flight costs to Italy from the Pacific NW

The best prices will be off-season, so, not summer. The extra bonus is that this is when it is also less crowded!

YES! Open jaw. The cost is a bit higher than a roundtrip, but worth it because you don't have to backtrack, so you gain time in Italy!
I like bestfares.com and hipmunk.com, but even Google has a good travel feature. If you type in Seattle to Milan, you can then scroll through the dates and see the various prices.
I just got an email from United Airlines that they have started offering sale prices to Europe for fall. I usually use the trial and error method (successfully) and use different combinations of cities until I find one I like. For example, Seattle to Milan, or Portland to Rome, etc. Always select "my dates are flexible" so you can see what different prices are available. Start with your most desirable and see if you can improve on it. You need to know what cities you want to go to, and how long you want to stay.

Try this one. The monthly calendar function works only for round trips but it will narrow it for open jaw (multi-city), but you can use the +/- 2 days function to fine tune.

http://matrix.itasoftware.com/

Absolutely do open jaw. We always do it and have not found it to be any more expensive than rt. You also save the expense of getting back to your arrival city and, sometimes, the cost of a wasted day and a night in a hotel near the airport. My daughter, who lives in Portland, has often bemoaned the fact that int'l flight options from PDX are limited. Maybe SEA would be better.

I wouldn't use a travel agent. You'll be paying them to do what is pretty easy to do yourself. In addition, to the search sites mentioned, we use skyscanner and kayak. However, we buy directly from the airlines. When using any sites, including the airlines', check the multi- cities or multi-destinations box to access open jaw prices. Don't look at two one-way flights.

We saved over $1,000 per ticket by flying out of Vancouver, BC instead of Seattle.

We booked last month for a flight two months away out of portland and we are flying open jaw, into one city out of another. I looked on travelocity and kayak and others to get general ideas of cost and and flight times. I actually booked at the individual airlines website. It was very interesting because I did check Seattle and Vancouver BC and different days of the week within about a month time frame (we are going for 3 weeks). I haven't looked back so I don't know what the ticket price is now but the day we left and the day come back were literally $200 cheaper than the day before and the day after. Weird but made it affordable to travel last minute. We are using condor airlines and even with having to pay for the price of the seat reservation each ticket was almost 500 less than comparable flights, meaning only one stop. Only downside i can see if the 6 kg carry on limit, 13 lbs, but you get one free checked back so we will check our bags.

We looked into using Vancouver as our departure point last year, but there were too many variables and associated expenses to make it worth the hassle. (How do you get there? If taking a car, you have to pay for parking and might hit horrible traffic at the border. If taking a train, you have to arrive the day before your flight. If you do that, you have to pay for lodging. And so on.)

However, if you could bookend a visit to Vancouver with your trip to Italy, that would be the way to go.

Definitely do open jaw. Lay out your itinerary in as much of a direct line as possible. Fly into one end of your itinerary and fly out of the other end.

Do use the matrix itasoftware link suggested above.

We put a premium on avoiding flights at ungodly hours of the morning or evening, so we're willing to pay more for that.

We flew out of Vancouver last summer to go to Ireland. Even with a night at a hotel and leaving our car at the airport, we still saved several hundred dollars.

Another vote for flying out of Vancouver, BC if you have the time. 1/2 the price of flying out of PDX last year. Even with an overnight in a motel, Vancouver is an easy airport to transfer in and out of (we've done it multiple times). We've found great deals on BA and KLM, although I'd rather make a change through Amsterdam than London. But for a little bit of inconvenience, the savings is hard to pass up.

Happy travels!

I'm going to echo the Vancouver suggestions. The savings were a little more than $800 for two us. We found a park and fly for $200 which includes a night stay, 3 weeks parking and shuttle service to/from the airport. So we still saw a $600 savings.

We are driving up to Vancouver a day before our flight to avoid any possible border congestion.

Have fun with your planning!

The other drawback of flying into and out of Vancouver if you live in Seattle is that you lose 1-2 days that could be spent instead in Italy. When we retire I imagine the Vancouver option will be much more tempting.

Look for flash sales also. United has cheap flights on some cities, and a couple weeks ago Emirates had a 2-4-1 sale. 2 people from Orlando to Dubai was only $622. They had into Milan for $950 for 2 people (So $475 each) quite a steal.

We live north of Seattle and fly out of Vancouver International rather than SeaTac. We just drive up and park in one of the off-airport lots that has shuttle service to the airport. Costs virtually the same as parking off-airport with shuttle at SeaTac. Savings per ticket usually amount to a few hundred dollars per ticket. Saved $1,000 when we flew to/from London out of Vancouver last year. Also, we found better flight options with times, frequency of non-stops, etc. We always compare the two but so far Vancouver has come out ahead. Happy travels!

My itineraries have been all over the map. I see quite a few DL flights from Portland. I don't normally go in summer, but am this year. My routing SEA - SJC (BA) - LHR - FCO. BA just started service from SJC and I got a great rate. My return FCO-LHR-SEA, but an overnight at LHR. Last year, SEA-.-MXP, same on return, but I can't recall where (maybe ORD). Year before I connected thru Schipol, had awful security experience, so I won't do that route again, most others thru Frankfurt and sometimes thru ORD. I've never done YVR.

I am a high level frequent flyer on a United and Alaska so I often get surprise upgrades, but the international upgrades are getting less frequent. Helps that I travel solo.

We are doing RT nonstop to London, then separately booking a flight from Heathrow to Rome, same day, allowing 4 hours for transition. This was a few hundred dollars cheaper per ticket than doing open jaw. Had to be sure we were flying out of the same airport we were flying into!

From Portland, I would use Delta and book an open jaw flight into the start of your trip and home from the end of the trip. This way you can fly straight to Amsterdam from Portland which will save many hours over connecting in another USA city.

What is an OPEN JAW?

Flying to Rome on a RS tour then leave from Naples to US. What's an average flight cost?

Gloria, Open Jaw means that instead of roundtrip air, you go from your home city to your destination city, then travel around over in Europe and leave from a different city to come home.

Hi Roxann- I just bought airfare with Lufthansa Airlines on Friday June 3rd for travel in Oct. 2016. I'm leaving Oct. 16th from Seattle arriving in Venice Oct. 17th (redeye) and returning Nov. 1st from Rome to Seattle (same day). My tickets were $685 ea. round trip which I thought was very good. Hope this helps.

We are flying out of Vancouver into Rome and then from Venice to Vancouver on the way back.

We were able to get a one way car rental through Costco from downtown Seattle Alamo with drop off at the Vancouver airport for under $60.

Our flight gets back in the evening so we got a room at a hotel for $100 a night.

A daughter is picking us up in Vancouver and driving us back home to Seattle. We saved over $1000 each flying out of Vancouver instead of Seattle. I was shocked at the savings.