If you are considering a trip to Italy, there are some interesting options on Condor. Good fares are popping up from Halifax at the beginning of June. What makes them especially nice is the possibility to fly into one Italian city and out of another with an open-jaw booking. If you’re looking for a deal, it helps to be able to cast a wide net. The Condor website has some frustrating quirks, but it’s quite convenient for searching airfares to Italy.
Multi-City Search
The Condor website is a bit weird. It displays airfares that do not show up on Google Flights (at least not for me), but they do show up on Skyscanner.
Strangely, Condor will not allow certain combinations of cities when searching multi-city itineraries, while Skyscanner does. For example, I can’t get Condor to show me Halifax to Munich and Budapest to Halifax on one booking. However, I can do the search on Skyscanner where I can then click through to Condor to buy the ticket.
Fortunately, if you’re just interested in Italy, searching for fares on the Condor website is pretty easy.
Italian Cities
Go to “Book & Plan” then “Find a Flight” on the Condor website. Put in Halifax (YHZ) as your departure airport and choose Italy as your destination.
It will include the following airports:
Bari (BRI)
Bologna (BLQ)
Cagliari (CAG)
Florence (FLR)
Genoa (GOA)
Milan/Linate (LIN)
Milan/Malpensa (MXP)
Naples (NAP)
Olbia (OLB)
Palermo (PLO)
Pisa (PSA)
Rome/Fiumicino (FCO)
Trieste (TRS)
Turin (TRN)
Venice (VCE)
Verona (VRN)
If you have specific plans, you can obviously select a certain city. But if you just want to see what comes up as the cheapest fare, you can simply leave it as “Italy” and choose “multi-city”.
Be sure to click on “Show X More Results” to see the full availability on your chosen dates.
Sample Fare
If, for instance, you’ve already visited Rome and Venice, you might want to focus on different places. These flight options allow you to get to and from other cities in Italy with only one connection (in Germany) when flying from Halifax. You’ll connect to either a Lufthansa or Air Dolomiti flight.
For example:
Halifax – Bologna
June 5, 2020
$379.99
Florence – Halifax
June 19, 2020
$349.99
Total: $729.98
Economy vs. Economy Light
Note that all of the flights with connections are in the regular “Economy” fare class, not “Economy Light” so a checked bag is included in the fare.
Alaska Mileage Plan – 10,000 Bonus Miles
If you collect Alaska Mileage Plan miles, you can credit the miles from your Condor flight segments to Alaska. And it appears you are in luck in 2020 because according to the website, the miles earned will be topped up to 5000 each way on partner flights to or from North America starting March 1st. Combined with some miles from an Alaska Airlines MasterCard, you could accumulate enough for a future Condor flight.
Final Thoughts
As with most purchases, you should shop around. You might find a better deal through Air Canada for your dates. Or you might want to piece together an itinerary with separate tickets by taking advantage of good WestJet fares to the UK or Ireland. But if Italy is your focus, it’s worth checking Condor in light of the easy searching of various airports and the ability to pad your Alaska Mileage Plan account.
I love Bologna, best coffee in the world there. Just down the track a ways is Modena, what a tremendous food/wine scene. Taste buds are tingling just thinking about it. Really good fares you discovered , enjoy!