italyjen

Hello all! Hoping to tap into your collective wisdom. My husband and I are purchasing a second home in Italy and are planning on "relocating" from Arizona to Italy twice per year, for two three-month stints. We would like to bring our cat and our dog with us. Ideally, we would fly into Milan (MXP), but any airport within a reasonable (<10 hour) drive/train is doable (ZRH, FCO, CDG, VCE, etc.).

It seems simple enough at first glance, but we're also trying to solve for the following factors:

1. Our dog is 30 lbs., so could only fly in-cabin on La Compagnie. Unfortunately, she is quite tall and will not be able to stand up in any-size carrier (XL Sherpa or otherwise). I believe this precludes us from any in-cabin travel with her.
2. If she has to fly in the hold, we'd like to limit the number of connections we have. This is problematic, because we're limited to flying from the west coast (LAX, SFO) and there are very few transcontinental routes available. That said, we are willing to get to the east coast if necessary. Our "perfect flight" is direct from the US to Europe, with as minimal transit on either side as possible. Obviously, we need to be aware of any heat or cold embargoes on "hold travel," as well.
3. In a perfect world, we are able to fly business class. This seems to be a limiting factor for carrying the cat in-cabin. The only airlines that I can find that allow in-cabin business class travel are La Compagnie (which doesn't seem to allow pets in the hold and thus wouldn't work), Lufthansa (which isn't ideal, given that the "direct flight" would put us into Germany, rather than Italy), and Swiss Air (which would put us into Zurich, and is a 4.5 hour drive from our ultimate location in Turin).
4. Chartered air travel is not financially feasible for us.
5. We have a unique ability to generate a lot of spend, so it would be ideal to book via points. I'm having a heck of a time finding award availability on Swiss, AF, or others! Cash fares may be acceptable, but obviously less ideal.

All thoughts welcome! This might be an impossible situation to solve for, especially with the business class wrinkle, but thought you'd all have some excellent recommendations. Obviously, we'll give up business class to ensure comfortable and safe travel for our pets, but still hoping there is a good solution out there that I'm not thinking of.

Goodoldflyer

Where is the second home? OK, perhaps just curiosity, but also may help with routing.

italyjen

Turin! No direct connections for the US to TRN. MXP would be ideal, but CDG is a (quick-ish) 6.5 hour train ride and ZRH is a 4.5 hour drive. But truly open to anything!

bhomburg

ITA flies from LAX and SFO (starting soon), allows pets in the cabin in business class, has reasonable charges ($240) for travel in the hold for the dog and no hard temperature polices, meaning you'll be able to get the dog on even in the summer.
They are generally easy to use with animals.
However, I would not make long-term plans involving travel -especially plans revolving around long-term investment in their FFP with regards to banking miles - on ITA as that airline is currently being lined up to be bought by LH. When that happens, pet travel policies will align with all other LH group airlines very quickly, the FFP will be absorbed into M&M and it remains to be seen if and how the US routes remain.
As there's very good high-speed rail networks in Italy, getting to Turin from Rome or MXP is easy and quick.and the preferred way to go. The trains allow pets of all sizes,

The same can be said for the second option - travel to ZRH with Swiss. There's almost hourly direct trains between Zurich and Milan , the journey takes three-and-a-half hours. You'd need to change trains in Milan, and from there, it's an hour on a high-speed service to Turin.Done that very often myself, works very well.


If you want to take the dog in the cabin on the transatlantic portion of the flight, there's only LaCompagnie to Paris, and trains from there.
However, there's no way your dog would be able to fly to EWR in the cabin with any airline domestically. You would need to use Alaska from the West Coast to Newark for the dog (Alaska is the only US domestic airline still accepting animals as checked baggage). That means separate tickets with no protection. La Compagnie is a very small airline with a great product for the price but less-than-stellar service recovery options. If things go pear-shaped you may get stuck.

Another possible option to fly your dog in the cabin could be on WestJet as "specialty dog". I have no personal experience with that but know people who successfully used them with non-service dogs. Not allowed in business class, though. They started flying to Rome and Paris from Calgary, but those are seasonal and not year-round.
They could be an option to get everyone to EWR in the cabin, connecting to LaCompagnie, though - they have service to PHX. I�d definitely research this.

CDTraveler

If the cat can only fly in-cabin on one airline, and the dog in the hold on another, have you considered flying separately? One human and one pet on Airline X, other human and other pet on Airline Y?