Flight Frustrations...any masterminds out there?

Are you trying to book with the multi-city function or two one ways? (Use the multi city.)

If a third party site is selling for less than the airlines, I would be leery. Some book them as separate tickets when you think it's one, and others use FF miles they buy off people. The trick with FF miles is against airline's rules and if they find out they will cancel all tickets on the reservation. You don't get a refund.

I'm trying to understand your problem. I went to UA's website and saw plenty of connections. Is your concern the price?

Also, forget you picking a connecition city. You keep mentioning Milan. Why? See what the airlines are offering. As an example, a good connection on the days you want see you connecting in Munich going and Frankfurt coming back with a UA/LH connection.

Why are you picking a connecting city, like Milan? Just use google flights, start with your home departure airport, and pick your destination, and let it give you ideas on how to get there and back.

Second, Kayak is not your friend, stop using it. Kayak is particularly bad on the pricing it shows for flights. Let me guess: you aren't finding the great Kayak price on the airline sites? I quit using Kayak a decade ago...

Instead, I use google flights exclusively for research. Two days ago, sitting on my couch, I got a price alert, a 20 percent drop on flights I have been monitoring for the last month for a December trip to France. I went straight to the airline website, bought the tickets, and the price I paid was exactly the same as what google flights indicated. And in recent years of flying (since the pandemic), I can't think of a single time the google flights price wasn't exactly what I paid on the airline site. You do have to act quickly on those dynamic pricing things, be prepared to pull the trigger quickly.

Thanks for your responses!

I mainly use Google Flights - but was doing some comparison on Kayak.

When I put in directly from Houston to Catania or Palermo to Houston/Corpus Christi, I was continuing to get connections in major cities. I read somewhere to see which major city could be a "base" & go from there. I realize the benefit of booking flights that are all connected - but honestly when I do that, the price jumps a lot...compared to if I book them separately with a large buffer (which I realize is a risk).

I would not book on a secondary booking site - I will only book on the actual airline - but my confusion has been the Google flight options listing those airlines, then I go in & the pricing is significantly more.

Sorry this is all confusing - there are a lot of options I'm playing with to try to maximize the $$ while also making our flight plan not too crazy (rhetorical question - why do they even think you could make a transfer in Philly in 39 minutes? hahah!)

Thank you - I will play with it a bit more this evening & also see what I can do in talking with United to try to combine the ITA flights.

For your best routes and price, you might be looking to far out. I would consider waiting until Oct/Nov/Dec timeframe for booking. Example, we fly to Europe every year in the March/April timeframe. Delta has a non-stop flight from Tampa to AMS where we make our connecting flight, but for dates in March the non-stop flight is not posted yet.

Once I find a route, I like to use google price tracking to get updates. I have also contacted the airlines when I cannot find the matching price on their website. I tell the representative what price I am seeing, and they have always been able to find that price. Good luck!

I'll just echo that lots of separate flights can increase the chances of something going wrong. I would watch the multi-city itinerary of Houston to Catania and Palermo to home, both via Munich if possible, and buy when it is at a cost you can live with. Roughly 2.5 hours in Munich is stress free. I get more antsy about Frankfurt after a few close calls there.
I have only had one problem with Lufthansa but I check my info religiously now and continue to fly with them--they usually have the best routes to places I want to go, but when they codeshare with United that is preferable.

Libby, good that you are using the main site to book, but I know that kayak pulls up third party sites like "cheapoair" and such, and I seem to remember seeing a DEAL on kayak, but it was ONLY pulling up basic economy on a codeshare company because the codeshare didn't have "main cabin" categories.....google flights only pulls from the official sites, with their clearly understandable fare names.

I agree with Munich and 2.5 hours, I had one flight though that the incoming was WAY delayed and they stopped the plane on the tarmac (before we pulled up to the terminal) and a van pulled up, someone got on and asked for 6 passengers (me!) and they took us DIRECTLY to the next plane, didn't even set foot in the airport!

I guess booking separately (if it's the day before, it seems less likely to screw up) can keep the costs down for the "premium economy" part....

Why Milan and not Rome? We flew from Boston to Rome to Palermo (because Lufthansa cancelled our Boston to Munich flight after delaying it for 4 hours and they rebooked us for the next day on ITA) and then from Catania to Munich to Boston on Lufthansa. I believe there are some new nonstop flights from the east coast of the U.S. to Sicily but they might only be in season. Google tells me Delta from JFK and United from Newark. Lufthansa comfort class was nice but the 17lb carryon allowance is an issue for me. I need about 23lbs for 2 weeks.

Hi Libby

A couple of things:

• I've noticed that neither Google flights nor Delta likes it if I try to search for a multi-city flight with more than two variables. For example, if you fly IAH to CTA, then PMO to IAH on the return, you will find bookable flights. You said that you've been trying to book IAH to CTA, PMO to Corpus Christi.
• We went to Sicily around the same time a year and a half ago. I found that there were fewer flights available then as opposed to summertime. So, if you can adjust your return flight by a day, flying home either Tuesday or Thursday, you might find more options.
• We ended up buying flights to Rome (FCO), staying a few days, and on our return we flew separate tickets also to AMS, staying two nights. So, our Delta flights were to FCO with a return from AMS. Separate tickets to and from Sicily. But that may not work for you time-wise.
• Finally, as someone else suggested, we purchased our tickets right after Thanksgiving when they had the Cyber Monday sale. We flew Premium Select.
• Here is my Trip Report, in case you want to glance at it. Hope this helps!
• https://community.ricksteves.com/travel-forum/trip-reports/trip-report-february-march-in-italy

Thanks so much for everyone! I truly appreciate your insight & experience! This is only the second overseas trip I have booked & with trips in general, I tend to book the flights & then start working on everything else. I will wait a bit to book & will set some different alerts within Google to see what can come up!

I knew this community would help!

Not a solution, but I do sympathize. I could not actually find a way to get flights on one ticket from where I live to Sicily when I tried a couple of years ago. Despite all the code shares etc, it just would not provide me with an option ( Or if it did I've forgotten and it was really expensive) And I didn't want to risk a flight being missed with separate tickets.
In the end we took direct flights to and from Rome. We actually trained from Naples to Taormina and then flew from Palermo to Rome 3 days early on Ryannair. We had 14 nights total in Italy, did 9 in Sicily. It looks like you only have 11 nights?. Just a thought, you can probably easily fill that with just Sicily without going to Malta.

Lisa - Thanks so much! Absolutely agree we could spend the entire time in Sicily! We have friends from Malta & I'd like to go over even for a couple of days & see it, since I'm not sure when we will be back that far south. I have considered just doing one side of Sicily, too - like maybe just focusing on the east side. I think this is the part that wants to be able to just make the flights soon - so I can stop brainstorming options in my head! Haha!

I think this is the part that wants to be able to just make the flights soon - so I can stop brainstorming options in my head! Haha!

First rough out your itinerary until you comfortable with it. If you are going to do Sicily and Malta make sure you have travel days built in for that part of your trip. Remember itineraries will change once you get into planning. Then start shopping for flights.