Gary,

Can't believe I did it but I just booked another flight for October! San Francisco to Rome for 491.00! Thanks so much for the tip and I can't believe I get to go twice this year!

Eileen!!! Where did you find such a terrific flight?
I so far found from Miami to Rome and Venice to Miami 611 for the best price. Would like to leave from Ft. Lauderdale but Miami is not that far from us.

We booked our flight for July tonight at a stellar price of $580 each (after all of Orbitz's extra fees, too). This is definitely the time to get them - the same flight was $1200/each on Friday! We are flying Indianapolis to Florence, with our return from Venice.

Thanks GARYNGLA - you beat me to the punch. I also have been looking for flights for our May 17-31 trip to Italy out of Newark. Last week the least expensinve direct flight was $805 on Alitalia. Thanks to another Fodorite who suggested "Booking Buddy", I checked Orbitz again this morning and I was able to get a $459. ticket - for my dates. Needless to say I booked my trip and now I can really plan all the fun stuff. The flight is direct to Rome from Newark - on the return we fly to Milan and then onto Newark with a 50 minute delay just to change planes. My husband also called Alitalia direct and got our seating assignments already. Thanks again for all the useful information on this forum.

i too got September open-jaw fares for $511 that were previously well over $800.

Thanks fodorites!

Hi robbiegirl - I booked 9/30 to 10/9 on orbitz. If you can, play around with dates if your having problems finding those prices. Good luck too!

Having posting problems - sorry if this comes up multipal times

What airlines are you using? Maybe it is the dates oct 18-29. I have to check it out.

Robbiegirl -- Ours came up as a combo of American, United and Alitalia. =)

I am glad to have my ticket in hand today. I had free ticket (Delta Miles) on hold through today. The problem with my free ticket was a 9 hour layover in New York and a 4 hour layover in Milan. I would rather pay for my ticket and fly when I want, especially at these ticket prices. I notice Alitalia is back up to over 900. for the same flight I just bought for 484.00.. My friends thought I was nuts for checking the flights 6-8 times a day for a month but ir saved the 6 of us 2550.00 dollars. That will buy some very nice meals in Italy. Now if the dollar would just climb back up......

Gary- thanks for checking so often and clueing us all in!! thanks to the heads up, my family was also able to get 6 round trip tickets (non-stop JFK to Rome) for under $3000 total.... and that is after all taxes, fees, AND travel insurance!! It was literally half price from the fares we'd been seeing.

It certainly pays to check 6-8 times a day. Bravo!!

I got 4 Alitalia tickets at $470 each (June/July from Newark to Rome/Milan) through Orbitz yesterday. They sent a confirmation and promised an email with ticket numbers within 24 hours. It's been more than 24 hours and I haven't received the etickets yet. Has anyone else had any problem with this, or are they just running slow? Thanks.

Travelgirl-- Etickets wer not available for my flight (paper only for me) but my parents got etickets... i think it said the e-mail confirmation would come in 24 hours (it did) and they would receive a subsequent email containing the eticket numbers. Not sure if there was a 24 hour time frame on it... not sure if they received it yet. I would imagine with the low fares their site saw a lot of volume yesterday so I'd wait a bit and see what happens.

I'm going in to Sardinia and out Calabria on FF miles this Aug. My father has to buy his ticket, but is very last minute in deciding what parts of the my trip he will be joining me. His ticket would have been $560 on Sunday, yesterday and today it's $1200-1300!!!

Eticket email did eventually come, after I contacted Orbitz. No problem. Flight is booked through Alitalia. (I guess I was worried that the low fare was too good to be true! That was an amazing deal - $470 to Rome/Milan in the summertime!)

Thonglori, you are very welcome..I am finally all booked. I have the renta cars, the villa in Sorrento, Hotels in Rome, the airfare, and a couple dollars left over.. Now let's cross our fingers the dollar climbs a bit higher. Have a great day!!