Wife and I are looking to do a long week in Northern Italy in the summer / early Fall. Will want business class since I'm old. Does anyone have a good rec for a discounter? Also, any tips on what airport to fly into in that region from IAH? We're open to getting to our final destination in Tuscany.

TIA

ITA airways just announced a direct flight to Rome from IAH starting in May 2026. From Rome, you should be able to connect anywhere in Italy very easily. If you want to do Tuscany, it would be to Florence (or you could take the train from Rome - it's only bout an hour).

If you don't fly ITA, you can fly United or Lufthansa through Frankfurt or Munich. Other alternatives would be to connect through Heathrow or an US east coast airport, but I would choose direct to Rome 100 times out of 100 over those options.

ITA did a 20% off fare sale the Tuesday after Black Friday. I don't know how often they do promotions like that, but United/Lufthansa NEVER have % off discount codes.

I'd set up a watch, if you can. Otherwise, just keep checking the ITA website looking for deals. They might offer some promotions since this is a new route. The ITA website has a page called "offers" and you can sort by departing city.

Buy PE and look for upgrade offers. No guarantee, but I often see offers of ~800 per person on BA and United. BA more often United.

i'd look into options through AMS. KLM has a lot of options from there to italy, that's how we traveled to florence last year.

use google flights search to check various routes at the same time and see what you can find.

I would suggest flying into Milan (MXP). There are several direct flights from the East Coast (JFK). If you have any credit card points (specifically with Amex), Emirates has a route from JFK to MXP on their A380 (the one with the bar in business class) for 87,000 points a person.

Alternatively, I'd set up a couple google flight alerts and they'll alert you when the price goes up for down for your desired route & dates.

Fall will be easier / cheaper than summer. That's peak Italy travel time.

Happy to help or answer any other questions!

As far as discounted, points are always a good choice.

Any of the national carriers are going to get you there with one connection whether that's via JFK, Amsterdam, Frankfurt or the new nonstop from Houston.

https://www.flightconnections.com/flights-from-iah-to-fco

The other deciding factor is the quality of the service. Some of the airlines like BA are going to be kind of sucky, Delta or American are going to be real average.

If you can get on that Emirates flight to Milan on an A380, that would totally be worth the trip. Emirates Business Class is outstanding.

And don't forget that there are all kinds of games to be played with the travel dates that can greatly affect the fare.

https://www.lacompagnie.com/en

La Compagnie is an airline that does all business class lie flat seating from Newark to Paris or Milan. Downside is you'd have to fly first to Newark but from IAH that should be easy. It's a great product and much cheaper than what you'll typically find for business class

Aggie71013 said:

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Buy PE and look for upgrade offers. No guarantee, but I often see offers of ~800 per person on BA and United. BA more often United.

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I tried this strategy on UA from IAH to AMS, never got an offer, and got stuck on PE on the oldest 767 in the fleet. Nothing like having 50 rows between you and the nearest restroom. Oh, and if there is a service cart in the aisle you're stuck wherever you are. After that trip I decided to just bite the bullet on business on the outbound leg and book PE for the flight back since I usually stay awake the whole time anyway.