCO-IAH got back down to $870(total round trip for 2 was $1900), I jumped on it( about 2 months later!). Haven't looked at rates since and I'm not going to! Even if the rates go down as the date gets closer, I've avoided a lot of stress and as soon as I bought the tickets, I felt like the trip was a reality.
Good luck and have a great trip!

DRJ

Drop in to the SkyAuction website. They have auctions where you can, if you win, purchase from one to eight tickets at your price. I know you'll beat $1,000 per. I bought two tickets JFK-LST on MAXjet (biz class) for $911 each a couple of weeks ago.

Big_Red

Tickets to fly to Europe are traded on a market very much ilke the stock market. Posted prices change very rapidly. Most experts admit that 'perfect timing' of the stock market just can't be done.

Now to answer your question, the general consensus is that June 2007 is too far out for aggressive prices to be seen yet.

Flying mid-week rather than weekend will save you money.

A flight that leaves the east coast between 7:00pm and say 9:00pm might be cheaper than one that leaves at say 2:00pm.

Getting five contiguous seats might be cutting down your options.

Rumor is that most price reductions/ sales are posted at midnight eastern time on either Tuesday or Wednesday morning.

At my house, we purchase the air tickets and then fill in the other pieces (rental cars and rooms). So we are only comfortable booking air fare far enough ahead to still have a chance to get preferred hotels.

That Sky Auction website sounds really, really interesting.

Good luck.

WallyKringen

So we still don't know what her departure airport is? How are we supposed to help?

If it's anywhere near NYC, maybe waiting until next year's schedules come up and see if http://www.euroflyusa.com/ can do better? It's way too early to make a final purchase for June 2007 imho.

DRJ

For instance, there is currently an offer on SkyAuction for tickets(s?) JFK-FCO for $609, all in. Its not even an auction, just buy the ticket(s?). There's no mention of number of tickets available.

Joanne1928

Thanks for the great input. We are flying out of Houston. I have continued to check and nothing has changed. Seems best option so far is British Airways through London. I was curious, if fares go down, do they refund you $. Curious Joy C.- who are you flying and what site did you find seats on? Sounds like I should try checking every Wednesday morning. We are going to Rome and Tuscany around Seina, so could fly into one airport and out of another. Maybe into Rome, out of Florence or Pisa or the reverse. Have made no other plans yet. It's just buying 5 tickets compounds the problem of expensive tickets. Thanks.

enzian

Joanne---check prices into and out of Milan, too---sometimes it is the least expensive, and it's only a short hop away on the train.

If you look at the British Air website, it will show you the prices each day for a week or a month. They vary a lot, depending on the day of the week you depart---I think Tuesday or Wednesday is the least expensive. And of course prices go up dramatically just when school gets out, which is probably when you are going.

My secretary used Hotwire for her family's last trip to Europe (also 5 people) and she was quite pleased. But you don't get to choose the airline.

Joanne1928

Not sure I would use Hotwire. The least expensive fare is on Iberia. Prefer to fly British Airlines or Continental.

bardo1

Joanne,

Where do you live? You can save big $$$ if you fly out of a major international hub.