Flights from Amsterdam to Rome

In looking at http://www.flylc.com, which lists all of Europe's budget airlines and lets you search by airport, it doesn't look like any of the smaller airlines even offer direct flights between Amsterdam and Rome. That means either paying the $800 to the major airline, or finding an intermediate place to fly into.

How about flying from Amsterdam to Venice, and then taking the train (about 4.5 hours) down to Rome?

Meridiana has a non-stop from Amsterdam to Florence. Their website shows a one-way fare for March 2009 (May not yet available) of EUR 129.40 (about $185). It would be easy to get to Rome from Florence airport. Look into open jaws to Amsterdam and back from Rome, and then buy a separate ticket for the flight within Europe.

Barbara - Sorry to hear my reply to your private message didn't work. You asked what "open jaws" means. It's a ticket where you fly into one city and back from another. The airlines price these tickets more like a round trip than 2 one-way fares. Typically, the cost is half of each fare - e.g. half the US to Amsterdam fare plus half the Naples (or Rome) to US fare. You may connect on your return through Amsterdam, but not necessarily. I've used open jaws on several trips to avoid the time and cost of having to backtrack. You can do a search (box at upper right) for open jaws and get more feedback. Hope this answers your question.

Barbara: Looks like even the Helpline Transportation Gurus can't find a budget/low cost airline that flies Amsterdam to Rome. I'm not one of the gurus but I couldn't find a budget airline that makes that exact trip, either, which surprised me at first. There must be a reason for that, but I don't know what it is. Anyway, that tells you that you weren't missing something obvious when you couldn't find one.

Check trains from Amsterdam to Paris and then Easy jet to Rome. We did the train leg to Paris, it was fast and then Easy Jet to Nice. The plane was fast and very cheap. By combining trains and cheap flights. you should get from Amsterdam to Rome costing much less than the price you were given. It will take more travel time but could be fun.

Unfortunately, Amsterdam is poor pickings when it comes to discount airline flights to anywhere. About as close as you will get is Ryanair from Eindhoven to Rome Ciampino. Eindhoven is about a 90 minute drive from Amsterdam, and there is a bus that makes the run to Eindhoven airport. Just make sure you leave in lots of time to make Ryanair's checkin deadlines. See http://www.airexpressbus.com for shuttle details.

I figured if I served up a challenge, our Transportation Gurus would come up with a little something extra. And it only took em 15 minutes--I told ya these guys are good.

Thanks, everyone, for your advice! I'll check it all out. I was able to find a British Airways flight from Amsterdam to Rome for $212 one way, which is a whole lot better than $800. I'll keep looking.