Canada to Rome
 

Hi everyone, my first time on this board, was hanging out on the Asia board before, but need to start planning for our first European trip next May. Will be spending two weeks in Italy. We're flying from Western Canada to Rome, and I don't have any prices yet for May 2005, but found some prices for Oct 2004 just to get an idea. It seems there is about C$800 difference between flying to London vs flying to Rome. And since our flight to Rome will probably connect in London anyway, I thought to make a few day stopover out of it. If this is the case, should we try flying to Rome from London on Ryanair to save some $? I did read the horror stories.

Generally, airline computer systems will allow you to purchase tickets 330 days prior to the departure date which means you should be able to get some better price ideas fairly soon.

My only suggestion re using a low-cost carrier from London, or anywhere else, onward, is to be aware of bagge weight restrictions which are in effect and often very rigidly enforced.

The price you pay to London is going to be based on the amount of competition your airline has on that route (or in the "market" as the airlines like to call it). The less competition, the higher the prices.

I think if you are going to stopover in London anyway you should definitely check out low-cost alternatives for the remaining segment(s). You can also check on low cost carriers at the website whichbudget.com.

Have a great trip.

Yes, there really is a huge difference in price between Western Canada - London vs. Western Canada - Rome. I have looked at this a lot.

EasyJet is also a good option for flying to Rome. Even BA to Rome is likely to be cheaper than paying for a single ticket.

If you want to go to Venice (why not), note that you can get a pretty cheap BMI flight from Heathrow. You can also get a cheap flight on BMI from Heathrow to Milan. Not to mention Amsterdam also.

Just allow plenty of time, like at least an overnight for the connections. One exception might be if you arrive early in the morning at Heathrow and your BMI flight departs in the afternoon.

My wife and I are traveling to Italy next week. From PDX to any city in Italy was very expensive. We bought tickets to LHR on Air Canada via Vancouver on one ticket. I then bought tickets from LHR to Milan on Alitalia. We saved $750 total doing this. We have a 4 hour layover in London on the way there, and a 7 day layover on the way home. The only mystery to me is, will Air Canada check my luggage all the way through?

thank you for all your replies, I will definitely consider purchasing the segments separately, I should be able to save a lot. Of course the only thing is the hassle factor and whether we want to bother, especially on the return trip when we may have more luggage. Ryanblonien, do you mind telling me how much your flights cost? Will you let me know how your connections all work out after you get back? I would really appreciate that. Hope you have a great trip.

Forgot to post one other question. Will this work if we want open jaw? Into Rome and Out of Venice, or vice versa?

Weirdly enough, Air Canada usually or at least often charges less for SEA-LHR and LAX-LHR (and probably PDX-LHR) than it does for YVR-LHR, even though all of those have a YVR-LHR leg. Just one of those oddities of airfares.

I've never heard of BMI before, and was reading up on some of the older posts on it. People have mentioned flying from LHR to Rome, does BMI not fly to Rome anymore?

So far as I can see from their web site, BMI doesn't fly to Rome.

Have you checked out any of the charter services out of Toronto? I know that Alba tours uses Skyservice and has open jaw charters for as little as 749CAD. You could maybe get a cheap West Jet flight to Toronto to connect. I am trying Skyservice this fall and we got open jaw for 849 CAD from Toronto (flying into Pescara and out of Rome) as opposed to Alitalia at 1300 CAD

Mitmap, I bought my tickets in late January, and paid about $1300 for two tickets with taxes, fees, and bribes included.

I also bought tickets the way you did. I am flying from San Francisco to Rome. But I am flying Air Canada through Vancouver to London, then Alitalia to Rome on a seperate ticket. I paid $515 (US) for the AC ticket and $175 (US) for the Alitalia ticket. I saved $1500 on 4 tickets for my family.
I had the same the question about checking the luggage all the way through, but no one has answered your question. Do we have to clear customs with our bags in London, then re-check everything in at the other terminal at Heathrow? I have allowed 4 hours between flights because I was worried about this. Any one know the drill on this?

Have any of you folks tried justfares.com?

Thanks cruzingypsy, I'll take a look at Skyservice. And ryanblonien, I can't believe you paid so little for your tickets. I was checking Air Canada prices from Calgary to LHR, it's about CAD$1000 per person. I'll never understand how you can travel cheaper from US on Air Canada than flying from Canada! Thanks for all the tips so far, I'll just have to be creative.

bookchick, I don't believe justfares.com has any fares originating from Canada. But I could be wrong.

Mitmap, you can often get great deals from Calgary with these sites:

http://www.flyzoom.com (to London or Glasgow) - scheduled service
http://www.canadianaffair.com (to London or Glasgow) - these are Thomas Cook flights
http://www.airtransat.com (I believe you can go to London, Glasgow, Amsterdam, or Frankfurt)

Note you can get low-cost fares to Italy from Amsterdam also. You can also do open-jaw flights with these.

This year I did get cheaper fares on Air Canada from YVR to London than through one of these, but that was a fluke. I've saved many hundreds of dollars with Air Transat previously.

WillTravel, thanks for all your great sites, I'll take a look at them. I was also on the BA website, it seems they charge more for a Vancouver to Rome ticket, connecting in LHR; than two separate segments Vancouver to LHR, then LHR to Rome. Why is this?

I'm not sure of all of the airlines' reasons, but one thing to keep in mind is that BA is guaranteeing a one-ticket itinerary all the way through. So if for some reason you didn't make the Rome segment, they would have to get you on the next plane. If you have two separate tickets on BA, then BA is not responsible if you show up late for the Rome segment (or on the return, the London segment).

Nonetheless, I've seen such fares cost as much as $1000 or so more than the two-ticket method, and that extra assurance is not worth the extra cost to me.

I also noticed that a lot of the low-cost tips are for charter flights which are usually only available from Jun to Sep. I had originally planned to travel in May because it's not the high season summer month. Now I'm wondering if I should go in June instead because of more flight options?

Flyzoom and CanadianAffair have cheaper prices in May, or at least they did this year. I wasn't able to go then, though.

I took a look now and see that it seems a lot easier to get flights from Vancouver than from Calgary, at least on Flyzoom. Hope you can work out something cheap too!

Boy, this is really getting complicated - all the different city combinations, and then the different airport combinations in London!

Mitmap

Charters, while often cheaper, can get more complicated because they don't necessarily fly every route every day of the week. This includes flyzoom.com, although I gotta admit their prices are attractive.

Simplify things by taking this in two parts: 1) YVR or Calgary to London. This will be the major part of the fare.
2)BA open jaw LGW to VCE (Venice) returning Rome FCO to - I think LHR (?) Consider taking some of the money you save and staying 1 night in a BandB near Gatwick on the outbound leg and another in a cheap hotel in Paddington (near the Heathrow Express) on the homebound journey. See a bit of London, have a chance to recouperate from the flight, and reduce your stress at the same time.

About Ryanair et al: be careful, these discount airlines offer great deals but they don't necessarily use major airports. You can use up time and money just commuting from the minor airport to where you really want to go. The flight times aren't always the greatest, either. Factor these things into your cost before deciding.

Mitmap, I forgot to mention one other thing I am looking at. Travelcuts.ca offers cheaper flights to London from both YVR and YYC with a United routing that goes through SFO to LHR. This fare is not available through the United site. For some dates I am looking at this winter, this option is $100 CAD cheaper for YVR than the cheapest Air Canada option (which is nonstop). There is the major hassle of the extra flight to SFO, but on the other hand, the flight to LHR does arrive early in the morning and you could in theory catch a flight out later that afternoon to your Italian destination.

Thanks everyone for helping out this rookie European traveller, and WillTravel, thanks so much for all your helpful resources. I've looked at all the sites mentioned, and got some good ideas for my planning. But I guess I won't be able to get a concrete idea for May pricing until the Fall.

There will probably be a seat sale for May after the fall (maybe in February or so), so I wouldn't count on the prices you seen then. However, I think these would be reasonable benchmarks:

$700-800 CAD for a charter flight to LGW
$1000-1200 CAD for an Air Canada flight to LHR
$100 CAD for any Ryanair or Easyjet flight, including public transport to the airport
$1400-1600 for a Calgary-Italy one-ticket itinerary

We did YVR to Rome two years ago. There used to be direct flights from Toront to Rome in the summer and you may wish to check and see if this is still an option. It is direct and hassle free and the luggage goes all the way through (hopefully) We did this with an open jaw return from Milan and it worked well. Air Canada was the carrier with a code share flight operated by Al Italia from Toronto. You may wish to check this option if you are not set on spending time in London.

Talexander, direct from Canada to Rome would be my preference because we want to spend our whole holiday in Italy. I'm only looking at these other options to save $. I won't bother with all these transfers if the savings is going to be less than CAD$300, but it looks like I may be able to save about a third. But I'll definitely keep my eye out for those Air Canada seat sales. How much did you pay for your open jaw ticket two years ago?

I can't tell you the cost of our flights because we used our aeroplan points, sorry.

Hi Mitmap, unfortunately Air Canada no longer does the code share to Rome with Alitalia ... the code share was dropped after the summer 2003 season ... so this is no longer an option. As a result, we have now found, for flights from Atlantic Canada, that it prices out quite a bit cheaper to fly to London on AC and then purchase a separate ticket on British Airways or Alitalia to Rome.

We are flying from Halifax to Rome in September. I have been checking flights for months on various websites. After reading this thread I called justfares.com and got the best rate by far. FYI - the website does not accept Canadian postal codes so I had to call and book in person. So- thanks for the tip.

Pius, if you don't mind my asking, how much is your ticket from justfares.com?

We paid $710 U.S. for each ticket, which translates roughly into $960 Can. This represents a saving of about $400 Can. over the cheapest fare I've seen to date. What is attractive for us, as well as the price, is that this Continental Airlines itinerary is an easy one - Halifax-Newark-Rome - with minimal stopovers and a return flight that leaves Rome not too early, 9:45 I think. Mostly it's good to have it settled so we can move ahead with the rest of the planning. This website is a Godsend.