I'm in the beginning stages of planning a trip to Italy, step one being airfare. Clearly, the easiest way to do it is to book all through one airline so they handle the connections for you. However, I've read that you can save a lot of money by finding the cheapest trans-Atlantic flight first and then booking your own connecting flights on either end. Has anyone tried to do the latter? If so, a few questions:

1) How did you manage to narrow down all the myriad possibilities and how much time did it take to pick your flights? Start with the big hubs of international travel like NYC, Chicago, and DC?
2) How much money do you think you saved in total?
3) Were there any hiccups/issues caused by the multiple layovers/connections with different airlines (thinking missed connections, lost luggage, etc.)?

Appreciate any and all input. Seems like a huge rabbit hole to go down so I'm trying to do an upfront cost-benefit analysis.

Are you only planning to visit only Italy or other European countries as well?

When I booked our trip to Italy last year, I considered several things:

1) My preference is to always fly direct, but coming from Houston, that wasn't an option. So, I started looking at United, since they are the biggest US carrier out of IAH. I was concerned with two things: a) missing our our connecting flight, as most of the major airports (even JFK) only have one flight to Rome per day; and b) dealing with US customs on the way back. In doing my research, I heard Chicago was the better option for that and was specifically told to avoid JFK customs.

2) Finding the shortest flights with the shortest layovers, at least for the flight out. For our travel, JFK was the best option, but see my comment above about there only being one flight per day.

With the issues mentioned above, I ultimately started looking at international flights from IAH to Europe and then connecting from there. I wasn't keen on flying Air France to Paris, Virgin air would have required an airport switch (from Heathrow to Gatwick, as their regional flights leave from Gatwick), and United (or Lufthansa) to Frankfurt was the most expensive option and has fewer connecting flights to choose from. I also wanted to fly into Rome and home from Florence, and having a multi-city flight sometimes runs the price up.

I would up going with KLM through Amsterdam. The tickets were right at $1000 round trip each for mid June. Flew to Rome and home from Florence (and it was actually a little cheaper to fly to Rome and home from Florence than it would have been to fly round trip to/from Rome). KLM was also the cheapest option compared to the other airlines . The Florence airport is also a breeze to get through. I had no options going over, except the flight leaves around 3 in the afternoon, so I didn't sleep at all. We did have some issues connecting in Amsterdam on the way home (we only had an hour and 10 min connection and we almost didn't make it due to some ineptitude on the part of security at Schiphol).

I wouldn't change a thing if I had to do it over again. We had no issues getting to Amsterdam, and there were a bunch more flights to Rome that same day if we had had any trouble making our connection. Their price was equal to or less than any other carrier. And KLM charges significantly less to upgrade to a seat with more legroom (like an exit row). Those aren't "economy-plus" seats - you just pay something like $75 extra. Has we missed our flight home from Amsterdam, we could have caught the same flight the next day, and there are worse things than being stuck in Amsterdam for the night. Customs at IAH was a breeze.

The only other downside is KLM has very strict carry one luggage requirements, and it did take some research to find a bag that met them. But I did and had no issues boarding (although, I did see ticket agents measuring carry on bags and forcing passengers to check them).

Most likely only Italy (trip duration roughly two weeks).

You could play around with different options and may get lucky, but I would just look at flying from the nearest international airport to you. I went to Germany and Italy in December and the best price was on Lufthansa. I flew direct from Houston to Munich and then home from Rome via Frankfurt. I bought a flight from a low cost European airline between Germany and Italy.

If you are just going to Italy then look at flying into Rome and out of Venice or the other way around. Just play with the dates and options until you find a price you like.

If you fly United and do a multi city trip that ends in the same region you started in you can do a connection in the region you are traveling for free. For example if I want to go to Athens and Rome I will book a multi city trip from IAH to Athens, stay there for a couple of days, next flight Athens to Rome, stay there a couple of days, and enter my final flight from Rome to Houston. The Athens to Rome flight will come up as $0.00. Actually I think KLM does the same thing.

If you're just doing Italy why wouldn't you just do a round trip (multi city) flight and take trains. We flew into Venice, out of Naples, and took trains everywhere within Italy.

In September, I flew DFW to Philadelphia to Venice. Took trains around Italy. Flew home from Rome to Chicago to DFW.

Flew home through Chicago because there are more late evening flights from Chicago to DFW than Phily, just in case my flight was delayed, but it wasn't.

Super easy and convenient. Train service in Italy was great. On the other hand, the airports were lousy (small, slow and dirty).

If you're going out of IAH, I've often found that the cheapest route across the pond is the Turkish Airlines flight IAH->IST. The only drawback is that it is a couple of hours longer due to distance.

That said, I have always had good results tinkering with different airline websites and open jaw air travel options. For some reason, United may want crazy money to get you from IAH->FRA->FCO but they'll have some sort of fare sale or other pricing set-up that will take you from IAH->MUC->VCE for much less money.

Long story short is just to keep playing around with all of the airlines' websites and you'll start to get a feel for what routes they are trying to sell seats on.

Last thing: if you're flying coach, I've generally had better experiences on foreign carriers. Business class is usually a wash unless you're going super-premium on someone like Singapore (speaking of Singapore, you might check to see if their IAH->MAN direct is a viable option to get you across the pond). Good luck!

blindey said:

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Last thing: if you're flying coach, I've generally had better experiences on foreign carriers. Business class is usually a wash unless you're going super-premium on someone like Singapore (speaking of Singapore, you might check to see if their IAH->MAN direct is a viable option to get you across the pond). Good luck!

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Thank you for this last bit here...I just checked Singapore Airlines flight prices, and it looks like I can get a great deal going Houston -> Manchester ($648) then Manchester -> Milan ($60). Much cheaper than the standard $900-1000 fares I've been seeing thus far anyway.