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Finding Your Flight To Italy

Editor’s information

When you plan your trip to Italy, you must be certain to take care in selecting your flight. It is always a great temptation to splurge on a first class flight, but you need to hold yourself in check. Ideally, you should get as inexpensive a flight as you can. Saving money on your flight will leave you more to spend on your vacation, in Italy itself. You can potentially upgrade your hotel room, or visit more places that have a entrance fee. When the time comes to buy your ticket (and that should be as early as possible – the earlier you book, the lower-cost flights you can find), use all the means available to you to find the best choice and the best prices. Using the Internet, you should be able to find all the flights, both the ones that go when you want to go, and the ones that have the best price. You should understand that, according to Murphy’s Law, the two (right time and lowest price) will NEVER coincide, and when, by some mistake, they do, you will be the one there just after the last low price ticket is sold.

One way that may be less expensive for you is to break your flight into two pieces – the trans-Atlantic part and the inner-European part. Typically, the trans-Atlantic flights to London, Amsterdam, and Frankfurt tend to be the least expensive (they’re NEVER cheap), but sometimes, particularly if you’re coming from a not-so-large airport in North America, there may be specially-priced flights to places like Dusseldorf or even Rome with a stop in Spain or Portugal on the way. Inner-European flights can be very inexpensive, but you need to be aware of potential problems. If you miss the flight because there is a delay in your trans-Atlantic flight, you may lose your ticket and have to buy a new (much more expensive) one. The safest thing to do is to plan a day or two between the flights, so you can find an inexpensive hotel or B&B in London (for example) and fly out to Italy the next day or two. Generally, you can save a significant amount of money doing this over the cost of a direct flight. But get the best direct flight cost first, so you have a measuring stick when you’re looking!

Click on the picture to download the original version, but it is about 3,5 MB!

Here is a partial list of the less expensive airlines into and out of Italy. It is not complete, it’s not listed in any particular order, and there are always changes, but this should give you a starting point. These are taken straight out of my favorites list in Firefox, but the list has only about half the number of airlines that it did two or three years ago. Some of these airlines also fly to North America, and you may be able to get a good price from them for the combination or even a direct flight.

• Air Berlin
• Easy Jet
• Ryan Air
• WizzAir (from Central and Eastern Europe)
• German Wings
• TUIfly
• Brussels Airlines

You can undoubtedly find more – in particular, there are a large number of small airlines that fly from the smaller UK airports to vacation spots in southern Europe (obviously including Italy), but I don’t have any better access to those than you do on the Internet. You can also find discount ticket booking services online where you might find a lower price, and you also might find another airline to investigate.

There is also the “last-minute” option. If you are traveling alone or only two together, you might want to try your luck at some last-minute flights. You don’t know where you’re going to end up until a few hours (or less) before you board the aircraft, but it can give you a vacation in a great place for a fantastic price – often half or less of the standard price – and often with a hotel option included, also at a lower price. On the other hand, all the flights may be full, and you stay at home that week! If you’re flexible, go for it. If you need more certainty in your life – and many of us do – then stick to the more conventional tickets.

Once you’ve found your flight, you may want to use the associated services available from either the ticket agent or the airline to get lower-priced accommodations, rental cars, and other services. These typically require payment up-front, but this has advantages as well as disadvantages. One of the advantages being that you then can travel with much less money, and avoid the danger of having your vacation completely destroyed by the loss or theft of your money.

The important part of the whole thing is to be sure that you get to Italy with ease, and also get back home without any problems. And, of course, enjoy your stay here!

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