PeterOut wrote:
I am living in the USA and would like to find the cheapest return air
fare to Italy. I am very flexible as far as time goes. It could be
any time in the next 3 months. I would be grateful if someone could
tell me the best way to get the cheapest air fare under these
circumstances.

Many thanks in advance,
Peter.

First step is to go to "http://vayama.com" which is the only on-line
international consolidator I've found.

I bought one ticket from them to Italy last November. It was about $200
less than the same flights bought from the airline.

Note that the Vayama price is the total price, including taxes and fees,
while the advertised prices in the newspaper by airlines and travel
agents usually exclude the taxes and fees, which can be more than double
the advertised price.

What you should do is find the cheapest price on Vayama, then ask a
local consolidator for a quote on the same itinerary. One advantage of
Vayama is that they take credit cards, while very few consolidators take
credit cards.

Another thing I noticed, from SFO, is that the best price always seemed
to be outbound on United (on a flight operated by Lufthansa, and inbound
on Lufthansa. But I couldn't buy this itinerary on the airline web sites
or on the normal travel sites, only on Vayama. I think it's because the
consolidators are buying a bunch of segments that the airlines release
to them, and then they piece them together without regard for having to
be on the same airline.

Also check sidestep.com, which compares a bunch of the sites like
Expedia, Travelocity, Orbitz, and lets you check off "my dates are
flexible."

As an example,

LV Fri, Feb 22 SFO
AR Sat, Feb 23 FCO

LV Wed, Mar 5 FCO
AR Wed, Mar 5 SFO

Vayama has a bunch of itineraries for $577.

SideStep comes up with some similarly low priced itineraries _only_ on
Orbitz--every other reseller is far more expensive, with CheapTickets
starting at $873. This leads me to believe that Orbitz may be doing
consolidation as well, perhaps they have a deal with Vayama.