Time between flights from Paris to Venice

If you're first flight is transatlantic, I'd suggest allowing at least three hours. The flight might come in late, you might encounter a long line for passport control (customs isn't the issue), you might wait for checked bags, and you might have to change terminals at CDG. Since you'll have separate tickets for the two flights, you won't be protected if you miss the second one.

This will be an independent booking, not a connection. You will have to check in again in Paris for your second flight. You therefore have to do the same as if you were exiting in Paris (Immigration - luggage reclaim- customs - exit to public area), then turn around, go to departures (possibly different terminal), and check in for your Venice flight, allowing for the airline's minimum check-in time.

1) Yes you will go though customs (as above), but that takes zero time. It isimmigration (aka passport control) that takes time, could be 30 minutes or 2 hours.
2) Find out the minimum check-in time for your second airline. Economy airlines are strict, one minute late and you miss your flight (no compensation).
3) Incoming intercontinental flights can be 1 hour late, depending on wind.

This is an unsecured connection. If you miss your next flight, you have no recourse.

Conclusion: Allow at least 4 hours.

There is no “safe” time. I have found CDG to be difficult at best and my minimum for a protected connection is 3 hours (although I have had airlines attempt to book me with less than 1 hour). You can’t control for flight delays, slow disembarkation, immigration lines, having to travel to another terminal. The consolation is the cheaper carriers are cheap so you won’t lose all that much money.

With our experience at CDG I would concur with others that closer to 4 hours MAY work. That said we spent 3.5 hours in Passport Control. It was such chaos that we have avoided CDG since. After reaching Passport Control our plane was boarding. From there we needed to take a shuttle bus to the next terminal, then run to the gate. Fortunately Delta held the plane for a number of us held up in PC. This delayed our flight by a half hour.

Conclusion: No guarantees.

Enjoy Venice!!

Why not just book a through connection to Venice? Booking separate tickets could be false economy. If your inbound flight is late and you miss the next flight, you will not be protected and have to book a new flight at full fare, which can be a lot more expensive for a "discount" airline than a ticket bought well in advance.

I agree that the minimum is 4 hours. What airline are you taking to CDG? If it is Air France, I encourage you to try to add a connection to the flight. The price difference may not be as great as you might think it will be. Last time I did it, the AF flight I took cost 20€ more than the closest easyJet flight and if I had chosen the late evening flight, the AF flight would have been cheaper.

Hi, Deborah. It looks like you are in ATL. I assume you are planning to fly Delta/AF to CDG. You didn't let us know when you will be traveling, but I was looking up random days in July (round trip July 11-25):

ATL to CDG (non-stop): $1271
ATL to Venice (non-stop): $1413

If you're flying in summer, I would happily pay the $140 per ticket to avoid a layover and connection (though prices may be different on the days you're looking or if you're looking at a different destination for return).

Sept is an even smaller difference (11th through 25th). $1474 vs $1494. Though pricey.

As a Delta customer in the pricey southeast who flies out of Greenville-Spartanburg (usually through Atlanta), I'll give you another strategy that I have used a number of times. Sometimes you can book a round trip from JFK for substantially less than ATL (like $600-$1200 less) with a sale or with a lengthy advance purchase; then just purchase a ticket from ATL to JFK that gives you plenty of buffer to get into NY and home from NY.

Finally, if you have plenty of time before your trip, patience and daily fare checking will sometimes produce a whopper of a deal. Usually this will not happen on Delta, though, if you are less than 120 days out from your departure.

Thanks everyone for your helpful suggestions. We will allow four hours between flights. Hopefully, we will make our next connection. We are using mileage points to fly directly from Atlanta to CDG in September. We will find a European carrier from Paris to Venice.

Rick Steves rocks!

On Thursday 4/18 we are connecting to a separate Air France flight from CDG to Venice (Boston to Paris is on Delta using miles). In this case we used the so-called pay with miles option, which does not allow for flights on a non-Delta branded flight. We have almost five hours to connect to the Venice flight. I will report back on how it goes.

Deborah, I assume you're saying that no flights to Venice, either direct or connecting, were available with your mileage points. But if you didn't actually investigate that question, then it might still be worth asking.

I did not have enough miles to redeem for Venice. Thanks.

Do you have enough for Rome? That way you could get a train to Venice. They even have a couple of direct ones every day. Flying through CDG is headache. Unless you are working your way back to Paris from Venice.

Another option is to buy the tickets onward to Venice at the same time you book your ff miles tickets. That way your luggage will be checked through to Venice and you could protected if your inbound is delayed.

Some people have said that if you buy the separate CDG-Venice ticket on a Skyteam partner (i.e. Air France) that the gate agent at your US departure airport my check your bags all the way through to Venice. We considered this (see above posting), but decided to check bags for the Boston-Paris flight, collect them in Paris, and check in for the Paris-Venice journey. We may change our minds if the plane is late leaving from Boston.

Bob... I look forward to your report (as I pull your dagger out of my heart).

Thanks Bob. We look forward to hearing from you about checking through with you Air France flight.

I am reporting on our experience connecting at CDG to a separate flight. The plan was to leave five hours between a Boston to Paris flight on Delta and an Air France flight from CDG to Venice.

Here are the results:

Delta BOS - CDG flight left on time at 7 pm on Wednesday 4/17 and touched down at CDG at 7:37 AM Paris time. It took another 20 minutes to deplane and take a shuttle bus to to terminal 2F. Immigration required 40 minutes, and the rest of the process (baggage claim, checkin with Air France, security) consumed one hour.

The total time from touchdown to arrival at the next gate was two hours. The CDG - Venice flight was 20 minutes late, so we had a cushion of close to three hours.

The earlier CDG - VCE flight was at 11 AM, which might have been tight if anything had gone wrong,

However, I have always found that things click when it is not necessary. Give me a tight schedule when I need everything to work -- and it doesn't. I have done what the OP proposes but often with wide time lines. Then on our last trip two years ago the original flight from the US was cancelled after a five hour delay. Lost the on-going ticket because it took two days to get rescheduled. Always a risk.

For the OP: definitely look at which terminal you are arriving at and departing from. CDG is huge, and getting from one part to another can take a lot of time. Don't be fooled by the fact that lots of stuff is in "terminal 2." Terminal 2 has 2A through 2G, and each one is the size of a small town airport! Furthermore, 2G cannot be accessed by foot, but you must take a shuttle, so if you're running late, you can't even run.

The Easy CDG website has directions for getting between the various terminal (note that since you'll be on separate tickets, you must transfer "landside" rather than "airside"): http://easycdg.com/airport-guide/travel-between-terminals-move-around-paris-cdg-airport/

Do see if your miles will get you to Rome or Milan (great idea from Sam). A last minute domestic train ticket within Italy will be cheaper than a last minute plane ticket from CDG to VCE, and in addition there are multiple trains an hour, so it's logistically easier as well.