When to claim baggage for trip to Europe with connections

As long as your bags are tagged for Palermo, then you will get them in Palermo.

You have to see where the airline ticket agent tags the bag. It's all done by computers. If your baggage "tag" shows FCO you get it in Rome. If It says PMO then they are going to Palermo.

More than likely when you checked your bag in for your previous flight they put in the wrong airport.

Yeah, the standard is your bag is checked through to the final destination if all on one itinerary. The US is the only country I know that requires you to retrieve your bag, physically walk it through customs at the port of entry and, re-check for your connecting flight.

Of course, sometimes things go awry, like your previous flight.

Like Frank says, when you hand your bags over, the tag will tell you if it is going through to Palermo. If this is all on one ticket from your home airport, you might want see if your US carrier checks all the way through.

When you're checking your bag always look at the tag and get confirmation from the agent. Mistakes do happen.

I guess I don’t understand, are these 3 flights all on the same ticket? And if so, why not just check them thru on your first flight?

Yay, Margie, just what I was going to say!

We had this problem at CDG and were initially told by staff that the
bags would go through to Portugal. Later we learned that we should
have picked them up in Paris and then rechecked them (Same airline).

IMO, your airline was simply wrong. If you're flying on one ticket, your bag should be checked through to your destination, period, assuming you've paid for checked bags.

We will be flying into O'Hare to connect with a flight on ITA to Rome,
then to Palermo also on ITA. We plan to bring carry on bags. The size
of our carry on's meet US airline standards but probably not European
carriers such as ITA. So we will fly to O'Hare from our home city and
be able to use the overhead bins. When we get to O'Hare we will go to
the international terminal to catch the flight to Rome and check our
bags.

A la' Margie, I really don't understand why you would do carry-on initially if you're planning to check bags from O'Hare? Unless this is two separate tickets, you can check in your bag in your home city of departure all the way through to Palermo.

(Maybe you missed mentioning it's a separate ticket to O'Hare? In which case, I'd allow plenty of time to check in a bag and make your departure.... how many hours layover?

All on one ticket but 2 airlines When this happened to us before again same ticket same airline Air France We were told after the fact that we should have picked up our bags when we got to Europe and then recheck them for our next flight All on Air France

This is a discussion to have when you check your bags. Most of the time one ticket does not require collecting bags. I would just be very clear with your questions on check in.