Expert: Stephen Tanenbaum - 4/21/2005

Question
Am thinking of travelling to Rome with my sisters (total - 8).  When is the cheapest month to fly?  Was thinking of going in October 2005.

Answer
Hi Diane:

As noted in my posting our expertise is FREE global travel. Hence, we rarely buy airline tickets. More of that
always interesting topic in a moment.

I did check our free awards on American Airlines. My recollection was correct and their low season is October 15th to May 15th. When we last visited Rome we used our low season 40,000 miles awards versus high season which is 60,000 miles each for free tickets.

We traveled to Rome, Florence and Venice over ten days using NO rental cars. Rather super fun high speed trains. As I recall we booked an ItaliaTour package that included all hotels. We booked the trains ourselves and also took a neat side trip from Rome to Pompai.

We visited Italy in November. Weather was CHILLY and we had more fun buying nice Italian leather gloves, scarves etc. On the big plus side tourists were GONE...Museums empty.  Very nice PLUS.

Mid and late October would be even better, weather wise.

Sorry I can't help vis a vis regular air fares. I recommend thorough web research AND buy the NY and /or LA Sunday Times for the best TRAVEL SECTION in the USA. Many ads that might help. ALso, some small consolidator ads, like one inch ads and be a good travel consumer and check vendor credentials unless well known.

If you have yet to visit these three cities do your best to see them on this visit. We found ten days, five in Rome and the remainder split in Venice and FLorence, worked though more time is always better. Three of the most fabulous cities in the world.

Back to free travel which you and your sisters should be enjoying as we do. Nothing beats FREE GLOBAL TRAVEL. To this end I wrote an in-depth article which I freely share. I created a mini Blog for this purpose. You may check it out at: www.cheapskatetravel.blogspot.com
It sets forth our best current stratagies for global free travel. Please feel free to email any futher questions.
Happy Travels. Steve T.