Fodor's Travel Talk Forums

Fodor's Travel Talk Forums (https://www.fodors.com/community/)
-   Europe (https://www.fodors.com/community/europe/)
-   -   Italy flight (https://www.fodors.com/community/europe/italy-flight-336396/)

onebuc Jul 13th, 2003 08:49 AM

Italy flight
 
I am planning for a trip to Italy in the spring of 2004. I am being quoted about $600 for a flight from Tampa thru NY to Venice and return from Rome also thru NY. I feel its a pretty decent price and I am contiplating booking it soon. I have not reserved rooms yet, Should I do this ASAP or book roms first? Is it possible the flights could be cheaper if I wait? Thanks onebuc

ira Jul 13th, 2003 10:27 AM

Hi onebuc,

Try www.eltexpress.com. They usually have very low rates.

It's unlikely that prices will be coming down much.

anitafla Jul 13th, 2003 12:01 PM

onebuc,

If it was me, I would book the flight now and not wait. I live in South Florida and if I was quoted that price I would jump on it.


RufusTFirefly Jul 13th, 2003 12:07 PM

No one can predict what prices will be next spring--too many things can happen between now and then. But an open-jaw $600 ticket from Tampa sounds like a good price to me.

dln Jul 13th, 2003 05:45 PM

My parents paid $550 from Miami in March of this year, so I should say you're doing pretty well--my mother's pretty cheap (sorry Mom, I mean FRUGAL)! You'd be hard put to do better than her.

Thejamlady Jul 13th, 2003 06:10 PM

Daughter DLN is right, we are frugal and want good value.

We booked in November for a 18 March flight through Hotwire for $550.00, including taxes. We flew Miami-Zurich-Roma and return.

The downside of Hotwire is that you don't know the airline and departure/return times before you commit yourselves. We checked over the airlines Hotwire uses, which are listed on their page and common sense told us that the outgoing flight would be in the afternoon and the return would be in the early morn. It was, return was 7 AM from Roma. No problem with that as the convent we stayed at made arrangements for us with transportation. We weren't the only frugal travelers as the plane was filled.

Our $550. tickets sold around $1200 on SwissAir website. Why the high price? We stayed in Italy 3 months and lower fares were only for 30 day flights.

We rented an apartment in Rome after we had our tickets, same with the other places. Only place we booked one year in advance was in Umbria as that was a 2 month rental.

Onebuc, your early to book for the Spring 2004 and I would use this time to constantly check prices.

Thejamlady

dln Jul 13th, 2003 07:25 PM

Oooh, ma...I guess what you said about mothers having eyes and ears in the back of their heads was right. I can hardly say a word without you finding out about it! (IN A LOW VOICE...never should have bugged you about registering....)

Seriously, though. Onebuc, you are booking very far in advance. My husband are I are off to Italy after Labor Day and I booked our flight in May, after checking flight prices daily since January. The variation in prices from day to day is amazing! The airfare you've come up with is pretty reasonable based on what I've seen. You might find some fares lower, but if you investigate, the restrictions on them can make them so unreasonable as to be unfeasible. IMO, I'd book that airfare, if ONLY to give you peace of mind. If you do that, you will know with certainty that your trip to Italy is assured. That, I can tell you, is a marvelous feeling. The rest will fall into place.

Since you are not going for almost a year, I would not book the accomodation portion of the trip. I originally had planned on us spending our Italian vacation in the Lake Como area. I did so much research on it--read the books, watched the movies, surfed the net--that, believe it or not, I got bored with Como!!!! I changed stream and now we're off to Rome, Sorrento, and Umbria. Had you told me this was how our trip would have turned out, I'd have said no, no, no. You might find yourself similarly "tweaking" your itinerary. If the flight ONLY is booked, you will have that freedom to play around with the rest at a later date.

By the way, Lake Como is going to be our next trip. It really is too beautiful not to see.


All times are GMT -8. The time now is 05:53 AM.