Hi all,

I am looking for a little help in booking air transportation online to Italy. Can you all help me with some trusted travel site links? Also, are all flights typically non-refunable, or is it just that you'll pay and arm and a leg for the refundable option.

2nd question, once in Italy, Venice to Florence to Rome, should I prebooked my rail transportation now and are there any recommended links for booking rail transportation.

Thanks to all and happy holidays!!!

JBOZ

What country are you flying from?

www.trenitalia.com is the Italian train website. There is usually no need to book trains in advance (can't book more than 60 days in advance). You can purchase once you get to Italy.

We are leaving from the U.S....Baltimore, MD to be exact

Most flights can be booked "refundable" or "non-refundable". The difference is you'll often pay the cost of losing a flight for the "refundable" type ticket. These days once you book airfare, you usually need to hope and pray you don't have to change it, or yes, it will cost you an arm and a leg -- or at least a foot.

We have always chosen not to pre-book our train travel. We often buy our tickets for the next leg of our trip when we arrive in a city. We hate to be that regimented. It has never been a problem for us and we've always been able to buy the tickets for the train we want. We always travel on the Eurostars whenever possible. Very fast, comfortable.
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I think it simpler to buy trip insurance, which you ought to have anyway.

I use Orbitz to check out flight prices, but I also often book directly with Continental.com when flying to Italy.

If you buy directly from the airlines, generally you can change a ticket for a fee, even to an entirely different destination. For example, starting April 1, 2007, United will fly IAD (Dulles) to FCO (Rome). If you put in your information, you will see tiny print which says "view fare rules". After reading it all, you will see that so long as the time of the ticketed flight has not taken place and you have used no portion of the ticket, for a fee of $200, they will give you a credit for the original amount of the ticket for another flight in the same persons name. I think all the airlines pretty much work this way, so even though you will pay more to the airline than to a consolidator, the money is not completely lost if you have to change your plans.

Oops, I forgot to put in the above post that I am referring to a "nonrefundable" ticket.