Milan much cheaper than Rome from San Francisco

Set up Flight Alerts on Google Flights and track the prices. You can also research flight fluctuations on this site. Good luck!

Pat, thanks for suggestions. For some flights back a long return layover scenario, but not all. Not sure when we are going, but I like to have preliminary research in motion.

Yes, different airports even in the same country can have very different prices, but choosing the cheapest is sometimes a false economy. You need to figure in the time/cost of getting to your actual destination from the cheap entry point.

This is also a consideration when deciding between round-trip and open-jaw (multi city).

On Google Flights you can plug in destinations, and then view the prices every day for the month, each month, thru May 2024 now. That's how I just found out great Business Class fare for flights for April 2024. Prices can vary greatly within the same week.
Then pick some dates and set up prices alerts, that will notify you as the prices go up and down. Always book directly with the airlines, tho, not thru a third party. Good luck!

Hi Rob,

We got great price tickets to Milan last year so we took the train from Milan to Rome, and then from Naples back to Milan. Train travel in europe is great. Airfare varies considerably; from what I can tell, prices to Rome are generally higher (than to Milan) but it can vary.

Good luck!
Tony

I've noticed stuff like this occasionally. When we went to southern France a year or so ago, I was delighted that I could fly to Bordeaux for less than flying to Paris. It's always worth it to check neighboring cities.

AND what do all the train fares add up to along with the extra time out of your holiday to make this train transit as opposed to flying directly into Rome.

I ran into this from Newark a few years ago. The difference more than paid for an additional day in Italy and the train fares.

Right, the convenience factor is key. In our case I think we want to see sights both in Northern Italy and in Central Italy, so multi city also an option.

Milan and Rome are only 3 hours 10 minutes apart by fast train. Most (or all?). make an intermediate stop at Bologna, which is well worth a couple of nights.

Lola, Bologna is definitely in our sights. I still remember wandering it’s streets 31 years ago.

hey hey rob
if you arrive milan, will you spend a few days to roam and visit city, lake garda or como?
always playing around with dates/times/ layover/non-stop flights. don't like dark thirty (6am) flight back to states, and arrival times to check-in hotel (usually 2-4pm). drop bags off & roam, rent room night before and inform hotel morning arrival so room ready to check in.
learned fast lesson once, had to wait 6 hours to check in (SFO - london), tired, jet lag, grumpy, hungry, just a tip about flight times.
what a fun trip, are you the planner or coworker researching also? eat well
aloha

Milan has been ridiculously cheap from SFO for much of this year compared to Rome.

Some of my more interesting trips have been when the cheap flight dragged me to a new destination and Milan is great. So from that perspective I like it if you have the time.

Using Google Flights I always enter
1 layover or fewer
Layover minimum 1:45 and maximum 3:45
And with those two simple tweeks 90% of the cheap flights vanish.

If I dont get a price i can live with, I change it to 2 layovers or fewer instead of one.

And I always look at secondary departure airports and I almost always play around with secondary arrival destinatins. Hmmmm, I can save $500 if I fly out of Houston (3 hours from my home) and change in Istanbul and there is no penalty for a night or two in Istanbul .... so ..... well its how and why i first went to Istanbul. Now, a place i never dreamed of, is a place that I return to on ocassion even if I dont have to,

Before the war I would often fly into Kyiv or Odesa. Love Kyiv and Odesa and the flight to either on Turkish Air + a second flight a few days later on to Budapest on Ukraine International returning direct to Houston through IST was less expensive than a round trip to Budapest and back.