Seattle to Italy via Dublin?

Seems expensive to me, but I haven't bought a plane ticket to Europe in years (use award miles instead). But I have monitored what other people have been paying, and it seems fares have come down quite a lot in the last few years. Then again, the euro was weak for a while against the dollar and has come back recently, so that may drive ticket prices back up a little.

I suspect you are paying a little extra due to flying around the holidays as well.

It might be a little early to shop for December airfares/

We have had good experiences with Aer Lingus. Our home airport (Hartford) has nonstop flights to Dublin on this airline. One nice aspect of flying on Aer Lingus is that you can go through US customs and immigration in Dublin on the way home.

Aer Lingus is starting nonstop flights from Seattle to Rome, although I don't know if they will run in the winter.

Multi-city flights are usually a good idea, but sometimes fares to Rome are cheaper than Venice.

Keep in mind that Ireland is cool, wet and dark in December. Ireland is almost as far north as southern Alaska.

Is that just two flight legs (Seattle - Venice and later Rome - Seattle) or three? If it's two, the fare is common for summer and might also be for the holidays (but I have not really watched holiday rates).

Cheaper way is to take Norwegian Air Shuttle into London Gatwick nonstop. From there you can get to virtually any popular European city in 2 hours for $100 or less on EasyJet.com. Just pack light.

Thank you everyone for your valuable information!

Sounds like the tickets might be too expensive or might not be the right time to buy them... Thank you, Andrew and Bob!

Laura, yes the price is for two legs only - Seattle to Venice, and Rome to Seattle.

David, interesting idea! Someone told me I should never buy flight tickets separately. I checked Norwegian Air and they are very reasonable. How much time do you usually plan to transfer to the connecting flight?

I'd never suggest non connecting flights on the same day. Inbound to Europe, if there are issues you're not too bad since you're just going to be stuck buying walk up tickets to Italy from London. But, coming back, that's another story. Outbound from Europe, you'd have a transatlantic flight at risk. Should you wish to attempt this, I'd at least suggest flying back to London the day before. You'd have to decide if adding a London hotel plus the time of transit to and from Gatwick and security would make this worthwhile. It'll also depend on the length of your trip since that would involve cutting a day from Italy.

Thank you, Dale. Sounds like we need to plan differently if we are using Norwegian Airline. Something to think about....