OH MY GAWD, thanks for this post (I saw your link in the Paris thread). AND NOW MY HUSBAND AND I ARE GOING TO ITALY OVER SPRING BREAK! (Unless we decide to cancel it within the next 24 hours) Ahem. I'm excited - by the time I got everything sorted out, the Emirates deal was gone, but I found tickets through Aitalia for $808 for the two of us, direct flights with good departure/arrival times. And for us flying out of JFK is no problem - we live in Philadelphia and my husband has family in NJ right outside NYC, so we probably can drive there and leave our car, and maybe even get a ride to the airport (or at least to the bus/train station).
I feel like such an impulse shopper, but I think there are legitimately few better uses for our money than this (considering we plan to invest about 50K this year, maxing out available Roths & husband's 401k and doing taxable investments). I just love to travel!
So a big thank you!!