Flights US to Venice recommendations?

I'd opt for flying into Venice unless it was cost-prohibitive (which it might be), because combining a flight to Rome or Milan with a train on to Venice creates scheduling challenges. You just don't know whether your flight will land on schedule and how long it will take you to clear Immigration. If you wait until you land to buy a train ticket (not a crazy idea--use the Trenitialia or Italo app), you'll almost certainly be paying the full base fare for the trip. That's not a minor cost. If you buy the train ticket ahead of time to save money and you miss that train, the ticket is worthless. The train company doesn't care that it wasn't your fault. To cater to this possibility, a prudent traveler pads the schedule a lot, allowing perhaps 4 hours between scheduled flight arrival and train departure time. That makes for a long day following the overnight flight. In addition, it's easy to fall into the trap of looking at the travel time from Milan or Rome to Venice, ignoring that you'll actually be traveling from the airport rather than the center of the city. That adds extra time.

By comparison, if you fly into Venice on a single airline ticket with a change of planes somewhere, the airline is responsible for getting you to Venice if a flight delay causes you to miss your connection. You won't have to buy a new airline ticket. (This would not be the case if you bought a separate airline ticket, just from Milan or Rome to Venice; don't do that.)

I'd even pay a small premium to put the connection stateside, flying United or American directly into Venice.

*and I say that knowing the US airlines aren't usually my first choice.

I am taking the Best of Adriatic Tour in Sept and am flying into Venice on British Airways through London.

Acraven's advice is excellent, it would be safer and easier to fly directly to Venice from somewhere. If I can't fly nonstop from Seattle, I usually try to fly first to a European hub and then connect, on the same ticket, with a flight to my destination. That way, if the first flight is delayed, I have a lot more options from a European airport than from a US one.

Like Carol, I flew from Seattle to Venice via London Heathrow on British Airways. Unfortunately that meant an 8-hour layover at LHR when I did it several years ago. I sprang for a lounge pass and spent most of that time pretty pleasantly though sleep-deprived. It was close to midnight when I landed in Venice, and I spent that first night near the airport, which I think was a smart move. Hopefully you'll be able to find flights with a shorter layover (3-4 hours to be on the safe side).

I do not know what airport is your “home” airport for flights to Europe, but it may be less expensive and simpler to fly into Milan, spend the night there, and then take the train to Venice the following day. That way, you could buy your train tickets well in advance, and get them for 10 or 20 euro (those are Italo prices I see for advance purchase). You would have your arrival day in Milan to explore a bit, walk around to start your jet-lag recovery, and get to bed in time for a good night’s sleep.

But the main reason I am suggesting this option is that, after numerous trips to Venice, we much prefer to arrive by train instead of plane. The trip from Marco Polo airport into Venice itself is not particularly scenic or exciting, unless of course you opt for the very expensive water taxi ride. Otherwise, you have a long journey across the lagoon in the Alilaguna boat, which in our experience always has dirty windows, or a non-scenic bus ride overland and across the causeway to Piazzale Roma, where you can board the vaporetto for the pleasant journey down the Grand Canal to your hotel.

But if you arrive by train, you disembark and walk directly out of the station to a glorious view—-the Grand canal right in front of you. Pause at the top of the steps to take it all in, the follow the ramp snaking down to the piazza level—-very easy with wheeled luggage. But you your vaporetto tix and then enjoy the ride down the Grand Canal from there.

We are looking at the RS Venice,Florence,Rome tour later this year and wanted to arrive a few days ahead of time. After thinking about it more we decided that we would like to spend our time getting over jet lag in Rome rather than Venice. After 2-3 days seeing the things in Rome that aren’t on the tour such as a food tour we would take a train into Venice the day before. Add to that we can get a nonstop plane from Dallas to Rome so that will be our choice if we decide to go.
I am opting to make everything as easy as possible, yet make the most of our time..

These are all great suggestions! We are flying out of Chicago and price of ticket wasn't of concern as much as ease and length of flight. Worried about missing a connecting flight, that sort of thing. Wondering if better to spend on night in Milan as suggested and then train. We have booked an extra night in Venice as suggested before out tour starts, might not be bad idea to add one more.
Simply considering all the options. Thank you for all the suggestions. I know have some options to ponder.

We flew into VCE direct from Atlanta a few years ago. Just here to say landing in Venice around 9:00 am and taking a water taxi to our hotel was a fantastic, invigorating almost surreal experience! A great introduction to the city.

For me, I purposely want as direct routing as possible...considering the long flights, jet lag, and just the connection issues (i.e. on time, do you check a bag, etc.). Ultimately, Coming from PDX, I try to make it only 1 connection if possible. I try to avoid LHR and CDG. Best experience has been AMS.

I agree with Melinda - flying from Detroit to Venice our best experience was Delta's A350 to AMS and continuing on to Venice on the same ticket using KLM. The DTW>AMS operates like clockwork and has never presented problems. There are multiple KLM flights from AMS to Venice in the unlikely instance that the transatlantic is late and we miss the originally scheduled flight. And...they have to get us there sooner or later.

I'd never do a connecting flight in the US . I'd be concerned that the more frequent passenger outbursts of insane behavior would cause us to miss the transatlantic.

We traveled to Padua first for a few days and then returned to Venice via train. It's a great entry point!

My wife and I are also doing an Italy My Way Tour in September. We are flying Delta from Seattle to Amsterdam and then on to Venice, with a 3 hour layover in Amsterdam. My wife did a lot of research into the best airport for a connecting flight and AMS was consistently mentioned as one of the best.

I just booked yesterday a roundtrip Boston to Venice. I wanted to make sure I changed planes state side. I did have several options but went with United. Boson to Newark, Newark to Venice. I left plenty of time connection wise.

Last time we traveled to Italy our connection went through Germany. We missed our connecting flight to Sicily because our flight leaving Boston was late, and then we had to go through customs in Germany. That experience was a nightmare. Now , I would rather connect here in the states. and go through customs at my destination.

We’ve flown into Milan and taken the train and, most recently, have flown into Venice. I highly recommend flying into Venice. We had lost a piece of luggage on our Milan flight and getting it delivered to Venice was not easy. Most recently we flew Air France from Chicago via Paris. It was easy and Air France had multiple flights each day to Venice….in the event of a late arrival from Chicago.

When I booked my flight, there were no directs into Venice. So, at the time we decided to fly into Milan, stay one night and fast train the next day into Venice. I’ve never been to Milan, so I’m looking forward to seeing The Last Supper and just the city itself. We are only staying in Venice 2 nights, so this way we will be refreshed from a nights sleep as we disembark from the train. The last time we went, we flew into Venice and took the water taxi, which was worth it to us. But I’m hopeful, like Lola mentioned above, the view disembarking from the grand hotel is worthwhile and we will take a taxi to our hotel anyway, as we are staying close to St. Mark’s.

You can fly nonstop from Atlanta / Philadelphia to Venice. If the price is right do it.

we will take a taxi to our hotel anyway, as we are staying close to
St. Mark’s.

I assume you mean a water taxi? There are no street taxis in Venice proper.
Or you might mean vaporetto?

I meant a water taxi.

We are also on a Sept - Oct My Way Tour of Italy. Which date are your tour - are we on the same tour?
Flying from Minneapolis to Amsterdam to Venice.
There are no direct flights from Minneapolis to Venice.
Rome to Paris to Minneapolis on the return flights. We picked our flights based on Connection time and departure times.
Using both Amsterdam and Paris worked best for us

Our tour is Sept. 20-Oct 2nd. I think we are looing to book a United flight, Chicago to Newark NY(connection 1 1/2 or less) then direct to Venice. Arriving 9 am in Venice. We decided to fly Sat. Sept. 17th-get there a few days before the trip and they add an extra day at the end. I badly wanted to visit Orvieto, and the extra day will help us do a day trip there before flying home. All the advice has been appreciated and can't wait to travel.