non stop flights from venice

I am sure that you could use of the major travel websites (Expedia, Orbitz, Travelocity etc) to find out exactly what the non-stop options are.

I think there is one daily flight on Delta from JFK to Venice nonstop, but I could be wrong.

Erica, I think flying open jaw is a very good idea. I did it twice in 2007. I flew in to Rome and out of Venice in December. This was Delta who has a direct flight from Venice to JFK. That flight leaves around 11:30am. I took the 7:45am Alilaguna Boat from Venice to the airport (over an hour ride)and walked about 7 minutes to the airport from the dock. This went very smoothly. The airport is very modern - not too big and well organized. I would do it again a heart beat.

This way, you plan your site seeing and not have to worry about taking a whole day to get back to your originating point.

Good luck in planning.

Many airfare search engines will allow you to book "multiple cities" or something similar to book such an itinerary. Delta/Alitalia code-share direct flights from JFK to both those cities. But by restricting yourself, you may not be able to take advantage of better offers on other airlines that may see cheaper return flights to/from Rome alone, or those that have a stopover. On many stopovers, you won't even leave the plane, so keep that in mind. Keep your options open until you get a better handle on prices for when you want to go. Do some "dummy" bookings, say for this autumn and see what comes up.

There's a new airline, Eurofly, that has direct flights from JFK to various Italian cities - see http://www.euroflyusa.com/US/. I've never flown on them but it would be worth comparing prices.

Using Kayak.com and searching NYC to ROM and VCE to NYC, Delta was the only one giving direct results (actually Alitalia was listed, but on the Delta flights).
Eurofly appears to go direct from New York to Rome, but not from Venice (they go via Rome). They also have limited days that they fly. Price for Rome roundtrip is $800-$880 + taxes and fees for mid-March travel.
If you are considering Milan, you could do NY-Rome, Milan-NY on Delta/Alitalia or Newark-Rome, Milan-Newark direct on Continental. The prices range from around $700/pp to $850 (Kayak) depending on the route for mid-March (12th - 22nd).

Returning from Venice is recommended. Also consider flying Air France out of Newark. You'd have to change planes in Paris both ways, but you might find a better price than out of JFK. They may also allow you a 'stop-off' in Paris on the return flight at no additional (or slightly more) cost, in case you wanted to check out Paris for a couple days.

We flew out of Philadelphia in Sept. We went Philly to Rome and then went Vencie to Philly. You would be going out of Newark or JFK, but I do think it is better to do Rome then Venice and not Rome to Rome. I am so glad we didn't backtrack to Rome to get home. We could have flown non-stop on USAir but we decided to use our American Express Frequent flyer miles. The only airline that was available to us to use them from Phila to Italy was on Air France and we had to fly both ways and change planes in Paris. I landed up being an interesting experience each way. Going over our plane was delayed and then lost time over Ireland. In Paris they had a special shuttle and person to RUN us to our flight to Rome with only minutes to spare. We had to go through a security check again too. Our luggage didn't make the Rome flight and arrived the next day. I found out that if we were not continuing on Air France we would have been wandering around the Paris airport on our own trying to find our connecting flight.

we actually finally decided on the globus Italy at leisure tour which flies into rome and out of milan. our flights are both on alitalia and non stop which works for me. thanks for the suggestions!
Happy travels to all

I just flew back direct from Venice to JFK in early December on Delta. We left 11:30 I think. We flew Delta direct into Pisa/Florence and flew out of Venice.

Usair flies non stop Venice - Philadelphia

Flying open jaw saves you time and money spent backtracking. I always fly open jaw.