Booking Tickets to Italy Isn't Hard

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February 19, 2011

For some reason, I always had it in my head that booking airfare for international flights was a big deal. I can't say why, I purchase domestic flights all the time. Maybe because I'm going to another country, or maybe there should be more pomp and circumstance because of the amount of money being spent. As I found out, international flights are as easy to book as any short domestic flight.

Free Tickets?
I was optimistic that I could book a round trip coach seat using my air miles, and save myself $1500. Unfortunately, I was too late to grab any “free” seats, even calling four months in advance. For three days in a row, I called the very nice operators at Alaska Airline, who spent about 20 minutes with me checking various dates and airlines. Their suggestion was to call as soon as tickets are released, up to 11 months in advance. The process is realtively easy, and I will try this again for another trip. Maybe by then I will have enough miles to get a free business class ticket. Wishful thinking.

The Search Was On
Admitting defeat, I began my Internet search for cheap tickets from Seattle to Milan and Rome back to Seattle. Cheap was a loose definition. I was reserving my seats “last minute” and was booking for the height of tourist season. My original itinerary draft had me in Italy for 33 days, including travel days. No combination of dates produced tickets for less than $1700 for those 33 days. With some help from my Mother (an expert researcher), I found tickets for $1500, though my trip would be extended an extra three days. Now, it is possible that I could spend more than $200 in those three days, essentially nullifying the cheaper fare. But that also means three days more on my trip. A worthy expense.

Booking the Airfare
I’ll admit, I was nervous about pressing the final purchase button. What if I got everything wrong? Prior to committing to my flights, I cruised KLM’s website, which said that a 50 minute layover was enough time for international arrivals to connect to in-continent flights. My connection would be 1 hour 45 minutes. Ok, this looked like it was going to work. Double-checking to make sure I was flying into and out of the correct cities, and I finalized my plain reservation. Ta-da!

I ended up booking with Delta, who seems to be in serious business with KLM. Both airlines offered the same exact flights, swapping legs of the journey. Really the only reason I booked on the Delta website was because KLM did not have an option to add my Alaska Airlines mileage plan number and Delta did. It will take some 14 hours of travel to get to Milan, and I think 17 hours to get back to Seattle from Rome. Of course it will be worth it, but I am sure after that long I'll be tired fo airplanes for a while.




June 1, 2011

Updated Information
Since booking my tickets, my flights have been changed several times. Most of the time I would get an email from the airline, but occasionally I would log in to check my itinerary and find my flights were different. The lesson learned: always check back with your ticket information. With four flights total, all of them have been changed from the original itinerary I booked months ago. Let's hope they won't change again too drastically!

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