Help with connection times CDG to Venice and LGW to US

Be careful when booking flights that connect between two different airlines. If they are booked on the same ticket, then if you miss a connection, one of the airlines MAY assume responsibility for getting you on the next available flight for no extra cost to you...or they MAY NOT! It depends what kind of ticket it is.

I've not used Skyscanner to book flights - I always try to book directly the airline if possible, unless using a third party saves a lot of money or adds some benefit.

But I found this about Skyscanner - it's important for you to understand it:

https://help.skyscanner.net/hc/en-us/articles/206028971-What-does-it-mean-when-I-see-Non-protected-transfers-or-Self-transfer-flight-on-Skyscanner-

See if these are "Non-protected transfers" or "Self-transfer flights." If they are - YOU are on the hook for paying for a new ticket if you miss a connection! And that could be a very expensive last-minute one-way ticket from London to Oakland you'd be looking at. (The one from Paris to Venice would be less worrisome but still not nothing.)

If you want to do them as "self-transfers" you might as well book the tickets directly with each airline because booking them with Skyscanner or Kiwi doesn't offer you any other benefit (unless it's a lot cheaper that way). Price the tickets separately. (try Google Flights too.)

Trip insurance MAY cover the cost of a missed connection in the case of a self transfer - maybe. Check into it. Some credit cards offer it. (I never buy trip insurance.)

You might reduce the stress a little on the way home by spending the last night in London. See if you can book OAK-VCE / LGW-OAK as an open jaw that is "protected" in case you miss the connection in Paris - and book the easyJet flight yourself to London and spend the night. That could work.

I have actually done this sort of thing before and taken the risk of missing my connecting flights - and so far I've been lucky. I always have a plan B in mind (even if an expensive one) in case of a missed connection, so I'm prepared for it.

In your case, the layover in Paris on the way in doesn't look too bad to me - I've done quicker connections than that. (In Paris, you would have to go through immigration when arriving, and that could mean waiting in long lines.) But the 2:10 in London on the way home would be the most worrisome to me, personally.

But maybe both layovers might be too short?

You definitely need each of your first flights to arrive on time or you are likely doomed to be buying a new ticket, especially on the return trip.

Have you researched what terminal changes you have to make?

Have you checked the carry on size limits, size, weight and number, with each of the airlines to make sure you can carry on you bags?

Too scary for me.

I think using skyscanner is a good tool to find flights, but believe you should book directly with the airline. If you cannot get the trip on a single ticket, the risk of a missed connection is squarely in your wallet.

Good kenj, doing your homework before booking, so you won’t be coming here with a horror story afterwards. But...

In London, that’s not a connection. You are checking in for a completely new flight. You need to be there 3 hours before, so you aren’t even close.

As a wise woman, Janet, always writes here, you should be no more than a cab ride away from any highstake flight. So if you can’t afford the thousands a last-minute walk up ticket would cost you if your Milan flight is late or canceled, stay the night near Gatwick.

The last thing you should do is use a third party on-line booking. If any flight is late or delayed, no one will assume responsibility and you can kiss your money and maybe your vacation good-bye. Each will point the finger at the other.

So, perhaps it’s better to ticket one airline to and from Italy, booking directly. Indeed, the price can seem outragous in comparison, but if you budget between now and take off, I’m sure you can make up the difference.

You all have confirmed my fears. Unfortunately Norwegian only flies into Rome from Oakland and our tour starts in Venice. I thought a quick hop on a plane from another airport in Europe would be easier than trying to catch a train right after arrival or spending the first night in Rome. We are tight on time at the beginning on the trip. Also we were planning to end in Milan so I didn't want to train back to Rome to fly home.

I'll look at a round trip OAK-CDG and maybe cut Italy a few days short and spend them in Paris instead. I assume that on arrival I can find a flight from there to Venice with ample time to make it. These flights would save us ~$1500.00 so it seems worth it to figure this out.

Thanks for the helpful advice

There’s no reason not to fly from Rome to Venice and back Milan to Rome. At least you are in the right country, not separated by the Alps. Worse case scenerio, a walk up train or plane ticket would be less expensive than from France, and there are many more flights and planes from Rome than from Paris. No need to deal with CDG, a huge, cumbersome airport. But do Milan to Rome the night before, not the morning of.

Be aware that Venice is subject to fog. My husband had to be rerouted home from there after missing his CDG connection, but he was on one ticket. In fact, we missed our Rome connection last month due to weather, but again on one ticket. It’s not always sunny in Italy ;—)

Thanks. I didn't think about flying within Italy. Flying in from Paris seemed quicker and easier than a 4 hr train ride late at night after 15+ hrs on a plane.

Everyone's probably right that I should do the easy (expensive!) flights and leave hopping around Europe to the experts :)

Norwegian only flies into Rome from Oakland and our tour starts in Venice.

If this is your 1st time traveling around Europe then make this easy on yourself instead of flying to different countries and becoming your own flight-delay insurer.

Fly to Rome on day 0 and arrive on day 1 (overnite flight). Get a hotel for that night. Flights can be on time, they can be delayed, but its pretty likely they will arrive the day the are scheduled. Stay the night in Rome and your worries about missing the train or wasting hours waiting for it if you pad the schedule to account for flight delays disappear! Buy 90 days in advance a cheap ticket on the hi-speed train to Venice for the following morning, about a 4-hour ride.

On your return if you have to fly out of Rome then leave Milan the night before (3 hour ride) and again spend the night in Rome. You don't want to be on a delayed train from Milan while your flight leaves on time. With all day to get to Rome your worries about missing the flight out of FCO are gone.

I don't think you save much time flying within Italy. The flight is maybe an hour or so but you need to get to the airport in time for the flight, then from the destination airport to your city. Add in the extra times here compared to trains that go from the heart of the cities and it is a wash.

Venice is an expensive flight destination, but what about round trip Milan? In recent years, it has been less expensive.

You are right that low cost tix can require gymnastics if the depart and arrival airports aren’t what you need. We have a super cheap fare out of JFK coming up and it means changing airports, sleeping at our kids’ apt in Brooklyn, schleping on trains and the Airtrains...a lot of work. But it’s 2k cheaper.

So don’t give up; just measure your tolerance for gymnastics. Rome—> Venice is easy, as is Milan—> Venice. Venice—>Paris for your return is easy, too.

Just to be a devil's advocate against my own advice above: I checked out Skyscanner for next June for your proposed flights (random dates) and see similar flights to what you show above.

Indeed, most of them say "Self-transfer" in red to warn you...BUT, if you continue on to Kiwi for the purchase, they claim they DO protect you from delays! That means the airlines themselves would have nothing to do with it (unlike say two Delta flights on the same ticket, where Delta would take responsibility), but Kiwi would. Yet I have no idea what their "protection" might be? I also know nothing of their reputation or how difficult their "protection" might be to use if you miss a connection. You might seek out info on Kiwi and see how they are regarded, how they handle delays, etc. Might be worth it if you save a ton of money.

As for the train to Venice from Rome: I have in fact done that in the past after an intercontinental flight. It was a bit much, but I managed, and I would certainly do it to save a lot of money or avoid a risky connection in Europe.

Fog doesn't tend to affect the trains.

"Venice is an expensive flight destination, but what about round trip Milan? In recent years, it has been less expensive"

Everything seems to be around the same price with the exception of into and out of Rome on Norwegian. We can wait a bit longer but by then I'm sure the cheap flights will be gone.

I found this in my investigation of Kiwi. Things You Should Know Before Booking Cheap Flights on Kiwi.com She goes over what Kiwi is and spells out what they are supposed to cover. The actual legalese on Kiwi.com is many pages of very small type so who knows.

Thanks again for your efforts. If the people on this forum represent the people on the tours then I'm glad I booked with RS.

That's really interesting, Kenj.

Two important things stand out to me in the article about Kiwi:

• they'll only pay up to 2X the cost of the original flight for the new one
• you MUST contact Kiwi before booking any new flight.

That would make a tight return connection to the US (e.g. connecting in London with only 2:10 in between) more risky to me, because last-minute one-way flights to the US can be really expensive (or involve a lot of connections and unnecessary delay, not what most people really want at the end of a long trip, when they might need to get to work the next day or soon after).

But the inbound connection in Paris looks like a doable risk - because the 3:15 layover there is more reasonable, plus there should be plenty of later direct flights on to Venice that day no doubt, and I doubt they would cost that many hundreds of Euros more than 2X the cost of the original flight (the original flight from Paris to Venice, I mean). That's where an open jaw into Venice out of say London (or Rome) would make more sense to me, if you could find a good price for that, then book your own one-way flight the day before. (London hotels tend to be expensive, but it should be possible to find hotel deals on Priceline or Hotwire).

In regards to contacting Kiwi for flight delays - changes: You should probably expect to have a working phone with you and know how to contact them quickly when needed. (Do they have 24/7 customer service?) FYI, if you can get on WiFi at a European airport, Google Hangouts lets you make free voice calls to US phone numbers, even on WiFi, from a smart phone.

I'd be curious to know what you wind up doing!

What is written and what they do in reality once they have your money could be two different things. The Chris Elliott website is full of complaints about Expedia and all other third-party ticket sellers, airline mess ups, and car rental problems. This isn’t a travel agent but a ticket seller. You can call right now to see if anyone answers a phone.

Even travel agents can be risky when customers don’t check their history and credentials. See what happened to horsewoofie and her money in previous posts. Unless you know someone who has used this guarantee, you don’t know if they’d come through in a pinch.