As we announced back in October, Italy’s new national airline ITA Airways was planning to launch flights between Toronto and Rome in May 2024. Those flights have now been officially loaded into the GDS and are bookable with cash on ITA Airways’ website but are also available for redemption with SkyTeam partner airlines including Air France KLM Flying Blue.
The new Toronto to Rome route
The airline will fly between Toronto and Rome six times weekly starting on May 10, 2024 and increase to daily service between June and September. The flights will be operated with A330-200 and A330-900neo aircraft. (Source Aeroroutes)
The A330-200 features 20 lie flat business class seats, 17 premium economy seats and 219 economy seats.
The A330-900neo features 30 lie flat business class seats, 24 premium economy seats and 237 economy seats.
Earning and redeeming on ITA Airways
ITA Airways has their own frequent flyer program called Volare. The program awards 10 points per Euro spent on flights with the airlines along with accelerated earn rates for higher fare classes and elite status bonuses. Members can also earn points for flying on SkyTeam airlines, staying with hotel partners like Accor and several other travel partners.
Currently we track Volare promotions on our global FrequentFlyerBonuses site (see the promotions page here) and will add the promotions page to RWRDS Canada in the coming weeks.
As ITA Airways is a SkyTeam member you can also choose to earn and redeem miles or points for ITA flights with any of those programs. The two that make the most sense for Canadians are Air France KLM Flying Blue and Delta SkyMiles with the former being the front runner thanks to them having their own co-brand card here in Canada in addition to allowing transfer from American Express from both programs.
Rewards flights on ITA Airways via Air France KLM Flying Blue are also bookable as of today:
All the dates I searched showed availability and they were all the same amount of 74,500 miles one way. These redemption rates are on the higher end compared to Flying Blue offering 50,000 (or less with Promo Rewards) on Air France or KLM flights. So as long as there is availability and you are willing to connect you may be better off booking reward flights to Rome on Air France or KLM via Paris and Amsterdam respectively.
All that being said, the taxes and fees on these ITA flights are significantly lower (~$600 lower for a round trip!) than you would pay on AF or KLM. So there’s the dilemma, fly direct, spend more miles and less cash or connect to spend less miles but have a larger cash outlay. I guess it will depend which flights are available at the time you want to travel!
Paying for ITA Airways flights
As they are so new to Canada, ITA Airways does not have co-brand card here in Canada so we recommend paying for ITA Airways flights with a credit card that has a travel accelerator like The Platinum Card from American Express, the TD® Aeroplan® Visa Infinite Privilege* Card or the BMO AscendTM World Elite®* Mastercard®*
Click here to learn more and/or to book flights with ITA Airways
Title image via ITA Airways