>>>I think we are leaning toward Lufthansa or Swiss, even with the higher prices given that alot of people seem to think their connections go pretty smooth at Munich and Zurich.<<<

Lufthansa and Swiss is the same company (Lufthansa). Connecting times of 45min work efficiently at München and Zürich. No hassle with immigration or customs. And IF your transatlantic flight is late for some reason, no problem, because there are many other connections to your final destination.

Before you buy double check with kayak.com - I put in some dates for May and came up with $857 on Iberia and $976 with UA/Luft - I appreciate prices might be different for your selected dates - but do double check

travelgourmet,
It was on BA and for a short flight they were very generous.
Seems like all the airlines based in the USA are cutting back more and more.

I second the Iberia suggestion. If you don't feel comfortable waiting and seeing if the prices drop, you could buy a ticket now on Iberia for about $850 (depends on day of the week) with just one stop in Madrid. I think Iberia is trying to get more business on their boston route so they have been running sales. I flew Boston to Rome at the end of September with Iberia and had a good experience. The flights were all on time, nice planes, coach was pretty much the same uncomfortable seats as any other airline. We were traveling with a baby and the flight attendants were very nice. We left on a Tuesday and the plane to Madrid was empty which was great. We returned on a Friday and the flight was full.

When we were looking for tickets (we booked mid-June for an end of Sept flight), Iberia was much cheaper than the other airlines you mentioned ($650 for Iberia v. $900+ on the others). We were skeptical of Iberia since we never flew them (or knew anyone else who had) but given the price difference, took our chances. I don't think the flights were any different then any of the other airlines or, if they were, not worth the extra 50% or so for the ticket in our opinion.

wombat7 - were those prices direct with the airlines or through Airfare.com or similar discounter?

Can someone alert me to the potential problems of a discounter vs. using the airline to book before I go ahead and book my tickets?

I am a bit worried about that comment.

Last year at this time I was faced with the same problem. I had set the figure $800 per ticket as my goal. I used airfarewatchdog.com and other sites and monitored them daily. I believe it was Christmas morning or the 26th I found $802 for each ticket and i jumped on it....AirFrance...Boston to Milan and Rome to Boston on the return. We traveled in late September. Good luck and keep watching.....check different times of day as specials come and go.

Stay away from Alitalia. I flew them in September. The flight crew on the Boston-Rome leg was the absolute laziest I've experienced in 20+ years of business travel. They didn't show a movie or offer coffee/tea after the mediocre-at-best dinner although they gave you a coffee cup. They did not offer water more than once. The crew on the return trip was slightly better. Do yourself a favor and take any other carrier (I prefer Lufthansa and SwissAir) other than Alitalia.

Re: Consolidators and travel sites

I have heard of many people having problems with purchasing tickets through consolidators or other websites (even the big three - Expedia, Travelocity and Orbitz). The problems are related to a number of customer service issues. For example, an airline will make a change in a flight schedule and the consolidator will not let the customer know about it. Others have had problems with payments, and simply getting through to a live person.

I have to admit that I did use Expedia once and had no problems. However, with all the details that go along with arranging travel, I have decided not to use middlemen to purchase airline tickets.

Go directly to the source and bypass the middlemen. The potential extra cost is worth it, for peace of mind.