cheap flights to Rome for 2019

Just curious if you were able to book this same fare on the AA's own site - I am guessing "no"?

Not at all. The AA website was showing fares in the neighborhood of $1,600 and the connections were not as good!

Is the connection time decent/good?

Most folks on this forum are so ideologically opposed to third party sites for booking airfares, that I'm not sure you'll get a welcome ear (I'm open to all possibilities - why not?). There's no rhyme or predictability as to when one can see a great fare on a third party site since the vast majority of the time, they pull the same fares that you can find on the corresponding airline websites (I just checked a sample fare and didn't find any difference between airline website fares and Travelocity). The seemingly random deals are highly specific to the origin, destination, and exact dates and itinerary. So they're hard to generalize. It's doubtful someone can replicate that same price level you found easily from their own city, but I agree that all booking channels should be compared against each other (and each person has to weigh the pros and cons for themselves).

Anyhow, that's a very good price - congrats.

I'm one of those who generally dogmatically books directly with an airline's own website. However, in playing around with travelocity today, I found similar fares (in the $500-$600 range ROUNDTRIP) flying out of New Orleans to Rome and flying out of JFK to Rome. Early April. My connection will be one hour in Charlotte (I know, I know... but Charlotte is a small, manageable airport) on the way over, and 2 hours connection in Charlotte on the way home. No struggling with Munich, or Frankfurt, or Toronto.

Congrats on getting such a good fare!

I can add a data point. My sister was booking flights for her family to Prague, and since it was 4 people she was looking to save money. However, since two of the travelers were children, she strongly preferred the nonstop flight, and the only one is on Delta. Booking it through Delta or Air France was about $850 per person. However, the exact same flights on Expedia were about $425 per person. So, she ended up flying Delta metal, on an Air France code share, booked through Expedia.

She just got back from the trip, and it all worked out fine. Of course, I made sure she had contact numbers and reservation codes for all three companies. But even though she was booked via Expedia, it was Delta who contacted her with a potential change in the flight, and she would have been able to change it directly with Delta (I had thought they would make her go through Expedia, but they didn't).

Moral of the story: it's not always bad to book through third party sites - particularly if the savings make it worthwhile.

Occasionally you will find a deal. I found a one way DC to Munich for $270 on Lufthansa recently on Priceline,
And I got it one month before the flight.

We did this last year when we flew to Europe, booked on Expedia through Aer Lingus and everything was fine. We found a cheaper flight on Expedia and a schedule we could not find on the Aer Lingus Website. I was super concerned on booking through a third party as I usually always book directly with the airline but since the flights were all on the same carrier I thought the cost outweighed the risk. Once booked, we got our confirmation numbers and were able to go onto the Aer Lingus website and pick our seats, no problem. All flights went great, not one complaint and I would book through a reliable third party again.

I'm no expert on flights to Rome, but I'd have no hesitation in booking on a massive well known website such as Travelocity or Expedia.

It's the little known and constantly name changing cheapoflights type websites that I'd be leery of. They will often Frankenstein flight connections together, often that are impossible to make.

I have always preferred using the airline website to book tickets. Recently I was assisting some first time Europe travelers and advised them to go with a third party site because the desired itinerary was not available on the airline website.

My daughter (grown) had a great experience with Travelocity last year when her (main carrier - United?) flight was canceled as she was at the airport, ready to board. She was able to get home to Denver that same night, because when she called Travelocity for rebooking, they put her on another carrier, leaving almost immediately for Denver. However, everyone who had booked directly with (United?) was rebooked by (United?) on another of that carrier's flights the next day. Because Daughter had only carryon luggage, she was able to get home to Denver that night. Travelocity had the option of using multiple carriers to rebook her. (I don't recall the reason for the cancellation, whether it was weather related, or mechanical, but I think it was mechanical.) This doesn't change my strong preference for booking directly with the airline itself, for multiple reasons that many of you share but this was an interesting twist on booking with a strong third-party booking group like Travelocity.

I prefer to book directly, but then not all third-party sites are created equal, and not all tickets are created equal.

Simple journeys with a single airline are an easier situation where there are fewer things that could go wrong. Then you have code-share flights, interline flights and finally separate-ticketing flights with some external guarantee for connection, in terms of increasing complexity and opportunity for mishaps.

Third-party sites that send you tickets in advance are often better than the ones which will only send you ticket info a few days before departure. The ones that give you codes you can use on airline websites are better than the ones which are more opaque.

What I recommend anyone is just to be aware of what do to in case of problems during the trip, especially how to avoid costly mistakes. If you go on Elliot or similar consumer advocacy sites, it appears most serious loss of money happens when there are delays/cancellations and somehow somebody buys a new ticket out of pocket under a verbal promise of a gate agent or some code-share partner representative, without any written confirmation whatsoever. So have numbers and contacts at hand, and somehow a plan of what to do if your flight gets canceled or a connection is missed.

Excellent information, Andre! Thank you.

Seattle to Oslo, Norway, only 295$usd, at homecityflights.com, select home city Seattle, then select Europe/Norway/Oslo, there are also many low cost flights to be explored!

Wife booked trip to Berlin for March on Travelocity just last night.
$ 700.00 each, including hotel for 1 week.
It has 2 stops, but hey, for us, it's worth it.
We still arrive at 2p.m. the next day.
Used Travelocity for trip to Lisbon back in August for 1 week for $750.00 each including hotel.
No problems.