Help - flight to Italy
 

Trying to book a late May flight to Italy...NY-Rome-NY or NY-Florence/Rome-NY or NY-Pisa/Rome-NY...going to spend 4 days in Florence and 3 days in Rome. I have enough miles to use on either Delta, American, US Air or United miles...suggestions???

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Sure: go on the AA, DL, and UA websites and see what options are presented for your desired itinerary. On aa.com, ignore the BA options, unless you are willing to pay the hefty surcharges for travel on BA metal.

Also, be aware that both AA and UA offer one-way awards. That might open up more redemption options for you. (If you find a roundtrip on Star Alliance metal offered at united.com, you should also be able to redeem US miles for the same flights.)

Delta is a SkyTeam partner with Alitalia (Italy's national airline), so they may give you better NS flight options. You could try an open jaw NYC to Rome or Milan, then take the opposite back to NYC. There will be NS options in both directions. Search award calendar with the following multi-city:

JFK - FCO (Rome)
MXP (Milan) - JFK

...or into MXP & out of FCO...your choice.

My experiences with the train system in Italy have been wonderful, and there is an easy option to include Florence in your route between Rome & Milan (Rome to Florence: ~1.5 hrs / Milan to Florence ~1.75 hrs). ...make sure you get tickets on the fast train though; either FrecciaRossa or FrecciaArgento (Red Arrow / Silver Arrow). If you get on an inter-city train, it will take longer.

Pisa would be a quick side trip from Florence, and could be done in less than a day. The train takes about an hour each way. If you get off at the 2nd station (apologies; I don't remember the station name), you can see the cathedral, and it's a very short hike. The tower is next to the cathedral.

Suggestion for Rome: Spend time out at night. If you're only going to be there for ~3 days, don't get too worn out looking at the ruins to enjoy the really beautiful side of Rome. The Spanish Steps and the Trevi Fountain are well within walking distance of each other, and are both spectacular after dark.

Help - flight to Italy
 

Don't forget Florence has its own airport FLR

Correct, but no non-stops from JFK to FLR. My suggestion was intented to get the OP more time on the ground, and perhaps add a 3rd city to the trip.

Personal preference; I'd rather spend time on a train, than connecting to another flight. ...just a more civil mode of travel. Others may have the opposite thoughts.

Not right or wrong, just my opinion.

Or call the airlines. Sure it will cost you for the booking fee but they can possibly see availability that you can not see online. As others have said, look for one way awards. Also look at segment by segment (look at the "non popular" routes).

With some of the other posters here. You need to check the airlines themselves. Without providing more specifics, FT can't really give you exact answers. And, the information is fairly easy to get from the airlines' websites.

First off, fly into Rome. Rome has more options. FLR is more of a regional kind of airport. Take the high speed train from Rome to Florence. One hour, twenty minutes. Book at the right time (try http://trenitalia.com as soon as possible) and you might get lucky enough to book a roundtrip for 38 euro as I did in March. Wait too long, and you might pay as much as 39 euro each way. And there'll be little discernible difference between the seat on the train you have and the seat paid for at double the price--kind of like airfares.

If late May isn't locked in, keep in mind that AA still runs their 20K each way option to Europe until 5/15. I found a flight 5/14 to Rome from JFK at this level. Return on 5/22 at 30K, and you'll find flights for 50K RT and $231.10 in fees. As good as free travel? Of course not. But cheaper than almost anyone else you know will get to Rome.

Compare that (as you should have already) with US. Same dates, 107.5 DMs and $114. Or Delta: 60K and $84. Or UA: 110K and $63.20.

Sure you have enough miles in all of those programs? Or did you just look at the award charts?

Of course, if you're flexible, you can do better with US, DL, and UA. But that brings us back to the reason why you've got to do your own research.

Key word: "Open-jaw" A round-trip award can be used for an open-jaw itinerary. You can also form the open-jaw with two one-way's. Of course, Florence and Rome are so close, it really doesn't matter.

US miles can't be used except on round-trip redemptions. Of course, I've used them on round-trip redemptions, and let the return legs go to waste.

DL miles can be used on hotel stays through Delta Skymiles Marketplace if and only if you also have a DL credit card to enable that redemption. It may not be the best use of miles, but I find DL miles so hard to use, I'm more than happy to do this just to get some value out of them. UA miles can be used for hotel stays too, but remember, it may not be a very good use of miles.

Air Berlin has tons of availability with your American miles...
and I flew Delta to Pisa on miles a few years ago, and there was good availability.. If you go Delta, call the agent and have them find you the low rewards, and don't rely on the computer system.

I had a similar situation for flights this July/August. I generally do not like Alitalia. That being said, try this: find flights you like on DL.com. Take that same info (DL metal, flight numbers, routes, etc), and book through Alitalia. I saved at least $300 dollars. If you're doing it through rewards/miles, try the same thing both thru Alitalia, KLM, and AF. Much easier redemption, and they're putting you on DL metal anyway.

We are going to Italy in May as well. We are flying in to Milan then taking the train to get down to Florence and exploring Tuscany. Then the train again down to Rome and flying back out of FCO.

I agree the train is a good option. I believe we are only on the train for 90 minutes from Florence to Rome and even less time from Milan to Florence. Seems to be the best way to get around the country.

DL serves airports other than FCO and MXP from JFK/ATL. These flights are likely to have better availability than FCO or MXP. As someone mentioned, look for AZ flights with DL miles. It's likely to be harder to find award inventory into Italy using AF or KLM connections through CDG and/or AMS.

The Amphitheatrum Flavium to The Forum to The Pantheon to The Trevi Fountain to The Spanish Steps is a nice transition route in a morning to evening run. The Vatican is also interesting in the evening. Consider a Roma Pass.

...Suggestion for Rome: Spend time out at night. If you're only going to be there for ~3 days, don't get too worn out looking at the ruins to enjoy the really beautiful side of Rome. The Spanish Steps and the Trevi Fountain are well within walking distance of each other, and are both spectacular after dark...

Great tips here guys, thanks. I am going to Rome too, in June, via Milan and on route to Dubai it now seems. We have 4 nights at the Cavalieri (last Axon before they shut the blast doors)

Other than Florence, what else might make a nice day trip from Rome on one of those days?

I'm about to go to Italy myself. I'm using AA miles b/c of the off-peak awards and the 10% rebate from using the AA card, so it's only costing me 36k miles. As everyone else has mentioned, you should rely on AirBerlin or AA if you're using AA miles, in order to avoid the BA surcharges.

Since you're originating in NY, you actually have a good chance to take advantage of a free one-way or two. MileValue has a great explanation of all this for AA awards here. It's a great way to increase the value of your award redemption. United is also a great option for free one-ways as well and MileValue has some great articles on that too.

Good luck and have a great time!

Run that by me again? 36k miles?

Wirelessly posted (BlackBerry: BlackBerry8530/5.0.0.1030 Profile/MIDP-2.1 Configuration/CLDC-1.1 VendorID/417)

During AA's off-peak season between North America and Europe (October 15-May 15), a roundtrip, SAAver Coach award costs just 40,000 miles. Holders of most Citi/AA credit cards get a 10% rebate on the miles spent (up to a maximum annual rebate of 10,000 miles per cardholder).

Ah yeah - that doosey...very cool. I always thought of it as a I time gig. I gotta say things like that and the baggage etc is a good step forward for cards like AA to retain customers.

I'm flying in June, but hope to make it NYC-MXP/FCO-DXB-NYC for 70K on * (with a few indirects unfortunately).

great experience
 

I used [email protected]
He was able to find me two flighs NY-CDG-Florence with return Rome-NY for 100,000 miles each ALL flights in business class. Small taxes and fees of only $130 per ticket. He was great to work wit and found things I had no way of finding. When I was ready to book even the airline agent was amazed I had this reservation. I was all very worth his fee on $250 for the two tickets.

Just came back from Italy. I took AA from FCO and it was 20K miles. I had gone to Paris as well and had purchased XL Airways France flight to fly into Venice and then took the train from Venice to Florence and then to Rome.

I personally liked Venice, Florence/Pisa/Siena much better than Rome.

Care to share which airlines you are using? And which airline's miles?

Can you share some of the things he found that you had no way of finding? I am sure most FT'ers would be interested in a new secret or two :)

He found various flight options over the course of 5-6 days that i was unable to find myself. We decided to use Delta miles since I have the most there. Yes he charges a fee but well worth it as I was unable to book Biz class all the way through and for only 100k per ticket. Very pleased.

I would imagine that he found partner availability that doesn't show up on Delta.com searches. This can be the hardest thing for non *A, since you have to cobble together searches from across multiple sources to get a handle on which partners may have the availability you need.

MileValue has some good articles on this and which airline sights let you search which airline partners (e.g AA.com searches BA & AirBerlin, but not Qantas or Cathay Pacific IIRC). Wikipedia for airport entries can also be a great way to work backwards from your destination airport or from bottle-neck airports to find out which partners you should be looking for availability on.

I'm on my way home from a trip from Rome>Florence>pisa>Rovigo>Venice and have to say that Florence was pretty boring compared to Pisa. I guess it depends on what you want to see - architecture vs. art, but the leaning tower was better than anything I saw in Florence, including the Duomo and David. We didn't have time to explore Tuscany much in the 9 days we had, so that may be a reason to go to Florence. I second the comments about Rome at night, everything looks way cooler in the dark. Except the public transportation. Do yourself a favor and pay the $8 for a taxi ride at night. Drivers don't expect a tip.

Thanks for getting back, WJB. We plan to use Delta miles also, so glad Delta miles worked out for you. There is hope!!!

Chuckles good luck and le me know if Dennis is helpful.
Jophiel - yes Air France to Italy and Alitalia back.