Need opinions from people who have flown to Venice

We are currently booked on a cruise out of Venice in Oct. Last year we did a cruise out of Barcelona and I watched flights and got 5 tickets for under $800 pp.

Here is my problem RC has an offer now that says I could get up to $250 off per flight making the tickets from Pittsburgh about $950 is this a deal I should jump on or have they raised the prices to give me this price? Would you hang on and see if the prices go lower? I am buying 5 tickets so the cheaper the better!!

Not sure what a good price is for Venice?

We are currently booked on a cruise out of Venice in Oct. Last year we did a cruise out of Barcelona and I watched flights and got 5 tickets for under $800 pp.

Here is my problem RC has an offer now that says I could get up to $250 off per flight making the tickets from Pittsburgh about $950 is this a deal I should jump on or have they raised the prices to give me this price? Would you hang on and see if the prices go lower? I am buying 5 tickets so the cheaper the better!!

Not sure what a good price is for Venice?

That's a very expensive place to fly to.

Jump on it.

We flew to/from Venice last year from Philadelphia in September and paid @$1200 per person. Your price sounds good......

I have been researching this....under $1000 is a good deal...

Under $1000 to anywhere in Europe is a good deal.

Jump on that! We paid more last year.

With random dates in October I am not seeing anything under $1100.

It sounds like consolidator tickets. Read the many threads on cruise line airfare before you commit. If you can live with the possible deficiencies of consolidator fares, go for it.

We are thinking flying Oct 1 and returning Oct 10 prices are showing $1190 but I am not thinking they deduct the $250 is from that or how it works with the $250 off?

@cruiserBruce what do you mean by consolidator tickets? How do find out if they are and what it would mean to me?

We are thinking flying Oct 1 and returning Oct 10 prices are showing $1190 but I am not thinking they deduct the $250 is from that or how it works with the $250 off?

@cruiserBruce what do you mean by consolidator tickets? How do find out if they are and what it would mean to me?

There are dozens of threads on this board about consolidator fares...most people call them cruise line airfares, or by the program name for the cruise line, like "Choice Air", as generic names. If you are buying through the cruise line, 90+ percent chance you are getting a consolidator ticket.

Check this Sticky at the top of the board:

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=530322

Briefly, a bulk ticket purchased by the cruise lines and travel agents. It is HIGHLY restricted- frequently more restricted than any ticket you can buy on the open market. These restrictions can be a major issue if anything goes wrong with your flight. You probably will be the last priority for a fix to a flight problem. The airline involved may essentially refuse to help you fix the problem...and many other possible issues.

You are getting what you pay for.

Tidygirl,

There is almost no way to determine the ticket restriction when purchasing from any cruise line, even if you use the airline of your choice. That's one of the additional problems when booking cruise air tickets. For example: you book a ticket on Delta in a "V" class. This could be a regular "V" or a reduced fare "V" or a consolidator type "V". It's next to impossible for the layman to figure how exactly which "V" was booked and they are all different with different restrictions.

One alternative to flying to Venice is flying to Milan and taking the train, or a bus to Venice. We have done this but not because of the cost of the ticket. We could not get the flights we wanted out of Venice. Even with the additional cost of the train the tickets were far less than flying to Venice. And there are different trains with different fares too. If you have the time to travel via Milan check the fares. You can also find more economical hotel rates in Maestre which is a suburb (sort of) of Venice on the mainland with access to the city and the port as well.

We flew into Venice from JAX, Fla 5 years ago and the cost was about $1200pp.

Use kayak to check for airline prices.

Then check what the cruise line offers. Usually, the cruise line offers are no better, except for one-way flights.

Venice is a fairly expensive place to fly to, and an expensive place to vacation in. Something to do with supply and demand.

Google now has an excellent flight tool, they bought it from Ita Matrix, but they even improved it. It has great options to search the cheapest dates. If you look at the graph for rates in Oktober, the rates are nowhere as low as the price you got offered. Buyer beware though, check out carefully what the conditions of this ticket are.

...