Venice to Portland Oregon

[bobk57]

We are taking a Med. cruise next May 2009 and we are trying to decide what flight home we should take. If you had to go through customs would you rather go through customs at Dulles or San Francisco? We would rather deal with customs in Portland, but the direct flights from Europe are very limited. The 2 flights we are considering are Venice to frankfurt to Dulles to PDX and the other one is Venice to Frankfurt to San fran to PDX. The main airline will be Lufthansa.

[ab0si]

I would be worried about United (I assume that's the domestic airline you are taking since they partner with Lufthansa). I am far from sure they will still be with us next May. If the price were close, I'd take the KLM flights.

[Keith1010]

If I had a choice I would go through customs in San Francisco over Washington Dulles just based on my own travel experiences.

 

But if it was me the overiding factor would be having sufficient time between each flight.

 

Keith

[Globaliser]

We would rather deal with customs in Portland, but the direct flights from Europe are very limited. ... The main airline will be Lufthansa.

Is there a timing problem with the Lufthansa non-stop from Frankfurt to Portland? Would you consider staying an extra night in Europe to be able to get onto that?

 

Otherwise, if it were me and I had to choose between your two options, I think that I would be leaning towards using San Francisco as the gateway. This is because you're likely to have more alternative backup options to get you from San Francisco to Portland if UA were to go under.

 

But, like ab0si, I think I would still be looking at an alternative non-stop from Europe to Portland anyway. Clearing US immigration and customs at a US connection point is a real waste of time if it can be avoided by doing it at your final destination.

[bobk57]

Thank you for your replys.

[chipmaster]

We are taking a Med. cruise next May 2009 and we are trying to decide what flight home we should take. If you had to go through customs would you rather go through customs at Dulles or San Francisco? We would rather deal with customs in Portland, but the direct flights from Europe are very limited. The 2 flights we are considering are Venice to frankfurt to Dulles to PDX and the other one is Venice to Frankfurt to San fran to PDX. The main airline will be Lufthansa.

 

You might want to look at US Air, they have a direct flight into Venice that connects in Philly. Leaves Philly at 6:25pm and arrives in Venice at 9am the next day. Return from FCO is 11:35am getting back to Philly at 3:20pm.

 

The bad, its US Air and we found the service domestically to be horrendous. Also, they fly the older 767 into FCO with less carryon space, but tolerable.

 

Convenience can't be beat, but don't expect smiling service or 1st grade appointments :mad:

 

Happy planning