bethyk

Hi,

Our family of 4 is taking our first trip to Italy in June.
Can you reccommend your favorite airline for travel from San Francisco to Italy and best city to fly into? (milan or rome etc)
I am mostly looking for best in roominess and comfort and schedule not best price.

Thanks for any advice.

Beth

Gardyloo

Assuming you're flying in steerage, then it's still hard to beat American's "more room throughout coach" seats for long-haul in economy, due simply for the additional legroom, nothing else. AA offers 767s to Rome from both Chicago and New York, with good connections from SFO.

Of course all bets are off if you are flying business class; from SFO I would look at Virgin and BA nonstop to London, then connect to Milan or Rome. A stop's a stop, be it in New York or London.

Paci

We just flew Alitalia's Magnifico class from Chicago to Milan with a connection to Rome. Alitalia was fantastic and could not do enough for you. We paid $2100 per person round trip (Chicago-Milan-Rome and then direct from Milan back to Chicago). I do not know if you are interested in this type of travel or are looking into economy but our economy booking would have been almost $800.00 and we felt it was fabulous upgrading after talking to friends who did travel economy during the same time. The seats basically recline into a bed-type position, you just can't believe how much room you have. The amenities are wonderful, there isn't anything they will not do for you. I have nothing to compare it to, however, because I have never flown any other airline abroad before. I loved being able to fly at least to Milan without having to fly to Frankfort or London. Our final destination was Rome. We could not fly directly to Rome but did manage to fly directly from Milan to Chicago after ending our trip in Venice. Good luck!

rj007

You might want to look into flying to London and then taking a budget airline to Rome. It will be cheaper and you get to spend time in London. This past Feb I flew San Diego to London for $500 RT and then took Ryan Air from London to Rome for $70 RT. $2100 from Chicago to Rome? No thank you.

Paci

rj007: Remember, she said "best in roominess and comfort," not necessarily "best in price" and I also flew 1st class, not budget. I was just answering her post.

Paci

P.S. We also flew direct on one leg, without having to switch planes. That was the best, thus, the other reason for a greater fare, but to us it was worth it, to others it may not be. Depends how you like to travel.

MonicaRichards

From San Francisco, a lot of it depends on whether you want to stop in New York or Heathrow or some random destination like Dallas. The only airline that does SFO to Heathrow to Italy without having to change carriers is British Airways. If you want to stop in New York instead you probably have more choices, like American (although I think it would be a codeshare for the New York - Italy portion). As far as best city to fly into, it depends on where exactly you'll be traveling. Milan and Rome are the biggest options.

Traveler863

Bethyk,
Check out British Airways, probably your best bet. Not only good leg room but good service. They also run good specials and you can fly nonstop SFO-LHR from LHR you can fly into FCO, MXP, VCE, BLQ, NAP or PSA. So you can certainly open jaw the ticket if you like. Virgin is good too, they have an upgraded economy section which is not quite business class but close and not much more than a reg coach ticket. Though not sure of their service to Italy, might have to change airports in UK. As Gardy recommends, AA is also good for coach leg room, they service Rome only I beleive. For the $2100 magnifico class on Alitalia, actually thats a good deal, most B fares are around $5000 rt.

Paci

Traveler863: You are absolutely right! Until we discovered the promotional fare of $2100, a business or magnifico (Alitalia calls their business class magnifico) fare was approximately $7200 rt/pp for departure in late September.

Traveler863

Bingo! I'd have paid the $2100 too

mjs

I am not sure how to answer your question. It really depends on your budget and where in Italy you want to go. Fares in June for four will not be inexpensive even in economy and quite pricey in first class or business class. It is impossible to say at this time what the fares for the various classes of service on each airline would be in June. Suffice it to say that there is quite abit of difference in price and to a lesser extent amenities between the classes of service. This is especially true on internationational flights. If you have alot of FF miles upgrading might be the best way to use them to get better seats and this would dictate your choice of airlines.
Now you have basically two ways to get to Italy from San Francisco as there are no longer any direct flights.
You can fly from SFO directly to another North American city which has direct flights to Milan, Venice, or Rome. The other option is to fly directly to Europe and connect in either Amsterdam, Munich, Paris, Frankfurt, or London to Italy. I prefer this latter choice as I find International flights preferable to our domestic flights and this also gives you more choices of where you can fly to in Italy. This is especially helpful if you wish to open jaw your trip so you do not have to backtrack and lose time and money in doing so. I tend to prefer the UA 777's to Frankfurt or the LH flight to Munich. I have been using the LH flight to Munich recently as I like leaving SFO at 2130 and getting to my destination in Europe in the early evening so I can go directly to my hotel/apartment and go to sleep, instead of trying to stay awake the whole day. This particular flight does not operate every day. I do not use BA as they do not give you miles and you might have to transfer airports in London to connect to Italy flights. KLM or Air France or Virgin would be other options here. AA does not fly directly to Europe from SFO and I do not think Delta does either. Time between connecting flights is also an issue. SFO is a strong UA city so unless you tend to use other airlines I would probably recommend UA or LH and open jaw your trip to Naples or Rome in the south of Italy and leave out of Milan or Venice in the north. Or vice versa. Hope this is of some help.

rj007

Paci

You're right - she was not looking for the best price. I was just making a suggestion that she may not have considered. Maybe she's not interested. But other posters might be looking for a cheaper way to get to Italy. Just putting out some more information. I've flown first class and frankly, wasn't that impressed by it. For $2100 I can make 4 RT flights from the West Coast. Budget is fine with me. I agree it depends how you like to travel.

Ramblero

We flew AA from SFO to Chi (1st class) and Chi to London (biz class). Then Ryan from London (Stanstead) to Genoa.

1st....all I can say is...Biz Class and 1st class ain't what they used to be; we were disappointed. We would have been REALLY disappointed if we'd have had to pay full fare.

2nd, Ryan (a trip in itself) only flies out of Stanstead, about 1100 miles (3 days) East of London. OK, ok...I exaggerate, but not by much. There's no easy..or cheap..way to get from London to Stanstead before 7am. (Our flight was at something ungodly....like 6am....which meant we had to leave London at 3:30am.... Just try to find a cab in London at 3:30am... (the trains don't start running until something like 6am..)

3rd....Ryan is trés bizarre. Yes...the flight is really cheap...until you add the take-off fare, the co-pilot charge, the crew supplement, the airport tower fee, the take-off fuel suppplement, the landing tax, the Italian pay-off, the union kick-back, the foreign translation charge, the aircraft operation manual printing charge..and, before I forget, the excess baggage charge. Your ticket only allows you to take 27 ounces of weight in addition to your person. Each additional ounce costs about what filet mignon costs. So our one-way ticket to Genoa, at a listed price of something absurd, like $9.00, ended up costing about $125.00(don't quote me on this...I can't actually remember what the true cost was..), which is what a normal airline would charge to go the equivalent distance.

In sum...yes, your choice of places to fly in Italy are much greater if you start from London or Munich or Paris or Brussels or ______...than direct flights from the US allow you (Milan and Rome?) but undersatnd that doing so has it's own set of complications.

We're flying to Courmayeur, IT next March (skiing)...on steerage mainly cuz it was too difficult to figure out how to fly Biz Class (would have required to go thru London on AA...which meant long lay-overs). I dunno. Unless you plan about 10 months in advance, it all becomes increasingly frustrating and fruitless. (Actually...now I've realized that I've forgotten exactly HOW we're getting to Italy next spring; I have to check with the boss.

LoveItaly

Ramblero-time for bed, right. LOL.
behyk, I find what works for me is KLM out of SFO which lands in Amsterdam and thann catching their KLM City Hopper to Italy. Airport is great, and it just seems to me to be the easiest IMHO.

PTDreamer

Hi Beth,
I hope I didnt goof up on my choice of Continental out of SFO to Rome via Newark, then Milan back to SFO. In otherwords, an open jaw. The times suited us well, and the price was great...$665.00 in May 2005.

bethyk

Thanks for all of your thoughtful replies. I'm not sure about changing airlines on a connection in Europe. I guess I'm afraid that there is more of a chance of losing our luggage. I am thinking it's better to stay with the same airline all the way???

The $2100.00 trip on Alitalia seems like a good deal however, I think I have read on this forum that they are having financial difficulties?? Although which airline isn't these days.

Thanks again,
Beth

MonicaRichards

Just a correction to an earlier post-you do not have to change airports if you fly BA to Heathrow and then to Milan or Rome. You don't even have to change terminals.

suze

I fly from Seattle and always use British Air because I like the overnight flight and do NOT want to go to JFK, change planes, change carriers, make stops, go weird routings.

Regarding using several different airlines, more important than losing your luggage, is if the flights are not booked together (i.e., you buy two separate tickets) and your first plane is late so you miss the connection, you are basically out of luck (there was a LONG Fodors thread about someone this happened to recently).

suze

As far as best cities, I'd consider an "open jaws" ticket (for instance into Rome and out of Italy) to avoid unnecessary backtracking on the ground.

suze

duh! into Rome and out of Venice.