We fly from IAD to FCO on United almost yearly. Because the ITA fare was so much less than United, we decided to give them a try. We were pleased with our ITA business class flight from IAD to FCO on April 7/8, 2026 other than the facts that the flight crew arrived 90 minutes late (no explanation/no apology) and we thought that the lie-flat seats were rather hard for sleeping. The savings over the United flight at the same time was significant, so these negatives were not that important to us. We thought…OK, we will definitely fly ITA from now on if the savings in fare is this substantial.
The problems started the afternoon of April 18th, after we had received our boarding passes, when we were notified that our return flight the morning of April 19th was cancelled…part of Lufthansa’s cut-back due to ongoing pilots/flight crew strike and fuel rationing. We spent a very stressful 4 hours trying to find accommodations for the extra night, rescheduling our shuttle ride to the airport, and trying to reach ITA by phone.
ITA had almost immediately rebooked us on Lufthansa flights a day later…on April 20th…through Munich with a 6 hour layover. These flights did not work for us as they did not get us back to DC with enough time to drive home to Ohio that day, plus we were now wary of Lufthansa flights.
We were not able to decline the rebooking online…the only way to do that was by phone. We spent hours on hold trying to get through to ITA. We finally were able to reach them to decline the rebooking, were told our return fare would be refunded, and were given a refund confirmation number. We then went on to purchase one-way nonstop business class tickets on United for April 20th ($ ouch!).
As of today, almost 4 weeks later, after numerous telephone calls and filing a formal complaint with ITA, we have still not received our refund. When we check online, all we see is that our case is being “managed”. That is all we are able to find out when we call, too. Our next step will be filing a complaint with the US DOT.
When a problem arises, the customer service with ITA is abysmal. Our return fare should have been immediately refunded once we declined the rebooking option.
Once we had returned to the US, we found that the US customer service number is of no use when there is a problem…we were told we have to call the Italy customer service number to follow up on our refund. Our international phone charges are through the roof.
No amount of fare savings will tempt us to use ITA again unless we sense some improvement in the years ahead.
