skiladyldp

Hello, I am not an experienced traveler and need some help. In the future, I plan to take an Insight bus tour that starts in Rome ( fly to Rome from San Francisco) and ends in Palermo, Italy. I want to use my award miles to book the trip. When I tried to put in some made dates to check flight times it seems as though United won't let me book with Miles and I have enough miles. I tried to do another itinerary that would have us fly to Rome From SFO, take the bus tour and end Palermo, then fly to Rome and stay a few days, then fly home to San Francisco but it won't let me book it.

So, another possibility is, can I book an award trip that goes from San Francisco to Rome, return Rome to San Francisco and use Air Italia to go from Palermo to Rome? I could spend a couple of days in Rome before leaving for home. Being a US citizen is this allowed?

So to summarize, I want to use my miles to book a trip that starts in San Francisco, fly to Rome, then return from Palermo to San Francisco which can include a stopover in Rome
before returning home. Thank you to anyone that help me clear up my confusion.

jsloan

What makes you think that?

You're going to have a hard time flying from Palermo to Rome on United miles. No United partner flies that route, and it doesn't seem possible to do it even with a connection, presumably due to rules about connecting outside of the country on a domestic Italian flight.

Yes, but you'll need to pay for the Alitalia ticket with some other currency (cash, Delta SkyMiles, etc.) You won't be able to include it on your main ticket. Ryanair and Vueling also fly this route, if you'd like a low-cost carrier.

You can book a roundtrip flight from San Francisco to Rome, and then book Alitalia separately to get from Palermo back to Rome. Or, you can book a flight from San Francisco to Rome, from Palermo to a non-Italian destination in Europe, and then back to San Francisco.

DA201

Without knowing your dates, I currently see plenty of availability from SFO-FCO and limited availability from PMO-SFO. However, there is saver availability in both directions. Much of the PMO-SFO availability for this summer seems to be only on Wed and Thur (with the occasional Fri), so that may be a nuisance. Booking PMO-FCO on UA may be difficult because there is no direct flight on a UA partner. However, flights from Palermo to Rome are extremely cheap on LCCs, especially if you book in advance. Ryanair has flights as low as $20, which is really $50 if you opt to buy Plus so you can bring a checked bag, which is a very good deal. So, if you want the extra day or two in Rome or you have little flexibility with the dates, then buy a r/t from Rome and a one way ticket from PMO to Rome. If you have flexibility with your return date, PMO-SFO can be done for 30k miles at least twice per week most weeks I am looking at.

By the way, look up nonstop flights on LCCs from PMO if you want to spend a few days in another city before heading back to SFO. Most Italian cities and some interesting and fun European ones (like London, Budapest, Split, Barcelona, Marseille, etc.) are served by LCCs from PMO. I'm seeing award space from most of these cities to SFO, so you could always book one way SFO-FCO and return XYZ-SFO and then buy a cheap one way from PMO to the city of your choice.

skiladyldp

Thanks for all the suggestions. I am thinking we will book round trip SFO to FCO by award miles and buy a one-way ticket on my credit card to Rome from Palermo. The tickets are cheap and this is the least trouble. Our tour ends in Palermo and we want to stay a few nights and then stay in Rome for a few nights.

WineCountryUA

Just a note FCO is far outside of Rome

Another alternative is the train to Rome, a bit longer, 10-ish hours but some marvelous coastal scenario

Aussienarelle

I second the suggestion of @WineCountryUA about using the train. Always use the train between cities in Italy (well most European cities actually).

In addition, when I departed FCO my flight was very early so I actually stayed in the town of Fiumicino and stayed at a lovely local hotel that arranged for transportation in the morning to the airport - cheaper than a taxi but a black car. There are also some ruins very near Fiumicino.