Hello,
My husband and I are planning a trip to Italy in October. I was wondering about what price I could expect the airfare to be and when the best fares would be available. We would prefer to fly out of BWI in Baltimore. I am aware that there may be some better fares offered out of Philadelphia or Dulles, but the savings would have to be substantial as I have free parking at BWI. We are planning on flying into Rome and out of Venice, roughly Oct 9-20. Thanks for any advice!

Diane

<... I was wondering ... when the best fares would be available... >>

I have seen October sale fares emerge in August, in years past. Sometimes they have been specific to the second half of October. You just have to watch vigilantly. Use farewatcher services (travelocity, expedia, etc) and monitor the cheap flights forum of www.eurotrip.com - - the moderator there, Don, is unequalled in finding bargains.

Best wishes,

Rex

Rex, thanks for the advice.

What would be considered a "good" fare including taxes and fees? $700? $800? $900? Just trying to get an idea of how much I should expect to pay.

Thanks,
Diane

Diane, we flew Air Canada out of BWI in November,in and out of Rome. I had been watching fares off and on since January 2005. We booked in July with Air Canada and paid about 570pp. I don't think they fly to Venice so you might not use them. Most of the fares with the other airlines never dropped much below 800, even for the fall. From BWI Italy is much more expensive than Paris or London I have found. I searched using, Kayak, Travelocity, sidestep and any other airline searches brought to my attention by this forum. This year we are using ff miles for France so I am glad I don't have to search for Italy That will be for 2007. Good luck, Deborah

DianeInMd,

This probably will not help you, since we will be flying out of Seattle, but I just picked up what I consider a good fare on Delta. We are doing an open-jaw flight out of SEA to FCO, then CDG back to SEA in early October.

I have been haunting the discount ticket sites and Fodor's trying to see how the fares were running and to gather hints as to when the fares might take a dip. Most of the wisdom on Fodor's seems to say that this is too far out to get good fares to Italy. Anything I saw was well over $1000. To my surprize a $792.52 fare popped up on 1800Fly Europe, and I grabbed it for the three of us.

Now I only have to worry about whether Delta will be around in October.

BTW, we will close the jaw with a €9.99 fare on My Air from Venice to Paris. That really comes to over 50 bucks when you add the taxes and such, but that's still very OK.

Quite frankly, nobody can say for certain when there will a sale or if there will even BE one so please keep that in mind. Unfortunately, what has happened in the past is no guarantee the same thing will happen again, and to the same degree.

I think you might try checking at least one consolidator such as www.onetravel.com and one aggregator such as www.itasoftware.com NOW so you'll have some frame of reference.

I understand your desire to fly out of BWI because you have that free parking but if I were you I would use the departure code of "WAS" in order to check fares from all three airports just in case.

Hi D,

Also check fares at www.mobissimo.com, wwwkayak.com and www.1800flyeurope.com