Here is the dilemma. I am traveling with my sister who lives in Miami. I'm in Atlanta.

We are going to Venice--Florence--Rome.

I could go to Miami and join her, or, she could come to Atlanta and join me. Or, if we have to make a connection anyway, we could rendezvous in New York or another US gateway city.

I have looked up so many combinations of flights my head is spinning.

My itinerary is flexible, would it make more sense to fly into Milan?

I thought I would find more non-stops.

The objectives are low price, shortest travel time.

Any ideas? (Besides call a travel agent?)

Thanks.

ooops...I need to add to the above. Also, I'm concerned about flying Delta because of their current problems.

Thanks, again.

I would book open jaw flights into Venice and out of Rome, or vice versa.

From whichever of your home cities offered the better fare for your dates. Or New York if those fares are significantly lower and you can get there cheaply enough to make that worthwhile.

Don't think you'll find many non-stops to Italy from anywhere in the US. But do try to aim for only one stop in each direction, with reasonable connection times.

I usually start my flight searches at your stage on http://www.itasoftware.com/
Use the month long search (which you'll only be able to do as a roundtrip, so do one search for VCE and another for FCO.) Then combine the best dates for each of these in a date-specific multi-segment search to get the open jaw itinerary.

Happy hunting!

Thanks, Lesli, that's pretty much what I'm looking at. It is just that so many of the connections were in Milan it made me wonder if that was a super-big airport and might give me more options and a greater chance of a non-stop.
OO

Olive

Unless you are in Europe you will either connect in Milan, England, Germany, Denmark etc. The best you can hope for is one stop from the states (assuming you are flying together)
Good luck!

I just flew Delta and it was fine - Flight attendants were wonderful.

We flew nonstop from NY into Venice and then non stop home from Rome.

It seemed that when we were in the airport Continental was also offering non stop Rome - NY flights.

I believe Delta also had a non stop to Atlanta that left just before ours.

Donna

Lesli has given great advice - follow her ITA software research step by step to construct your own open-jaw.

My intuition says the simplest overall plan is ATL-NYC-VCE
(you) and MIA-NYC-VCE sister) with both of you on the same non-stop to ROM. The returns ROM-NYC-ATL and ROM-NYC-MIA. Of course you may want to visit ROme fisrt - I show you landing in Venice because flights FROM Venice to USA often leave at an ungodlyearly hour....

Newark is better than JFK all things equal but if the times from JFK end up working much better don't sweat it.

I think you might need to get a little less nervous about Delta and i agree with Bardo that your best bet would probabl;y be to meet up at an airport in NYC area and take a non-styop from there...you'll get a lot more choices.

The party starts at the hotel in Venice. You both get there the best way you can from your location.