I've started checking on flights for late March 2018. I've been checking on Google Flight, Matrix, and the airlines itself. What's the best way to go about this? Any input on lay overs? What airports to avoid and what airlines do you suggest? I've read bad reviews on Iberia which works together with AA.
Thank you.
Forget reviews. You will find that The price and time it takes you to get somewhere and then your actual experience don't give reviews any value..For example we flew United to Rome but my naive friend who never travels and believes stuff she reads on the internet was worried the whole time before we even booked the trip that they were going to pull her out of the seat like they did that customer that made national news.
It turned out that she had a great flight.
To tell you the truth I find it is a good idea to sign up with an airline sites to receive alerts about sales.
Otherwise simply use googleflights.
Your airport Miami flys direct to Rome. Why not just buy direct no layover roundtrip to Rome and take the train to Venice and back.
Simple. But it may not be the best price
Direct flights are the best if you can get them. Schedule and, for many, price, are more important than other factors such as which airline. I'd rather take a direct flight on an airline I'm not crazy about than a longer one with a connection (and a chance to miss it if I'm late) on an airline with a better reputation. But if the direct flight is 2X the cost? Maybe not.
Google Flights and the others let you add email alerts when prices go down. I'd pick your optimal flights - direct or best connections -then add the alerts and wait.
I have done the "direct to Rome, train to Venice" before. It worked for me, but it's not always the best approach. Sometimes it is. It's worth considering.
I have flown Iberia and had a good experience. As for layovers, make sure you have sufficient time to catch your next flight. If you fly from Miami to Charlotte and then on to Rome, 2 hours is plenty of time barring flight delays. However, if you fly Miami to Madrid to Rome, 2 hours might not be enough time because you have to clear immigration and customs. If you don't care which airline you fly, I would select the flights based on price/length of time. I wouldn't want to sit in an airport somewhere for 10 hours to save $50. I have flown American, British Airways, Lufthansa, Qantas and Iberia on international flights. I have no qualms flying any of them again. If you find suitable flights for less than $600, that's a pretty good deal in my opinion. Airlines will also have periodic sales, especially around Thanksgiving.
There are few airlines that I avoid as though they are the plague. Alitalia is one, though perhaps Etihad has turned service around, if not the business. Turkish Airlines is another, though it's largely because I'm mystified by flying from the US to 'Stanbul to get to anywhere east of 'Stanbul. Oh, and flying home from 'Stanbul is a loooong flight, though direct to Chicago.
I forget if it's Hipmunk or Skyscanner that offers a "misery" index of flights and connections, factoring airplanes, layover length, layover place, flight segment length, departure and arrival misery.
With a trip planned for March, not normally a peak period, you have a very good chance of scoring a good deal by watching fares diligently between now and December. Decide what would be a great fare on an itinerary with as few stops as possible and grab it if you see it.
I echo the others in saying that price and elapsed travel time are far more important to me than the airline, though I stick to major carriers, avoiding the European equivalent of our US commuter airlines. Flying overnight is a pretty miserable experience; flying for 15 hours overnight is considerably worse than flying for 12 hours.
It might be worth your while to watch prices into Milan as well as into Venice. From some origins Milan commonly runs a lot cheaper, and you may find (I haven't checked) that you can get to Milan with one less stop than will be required for Venice.
I recommend avoiding any itinerary that will require separate tickets going or coming. That sort of thing leaves you vulnerable if there's a delay on the first leg, because if you miss flight #2, you'll be buying--and paying for--tickets on a replacement flight. I would only cobble together a multi-ticket itinerary if I saved a great deal of money (perhaps $500 or so per person), because for anything else I would consider the risk not worth it.
Edited to add: The conventional wisdom seems to be that Paris CDG and London LHR are harder to change planes at than Frankfurt, Amsterdam and Dublin. I have consciously avoided tight commections at CDG and LHR because of those warnings, but I wouldn't pay a lot of money or add 4 hours to my travel time to avoid them.
While not from Miami, I just recently purchased two (2) round trip tickets from Orlando to Milan in early April 2018 for $567 per ticket. These were purchased through American Airlines with two stops on the outbound (MCO-MIA-LHR-LIN) and return (LIN-MAD-MIA-MCO).
One flight on the outbound portion is operated by British Airways. Two flights on the return portion are operated by Iberia. I thought it was a good deal even with the two stops (now the same tickets are selling for $1500 per person). I was alerted to the low fares by Google Flight.
I generally like to fly straight to Europe without layovers in the US first. That cuts travel time considerably, especially from the West Coast. Also I prefer to have my home airport as the first port of entry in the US, since Federal refs require that is where you do customs in the US.
American/Iberia via MAD (MIA-MAD-VCE return FCO-MAD-MIA) is the first place where I would look at. AA also flies non stop MIA-MXP, and Milan is not too far from Venice. Other than that, check Kayak or Google.
Thank you so much, I do appreciate all the input. I will keep an eye out on flights and not worry about the reviews. I did see the AA flights via Madrid. I'll check out the Milan flights as well.
Thanks again.
