Hi all! My husband and I are trying to book flights to Italy in May (NWK - Rome; Venice - NWK) but Continental's price seems very high and I'm having a hard time getting into Rome. We would love a nonstop to Rome and don't really care about connecting on the way home. Alitalia has a flight that looks decent but I heard it isn't that good.

Would love everyone's advice!

If your travel dates are flexible, go to www.itasoftware.com and search using the 30-day option to find the lowest prices within a 30-day period.

I'm looking for non-stop flights from SF to Munich (dreaming, mostly) and am finding great prices, in the high $500 range all in, for late March on Lufthansa, which has good connections into Italy.

Hi didi,

We just booked tickets for the summer on ALITALIA roundtrip JFK-Rome because it had the best fare. I've heard stories about ALITALIA, too, but in my experience, there are very few airlines that are really good these days! I'd say go ahead and book it, and hope for the best!

Did a quick check on ITASoftware for the month of May and saw some $710 RT options. You can't book through the site, but you can print out the particulars for the flight you choose and phone the airline.

I flew Alitalia from Newark to Italy last summer with no problems. Flew them the summer before from Boston to Italy. They are no worse than any other airline. If you don't mind driving a bit do a search on other airports that you'd fly out of. I don't mind using Boston, JFK or Newark and at different times I've found the best fares from each of them.

I haven't had good experiences with them. They strike all the time, my last flight they didn't serve the snack. If they have the best price you may want to go with them and it's unlikely they would mess up the inter'l flights. My flight was London-Milan and that they will screw up. Of course, the train strike made me nearly miss my flight so I was snake bit twice.

I have flown with them often on trans-Atlantic routes and have had no trouble with Alitalia at all. Many of the flights from NYC, at least from JFK, are code shares that are operated by Delta. Not sure if the same is true from Newark.

We took Alitalia (Delta code share) from Newark a year ago into Rome. It was fine. I would just make sure there are no Italian strikes the days you are flying. The Pilots were striking the day we arived Rome for one day, so we were OK.

We had a problem with seat assignments. Delta gave us seats together, but when we got to the airport, Alitalia had us scattered thru the plane.

We flew Alitalia this last November. Flight over to Milan was ontime and crew was pleasant enough and the food was pretty good for an airplane. As was the vino.
However---- coming home our flight and three others were overbooked. According to the lady who had to do ALL the rebookings this happens all the time. The rebooking/getting voucher/compensation (reimbursement) took hours of waiting in long lines at the airport.
They did pick up the cost of our meals, our flight to London and then onto DC on United (food was NOT good) as well as the hotel in London and the taxi to and from the airport. Also we were reimbursed 600 euro compensation for each of our 5 family members.
By the time we got home we were really exhausted and my husband and college bound daughter had to take an extra day off.
SO...if they screw up make sure you get all that you have coming to you. It may take some extra stamina on your part!

How about American Airlines or Delta from JFK? Would you go for one of those instead if price is close?

I just found a nonstop to Milan with a nonstop out of Rome on Continental from Newark. If we were to do this instead, how long of a train ride is it to Venice? Is it better just to fly into Venice or do the nonstop into Rome and fly out of Venice?

Train from Milan to Venice is 3 hours, about 20 Euros for 2nd class. From MXP, there's the Malpensa Shuttle coach that goes to the train station every 20 minutes. 5 Euros and takes about 50 minutes.

When I booked an Italy trip a few years ago I also read horror stories about Alitalia, but they had the best schedule and the best price so we gave them a try. We had absolutely no problems. Flights were on time, the staf was perfectly fine, the even provided my kids with some activity kits. Th eonly negative was the food, which was awful, but it's bad on most airlines and we usually bring our own anyway.

No airline's cattle car class flights are particularly pleasant. Some are just a bit less unpleasant than others.

It's not that long a flight from Newark to Italy, so go for it.