Originally Posted by OliverB

Okay, time for a little update with both some good and bad news...

First of all, I'd like to thank everyone for their input with regards to our trip and amount of time spent in Venice. Both my wife and myself have expended a lot of thought towards this trip, and we've both decided that we definitely want to spend a full 10 nights in Venice. We want to feel as though we're living in the city and my wife has some very close friends who she went to NYU with that are actually living in Venice, so it will be nice to spend time with them as well, which will add to the local flavor. We plan on taking several day/afternoon trips to the surrounding islands and possibly even a ferry to Croatia for a day, so I don't anticipate that we'll grow tired of Venice. We also plan to take some cooking classes and as mentioned earlier in this thread, just spend a lot of time unwinding, reading, etc. I can't think of a more picturesque setting to do so. So now that I've got that out of the way...

My wife convinced me to book the cheapest Super Saver (30K points) in economy on a 13.5 hr flight from SFO to Venice. I wanted to grab a Business Saver award for 50K but as we're building this itinerary from one-way legs, with only 110K UA miles (as of now - after having purchased our one-way to Venice) her advice is probably sound, as we should maximize our mileage. So that said, we're flying into VCE on 30K points in economy and I can't say I mind much, as it isn't costing us a dime, so far.

Here's where I really need your help...

My wife NEEDS to be back at work (bright and early) in San Francisco by Tuesday, Nov. 1st - she has important board meetings that she's overseeing and so there's no room for compromise whatsoever with respect to the date.

We do NOT want to cut our trip short by any amount of time. Our hotel is fully booked on points, and we really would like to spend a full 10 nights in Venice.

We do NOT want to spend more than 18 hrs traveling on the return. I would say that 18.5 hrs total travel time is the cap that we want to aim for when booking our return. That's significantly longer than our incoming flight to Venice, but accounting for possibly stops and layovers, I'd be willing to spend that much time flying home, if necessary.

Here's the problem -- almost all flight out of Venice on 10/30 are 25+ hrs in duration and/or leave way too early in the morning, which would make our final night miserable. I don't want to have to fly out at 6:30-7 AM if we're taking a boat from the Gritti to the airport at 4:30-5:00 AM. We'll want to shower before a 14+ hr flight and so we can pretty much rule out going to sleep at all if we're booked on any itinerary flying out of VCE before 8 AM. It's just not worth it, imo.

We could potentially fly out of VCE on 10/31 and spend one extra night at an airport hotel or conveniently situated room near Marco Polo Int'l. There's a 16hr 35min flight that takes us from VCE to BRU to DUB to SFO. That's one option... though it sounds like a pain in the .... We'd be extending our trip just to stay by the VCE airport to fly back the next morning with multiple stops all across the continent. It just sounds like a crappy way to go.

The other option, is of course, to fly out of Milan. Unfortunately, this doesn't offer many more possibilities either...

We'd have to fly out of MIL on 10/31 because all flights are scheduled in the early morning and there's no way we're going to take a boat to a train to another city to board a plane for an early AM flight... not to mention doing all of that prior to flying 15+ hrs int'l in the same day. That's not an option for us. So if we're flying out of MIL, we'd need to leave Venice by train at some point on 10/30, stay overnight in Milan, then depart MIL to SFO on 10/31. That would seem easy enough, and so far, it's our strongest option. It flies MXP to FRA / FRA to SFO for only 30K points/person in economy.

Ideally however, we'd be able to get to Frankfurt on a domestic flight and then go direct to San Francisco on points... I'm having a lot of difficulty figuring this out!

One other option that we considered is a flight from VCE to VIE on 10/30 (7:05 pm - 8:15 pm) and then a 10h 55m layover, departing VIE to FRA the next morning 10/31 (7:10 am - 8:50 am) - We'd stay overnight by the airport in Vienna, then fly to Frankfurt the next morning, continuing on to SFO. That also seems more complicated than it needs to be however.

Anyhow, rather than focus on all of the confusing and/or failed options that we've considered so far, I'll just summarize all points concisely and hope that others can chime in and offer more convenient and efficient suggestions...

- we need to arrive in San Francisco by Monday 10/31 at absolute latest.

- we can depart 10/30 or 10/31 from any conveniently situated airport.

- we do not want to leave Venice prior to 10/30 as we're fully booked (prepaid w/ SPG points) and content with our plans so far.

- we do not want to be traveling for 20+ hrs on the return itinerary. ideally, we'd like to find a flight back to SFO that makes sense and clocks in under 18 hrs travel time.

- we already have our SFO - VCE route booked and only have 110K left in UA points to use for the return. We do not want to pay full fare as prices are exorbitant flying one-way legs in/out of Venice (almost 3K/person!)

- we would consider paying for a cheap domestic fare to fly a more direct and convenient route on the int'l leg using our UA points.

- if we're going to be doing any travel from Venice to another destination within Europe (ie. planning to leave from any other city in Italy, Germany, Croatia, etc) then I would NOT wish to do it all on the same day - in other words, if flying out of Milan or Rome or Frankfurt, I would much prefer to transfer by train or ferry on 10/30 and then fly the international leg on 10/31 so that it's a bit less painful.

That's basically where we're at right now. I know that UA doesn't always display ALL award flights on Star Alliance partners, and I've discovered the following which depart VCE on 10/30 which sounds perfect... however the flight time is prohibitive as I don't want to have to be at Marco Polo at 4:30-5:00 AM; waking up at 3AM to shower and catch a boat - that would defeat the purpose of spending that night at the Gritti, even if it is booked on points. Here's the itin:

Venice Istanbul(IST)
06:30 09:55
TK1458 Flight number of Star Alliance member airlines 319
Operated by Turkish Airlines

Istanbul(IST) San Francisco
12:55 17:10
TK079 Flight number of Star Alliance member airlines 77W
Operated by Turkish Airlines

Total travel time 18h40min



It's also not a short flight, at least compared to our incoming flight from SFO to VCE at little more than 13 hrs. This seems like a huge headache and I'd really appreciate your input... also if anyone knows of other Star Alliance award seats I've missed, please let me know!