Los Angeles to Pisa en route to Monterosso (Cinque Terre)

Look at Milan MXP for international flights. Then drive to Cinque Terre. That's what we did.
Or, fly to a city in Europe where Delta goes from US, then use skyscanner to find intra European flights to finish your trip, flying to Pisa or Genoa.

If you look at April/May 2018 you should get a reasonable idea of what will be available. ( using dates for June/July 2017 is no help because pretty much everything is gone for such short notice. Also be sure to input the correct number of passengers when you do your real shopping.... more than once I found a single seat available, but not the two I needed)

It looks like you could get to Rome, Milan or Florence, but not Pisa, with miles

Flying to Florence takes a LOT more miles than going to Rome or Milan.

Take a train to Monterosso, not a car

Use the search bar above to search for answers to your questions about trains to Monterosso from your possible origin points. Its a well covered topic

Pisa is small airport and all direct flights are from European cities.
You might have to buy a separate ticket instead trying to use of miles if your goal is to start your trip by flying into Pisa.
This has the list of European cities direct to Pisa.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pisa_International_Airport

The Florence train station is about 30 minutes by public bus or taxi from the airport. You could fly into Milan and train to Monterosso and start your Cinque Terre stay there and just short day trip to Pisa. Whatever you find cheapest.

Every day many direct trains run from Milano Centrale to Monterosso al Mare, the biggest of the 5 villages.

Hello Cathy:

Generally it is best to look into pricing around 5 to 7 months prior to departure. That is the time when you might get a good deal. Prices vary widely from the West Coast to Italy and depend on a lot of circumstances. This year I'm going with a great price (British Airways for about $750) from San Francisco at the end of June. But in the past few years it wasn't unusual to spend in excess of $1400 for a r/t to Florence.
Alitalia currently has a non stop from LAX to Rome FCO.
That is certainly an option at least currently. However Alitalia is undergoing some debt restructuring, so we'll see next year. Delta and Alitalia are partner with SkyTeam so you can certainly gain miles on your Skymiles by flying Alitalia. If you intend to use miles rewards with Delta, then you might be limited to whichever availability Delta has. Alitalia also flies from FCO to Genoa (GOA) and Pisa (PSA). Monterosso is half way between the two airports. So you could look into a flight LAX-FCO-GOA (or PSA). The train trip from Roma FCO to Monterosso is just over 5 hours, with 2 train changes (at Roma Termini and La Spezia). Whether it is best to train the train or connect to Genoa via air, then a train from Genoa, depends on timing, but those are the times. Monterosso is about 1.5 hours from Genoa. Flights from FCO to PSA are very limited in number, so you might as well take the train rather than wait for hours for the next flight to Pisa.

Another option is to fly non stop from LAX to Paris CDG (with AirFrance) or to Amsterdam AMS (with KLM). Then from either airport you can connect to Genoa (GOA) with the same airline.
AirFrance-KLM is the same company, also part of Sky Team, therefore partners of Delta.
Unfortunately AirFrance-KLM don't fly to Pisa anymore (although Transavia does from AMS). Pisa and Florence airports are now managed by the same airport company, and Pisa is largely specialized into a low cost airline hub, while the major airlines prefer to fly to Florence (no competition from Ryanair or Easyjet, which use Pisa as hub). I don't recommend to fly to Florence to go to the Cinque Terre, as there are too many train changes. Genoa is best, but Milan Malpensa (MXP) is almost just as fast as from Florence.

So, to recap, these are the options with Delta or its partners:
Alitalia (Delta partner) LAX-FCO-GOA then train from Genova to Monterosso (or directly by train from FCO to Monterosso, via Roma Termini and La Spezia)
AirFrance (Delta partner) LAX-CDG-GOA then train from Genova to Monterosso
KLM (Delta partner) LAX-AMS-GOA then train from Genova to Monterosso.
Delta: LAX-JFK (or ATL)-MXP then train from MXP to Monterosso (via Milano Centrale, and possibly Genova).

We covered some of this in a prior post.

Really, if cost is a factor and the best ticket prices are into Milan (Malpensa) then I'd just go with it. I'd take the Malpensa Express train to Centrale and then a direct train to Monterosso from there: only the one change at Centrale.

My husband and I were able to get business class tickets on KLM to Amsterdam this past May. After a few days in that lovely city, we then flew to Florence. Unfortunately our AMS-FLR flight was on Alitalia and the direct flight got cancelled (due to restructuring, I assume) -- we had to fly to Rome and then back to Florence which took all day. However the flight on KLM was superb.

You could also look into flying into LHR although most cheap flights from London to the smaller airports in Italy fly out of one of the other London airports. I think.

Aren't there flights from LAX to Madrid on Delta?

Good luck,

DD Traveler

Deidre.
Alitalia doesn't fly from AMS to FLR. Only KLM does.
So, what happened is that somehow your KLM flight was canceled or was missed, therefore KLM rebooked you with their partner airline Alitalia. However since Alitalia doesn't fly AMS-FLR non stop, they had to reroute you via FCO.

Roberto da Firenze -- I think you are correct. All I know is that a 1:30 pm two-hour flight became a 7:30 a.m. four hour flight (we had to get up in the middle of the night to get to the airport). And we only found out when we went to check in. I was not happy. But once we landed and continued the trip in Italy, we mostly forgot about it. It was a great trip.

DD