June airfare to Rome from midwest
 

Hi there,

I know that there have already been a lot of threads about airfare, but I have a specific price that is a bit lower than what I've seen the past few weeks. But, I'm still having sticker shock.

I'm finding Air Canada flights from Cedar Rapids IA to Rome and back, for June 16-29, and the price is 1318 (inclusive). I found this price on Hotwire and Travelocity. My first destination is Florence, last is Rome, and right now there's another $200 to flights to fly open jaw.

As a rational person, but one who hasn't flown to Europe in a few years, this doesn't seem too good...but maybe I'm wrong? I'm almost 90 days out from when I want to go, and I just don't have anything to go on to tell me what I should be looking/waiting for. Are others in a similar situation, seeing the same prices and going with them?

Thanks very much in advance!

Candice

Remember that you can fly to Rome and immediately take the train to Florence. I think the cost for that will be about 11 or so Euros for the train to Termini, and about 30 Euros for the ticket to Florence. Especially if the Rome flight connections are better, I would do a roundtrip flight in this case.

I can't imagine Cedar Rapids is that great a market for getting cheap flights, but I'm not familiar with it. Are there any other airports you'd consider?

It's also worth checking if 2 one way flights work out cheaper as this seems to be the case today.
Currently there are fare sales in Europe so the one way flight FROM Rome might be significantly cheaper than the one way TO Florence.

My sister's been tracking flights in June from Chicago to Florence for months. It bottomed out weeks ago at about $1,200 and has been around $1,500 ever since. When it went up and stayed there, she went ahead and bought. It looks to me like anything under $1,500 is a good deal this year, but who knows? I know within the last five years some of my friends have paid $1,200 from D.C. to Rome in June. If your dates are very specific and you don't want to change planes more than once, it's tough to get one of those great deals you hear about!

Paid $1280 for nonstop r/t Chicago-Rome at end of May

I have not found flights to Florence to be competitive from the west coast whether bought as roundtrip or open-jaw. For your type of itinierary, I get a round-trip to FCO and travel immediately to Florence by Eurostar since the arrivals in FCO have already been early in the morning.

Check flights to PSA, MXP, LIN, BLQ, not just FLR and FCO.

I also am finding flights in this range of $1300 from Chicago or Detroit to Rome in June. We are considering driving to Toronto to fly a charter flight for $850.00

I also fly out of Cedar Rapids. We're paying $1400ish for flights round trip to Rome in August. :(

Check prices from Moline, Des Moines, Chicago, Minneapolis and St Louis as well. Sometimes the puddle jumper to a main gateway is expensive enough that it's cheaper to just drive to the gateway and leave the car parked.

Thank you all, very much, for your suggestions. I am going to look at flying into a few other places, but you've given me a bit of peace of mind, really, about the prices being fairly average.

Iowa_Redhead, I wondered about where you might be located! Big world gets a little smaller every day.

Thank you!

Delta has a nonstop to Pisa that usually starts around May from JFK-you could then do an open jaw ticket out of Rome,Milan or Venice back to Iowa.
I used it two years ago and it was great having the nonstop to Pisa-can go to Cinque Terre,Genoa,Florence from that city location using the train.

Thanks for the thread. I'm based in Iowa City and am looking to take my family of four to Italy June 19 - July 2. I've also been watching fares. The sale dates have progressively gone further into high season (saw some sales for travel through mid-June). I'm hoping to wait about another 2-3 weeks and they'll hit my travel dates. anyone know if this is a good idea?
Also, I'm considering flying into another, less-expensive city (i.e. London, Madrid,etc.) and flying EasyJet or RyanAir to Rome and staying in that city for 2-3 days on the tail end of visit. Has anyone done this?
I gotta get the fares under $1000 (way under if I could) in order for us to have any money for remainder of trip. Would take any suggestions - even a little out of the box.

Flying into London could be a good idea, but remember a few things. First of all, most cheaper airlines fly out of one of the smaller London airports. Since you will probably land in Heathrow or Gatwick, you have to allot enough time (and money) to get from one airport to the other. If your flight is late for any reason, and you miss your connection, the airline is not held responsible.

I am from St. Louis and drove to Chicago for our flight to Rome a few years back because the prices were so much cheaper.

Tracy

Just remember that the UK has one of the highest departure taxes in the EU so if you decide to stop off for a few days you may find out that you are going to pay another $175 to $200USD on that ticket.

You might check Orbitz. For end of May, United nonstop Chicago-Rome, returning to ORD via Toronto on Air Canada = $872

servo1, tickets are unlikely to drop as much for peak season as after mid June the schools are out.

Unless you want to spend time in London I'd avoid that route as tcreath points out the extra expenses would outweigh any savings on the initial flight.

servo1,

I'm in your area and have been watching ticket prices for August, and no luck for getting even close to $1,000. I have seen a few cheaper fares through a Polish airline but again, nothing near $1,000.

You're looking at the peak time for US to Europe flights so there likely won't be that many amazing bargains. Use orbitz.com and similar search engines to search the airports in the vicinity, go as far as Omaha, Des Moines, Minneapolis, Moline, Chicago, St Louis, etc.

To be quite blunt, if flights at $1300'ish each will prevent you from enjoying the rest of your trip you may want wait a year for your trip so you can save more first. It's no fun to go on vacation and fret about every cent while you're there. Have a serious look at your budget based on flights at $1,200 - $1,400 and see if you can make the rest of it work without making it extremely stressful.

Good luck!

Aerlingus is having a fare sale and if you could get to Chicago as your departure city you may be able to do better than $1300.

Thanks folks - all good suggestions. Unfortunately, if we're going, it has to be this year (2 other families meeting together). Fortunately, we have a free place to stay for at least 1 - 1 1/2 weeks so that will help.

I also looked at priced into Dublin -seem to be quite a bit less expensive. We actually are hoping to stay a couple days in the arrival city and don't really care where it is - we're relatively adventurous souls.

I plan to keep plugging away at my computer and checking price changes.

Any suggestions on the latest I should wait to buy tickets?

I personally would go ahead and buy them if you find a price you are willing to spend. Since your trip is only about 3 months away, prices may not drop any more and you would probably be upset if they went up. We always decide what we are willing to spend, buy the tickets when we find that price, and then quit looking because we would rather not know if the priced dropped after we purchased because it would just annoy us.

Good luck!