Plane tickets

I fly from the back of beyond, lol - A small Western airport that ONLY has flights to Salt Lake City. I've not flown to Italy recently but I usually wind up somewhere between $1200 and $1600 to London, Paris, Amsterdam in Economy Comfort. This last year to Paris I would up with tickets at around $1,000 which I thought was miraculous.

I'd not go for the $2500 ones but I'd probably go for the $1500 ones if the flight times/layover times were good AND if it was on my airline of choice with Economy Comfort seats. I also am not a huge bargain hunter. I want what I want and I'm willing to pay for it and forget it, if that makes sense. I also never go back to see what the flight costs are after I've purchased.

I'll also say this about Delta which is my usual choice as they are the connection flight out of my home airport. If I am getting $2500 rates for a flight that is 8 or 9 months out they will go down. $1500, probably not.

What site are you using? I assume you are using a travel aggregator like Kayak?

Have you considered playing the credit card points game?

Where are exactly are you flying from and how much leeway do you have to fly from a major airport, assuming you are not near one now (I can't imagine those fares from anything but smaller or minor airports)? A "reasonable price from the US" to Italy is really not a relevant question (it is too broad) because airline tickets are priced based on the exact origin (US airport) and exact destination (Italian airport). So please state which origin-destination pair you are considering. And consider whether there is a lot of competitive pressure on that route (multiple airlines vying for customers). Large competitive markets that funnel the most passengers and also have budget carriers are correlated with better fares (LAX, JFK, PHL, FCO, etc). And the more leeway you have with regard to carrier, dates, times, and itineraries will also help.

I book when I find a price I'm comfortable with, and no sooner. I track fares over months using comparison sites so I have a good feel for them.

Are you proficient with comparison tools like Kayak, Google Flights, etc.? Or are you using a travel agent for this?

tmalave, there are no direct flights from Kansas City. For the last few years, "normal" fares R/T to any of the major European destinations hover around $1200-1500 USD for main cabin economy. Sometimes the rare sale will come up with a fare of $700-800 USD and three years ago it was as low as $500. But only for a brief window of time. The best sales we've seen have been on Delta and were available the week before Thanksgiving.

It's hard to say when you don't say where you are flying from, but I would tend to agree that those are expensive tickets. I use the Minneapolis airport and cannot fly direct to Italy. We were just there in October. The tickets tend to fluctuate a lot. I purchased mine about 4 months in advance and we actually flew into Zurich for a big savings, but I've noticed since that Rome has been more reasonable. I flew Delta and the tickets were around $980. At one point round trip in and out of Rome was about $1500. I have never paid more than about $1100 for tickets to Europe.

I search flights on skyscanner.com, book with the airlines directly. Let's say you are wanting flights from Italy to Sicily or Sardinia. You enter IT to IT and scroll down to the particular airport. Or IT to Greece or Spain; or an airport to "everywhere."

What is your home airport?
A lot depends on competition in your home airport.
For example from my home airport (SFO or OAK) on the West Coast I would consider $1100-$1250 a decent price for the time period you are considering (that is when I generally go to Italy and is the most expensive time to go). Generally one layover required.
I’ve never spent more than $1,600, and that was in summer on a family emergency trip I purchased the day before.
But SFO/OAK/SJC is a very competitive market.

Thank you to all that have responded. We fly out of San Juan, Puerto Rico. So only European direct flights are on Iberia, and not every day of the week. So have to fly out of the east coast of the US.

We purchased tickets about 9 months out for an October 2018 trip to Italy.
Each ticket for that trip was under $950.00.

Our local "international" airport on the FL gulf coast has direct flights to nowhere, basically, except for the airline hub cities like ATL, DFW, CLT, etc.

We flew into Trieste and out of Rome.
We had stops in Houston and Munich going, then Frankfort and Houston returning.
Since the "international" designation of our airport is a joke, I feel like anything under $1k per ticket round-trip to Italy is a deal.

only European direct flights are on Iberia

No, there's one more. Condor also flies Saturdays to Frankfurt from San Juan, then on to Rome from there. About $1140 RT for leaving June 20 returning July 11.

Rome is not one of the biggest markets from the US, those are London, Paris, Amsterdam, and Frankfurt, so those cities, and then Dublin and Reykjavik due to discount airlines, are the 6 cheapest cities to fly to (barring some special sale going on). Milan is often cheaper than Rome.

I just bought tickets for the whole family.

I am at midwest USA. If I price a flight from here to Rome, the price is ~$1300 for mid June with one stop. Yet I paid $330 from origin to LGA (RT), and then $409 from JFK to Rome (RT). I know it's a hassle to take the bus from LGA to JFK, but when I multiple the saving with the number of people in the family, it's worth the hassle (for us).

Are you within a few hours of a bigger airport? Sometimes it’s much cheaper and even faster to drive a few hours to get a direct or one stop in Europe flight. For example, Indianapolis to Chicago. Buffalo to Toronto.

From Chicago I’m generally looking at $900 or so. I consider anything under $1000 good from the US in summer. I have gotten lucky with fares under $700. Also, my situation is such that I sometimes get to fly out of Toronto or NY, which are significantly cheaper.

Never mind - I see you are in Puerto Rico. No driving to other airports there! Are there cheap flights to Miami? You could go a day ahead of time to Miami, stay overnight, and get a flight from MIA to Italy. I’ve only flown from there in spring but I seem to remember it being reasonable.

My daughter and husband live in Atlanta and Delta rules which makes flights to Europe expensive. They are coming down to South Florida and flying out of Miami to Madrid. Then taking an unconnected flight for $50 four hours later to Rome. It was $250 cheaper to do that than flying from Miami to Rome and about a $1000 cheaper than out of Atlanta. Now they have their flights (about $200) to South Florida on top of that but still much cheaper. But a lot of messing around so depends on how you value your time versus your money.

Hello
I live in Charlotte, which is a major AA hub. I’m going to italy this summer and started paying attention this summer. The nonstop flights out of CLT have been $1000+ and I ended up finding a great deal out of JFK for $400 ea.
So, what I did is use air miles to fly from CLT to JFK the day before my flight to FCO. With the added travel to New York, I still come out ahead because I need to buy 4 tickets for my family.
It’s a little frustrating that I could fly door to door from my home airport. But oh well. A little inconvenience goes a long way in this case.

Maybe you could find a similar deal?
Good luck!