Has Anyone Done A 8 Day,one-way Barcelona To Rome??

[trevdh]

I have been looking for trip reports for this type of trip-one way barcelona to rome-for advice on hotels and airfare but can't seem to find anything. It almost appears that no one has ever taken this trip. We are booked on RCCL Brilliance 5-15-05. What I am particularly interested in is the airfare issue. Is it better to do two one way airfares or just one round-trip from Barcelona. How far is it from Rome and is it feasible to take a train/inter-air back to Barcelona. I have some FF miles and I am leaving from NY so my options are wide. Any advice or links would be appreciated.

[Hlitner]

You should be able to get an "open jaw" type airfare that allows you to fly into one city and home from the other city. You can actually try this yourself on Expedia or Orbitz by using the advance options. I just took a look and there are roundtrip airfares available for under $600 (that is pretty cheap). Keep in mind that when flying international you want all your flights ticketed on the same ticket that has your flights from and to the USA. This allows you to use the US baggage limits on all of your flights as opposed to the internal European rules which would limit you to 44 pounds per person.

 

Hank

[cberge]

I have been looking for trip reports for this type of trip-one way barcelona to rome-for advice on hotels and airfare but can't seem to find anything. It almost appears that no one has ever taken this trip. We are booked on RCCL Brilliance 5-15-05. What I am particularly interested in is the airfare issue. Is it better to do two one way airfares or just one round-trip from Barcelona. How far is it from Rome and is it feasible to take a train/inter-air back to Barcelona. I have some FF miles and I am leaving from NY so my options are wide. Any advice or links would be appreciated.

Just do a RT ticket(open jaw like Hank said) from the US to Barcelona returning from Rome.Just because you are going into Barcelona does not mean you need a RT ticket back from there. I have flown into Rome and back from Barcelona.Tickets should be easy to find or a good TA can help you.If you are staying pre and post cruise there is a lot of info re hotles if you go back on the board.You do not want to go back to Barcelona from Rome just to get a plane back to the US.

[Globaliser]

On some Internet search engines, you need to select "multiple destinations" in order to search for open jaw air fares. This will allow you to put in NYC (for example) to Rome on the first line, and Barcelona to NYC on the second line. Some search engines will require you to specify that Rome to Barcelona would be done by ground transfer, which will not form part of the quote.

 

If you run into terminal difficulties with finding a cheap open jaw ticket like that, one option would be to get a cheap return to Rome or Barcelona and fly one way between them. (The train is not really practicable for this journey.) There are a number of low fare airlines that fly within Europe that will sell you a cheap one way ticket, or you can just buy a cheap return ticket with the outbound half in the direction that you need - you would then just throw away the return half of the ticket and fail to show up for the flight.

 

If you need to search for low fare airlines, you could start by trying this site and this site - they will help you locate the airlines that fly the route, but generally you're best off then going to the airline's own website to try to book.

 

This way, you might end up paying some extra baggage charges (although the prospect will be good discipline for keeping your baggage weight down, anyway, and stop you bringing too much!), but even with that it may end up cheaper than the extra money for an open jaw ticket. It all depends on the numbers you come up with.

[Leejnd4]

I just went through all this myself...although mine's for a Transatlantic from Ft. Lauderdale to Barcelona on Celebrity. I learned alot, so here is what I found out.

 

Having cruised before (always round-trip), I've found that I could always get cheaper airfare online myself then through the cruise line. I tried booking the airfare online using the multi-city option...Los Angeles to Ft. Lauderdale, then Barcelona to Los Angeles. OUCH! Way expensive, cost prohibitive, same on all websites. So I tried doing two one-ways, and that was even worse! At least for the Barcelona-LAX leg. So I thought I would try doing a one-way to Ft. Lauderdale (which was inexpensive), and then book a round-trip, Barcelona to LAX, then LAX to Barcelona, and just toss out the second leg. Yep, that was cheaper alright, by half.

 

But then I started talking to people on the Celebrity board, and they informed me that there are potential problems with tossing out the second leg of a round-trip. If you read the fine print on the ticket, which is a contract, it specifically states that this practice is strictly forbidden. In fact, it states that if a passenger does not use the second leg of a round trip, they will charge the difference in price between the one-way and round-trip to the passenger! Now, I haven't heard of this actually happening to anyone, but I'm told it does happen, and that the airlines are becoming more aggressive in pursuing this kind of stuff. And there are other factors involved when you're dealing with an international flight between the US and another country...security issues and whatnot, that involves gov't agencies. Can't remember the details.

 

So then someone suggested I try the cruiseline and see what their rate is. And guess what? It was CHEAPER than even the round-trip thing I was trying to do! And I don't have to worry about tossing out part of a ticket, and dealing with whatever issues might come up with that. I guess the lesson is, if it's a round-trip cruise, it's cheaper to do the air on your own, but if it's a point-to-point involving one-ways, then the cruiseline can beat what you can do. So...have you priced it out through the cruiseline?

 

I was SO happy to find that out!

 

Let me know if this all made sense, and if you have any questions.

 

LeeAnne

[Globaliser]

I just went through all this myself...although mine's for a Transatlantic from Ft. Lauderdale to Barcelona on Celebrity.

That's all sound advice for a trip like that. The reason it's very different from arranging air travel for a one-way cruise from Rome to Barcelona is that there is a limit on the length of the surface sector in an open jaw ticket. The Fort Lauderdale-Barcelona surface leg was probably far too long for a proper open jaw ticket to be priced. And in addition, there may have been difficulties with validly combining half a round trip domestic fare for the short (LAX to Fort Lauderdale) leg with half a round trip international fare for the long leg (Barcelona to LAX).

 

These limits are very unlikely to bite on a US-Rome, Barcelona-US ticket. An open jaw ticket ought to be priced as half of the relevant US-Rome round-trip fare, plus half of the relevant US-Barcelona round-trip fare. Plus applicable taxes. It's more likely to produce a good result.

 

But the advice to check all your options including the cruise line's air fare is definitely good!

But then I started talking to people on the Celebrity board, and they informed me that there are potential problems with tossing out the second leg of a round-trip. If you read the fine print on the ticket, which is a contract, it specifically states that this practice is strictly forbidden. In fact, it states that if a passenger does not use the second leg of a round trip, they will charge the difference in price between the one-way and round-trip to the passenger! Now, I haven't heard of this actually happening to anyone, but I'm told it does happen, and that the airlines are becoming more aggressive in pursuing this kind of stuff. And there are other factors involved when you're dealing with an international flight between the US and another country...security issues and whatnot, that involves gov't agencies.

All this is theoretically possible. However, the usual advice is that if you only do it on a very occasional basis, and don't do it to the same airline all the time, you are most unlikely to be pursued for any money. The airlines make many of their cheap tickets non-refundable and non-changeable (or difficult to change). So if you only do it once, who's to know whether you just missed the return flight? If the ticket's impossible to change, what are you going to do if your plans change?

 

The people who get done are usually those who do it repeatedly, and often thos who are stupid enough to do it to the same airline and positively identify themselves by putting their frequent flyer number in all the bookings. Often, the throwaway ticketing is also being done in conjunction with other naughty things, like back-to-backs or interleaved tickets. When the airlines can see that they are losing tens of thousands of dollars from one single passenger, then they have an incentive to act. But it's really not worth their while chasing someone for one occasion, when there might actually have been a perfectly legitimate reason why the return half of the ticket wasn't used.

 

I can't see how any government agency would be particularly interested in one unused ticket coupon, even if it's international. They would be more interested if the person didn't leave a country when they were supposed to under immigration requirements, but they have their passport-based records for that.

[trevdh]

Thanks to all on advice on ticketing this matter. It looks like we will go with the open jaw to avoid a few hassles. I don't want to be limited by the inter-Europe weight restrictions which, until I read this thread, was not aware off. Even if we keep the weight down before we cruise, we are likely do do some shopping as we always bring a empty bag just for that purpose. Since we have the option of using FF miles (which allows for a open- jaw), it is unlikely that we will use the cruise-air option. I've also heard that some of the major sites in Rome will be closed on the day (Sunday) our ship arrives. Can anyone verify this?