Flight time changed; should we drive from SAN to LAS or change flight?

lvdis

love disney
Joined
Aug 20, 2009
I need your opinions please! We were planning to fly from San Diego back to Las Vegas, take in a show, stay overnight and then fly home the next day out of Vegas. I was just notified our flight from San Diego changed to a later time which now doesn't get us into Vegas until 9:40 PM and we won't really have a chance to do anything except stay overnight and wait for our flight home the next day.

Should I;
  1. Ask to cancel the flight with a refund and just drive to Las Vegas (how is the drive?)
  2. Ask to change the flight to leaving out of Los Angeles, which would get us into Vegas early enough to do what we want
  3. Deal with the flight change and do nothing
More details; we are flying into Vegas on 9/7 and renting a car with the plan to return it in San Diego on 9/17 when we were going to fly back to Vegas. I checked and it would add less than $50 bucks to keep it an extra day and return it to Vegas. Our flight back home out of Vegas is scheduled for 9/18.

Thanks for your input!
 
Can you just cancel the flight and find a new one from SAN to LAS? Southwest usually has one way flights all times of day for about $60-80 for that route (with free checked bags). That would definitely be the easiest way, because the drive will take around 6 hours (and it's a boring drive) and even driving to LAX will take probably 3 hours plus that airport is much more of a hassle than SAN.
 
Quick check of the Southwest website shows flights available all day 9/17 for $68 each.
 
Can you just cancel the flight and find a new one from SAN to LAS? Southwest usually has one way flights all times of day for about $60-80 for that route (with free checked bags). That would definitely be the easiest way, because the drive will take around 6 hours (and it's a boring drive) and even driving to LAX will take probably 3 hours plus that airport is much more of a hassle than SAN.

Do this.
 


Thanks! If you can believe it, I got our flights on Frontier for $24.99 RT for BOTH of us! It was during their friends fly free sale.

I know a lot of people don't like Frontier but we have used them many times and had all good experiences. We are only flying with backpacks this trip so no checked bags!
 
That's an amazing deal! But I would still do new flights - the car extension and gas to drive will cost as much as the flights and save you a lot of time.
 
The drive will take up your whole day too. It is the most boring ride ever and can take up to 6-7 hours if you get unlucky with traffic. Unless you are prepared to leave San Diego at like 4am, fly instead.
 


What about flying out of LAX? Is that a bad idea? Frontier has a flight out of there that would get us into Las Vegas earlier and I think I could get them to change me to it.
 
What about flying out of LAX? Is that a bad idea? Frontier has a flight out of there that would get us into Las Vegas earlier and I think I could get them to change me to it.

That is also a pretty long drive. It could take 3+ hours. I'd just ask for a refund and buy a ticket out of San Diego.
 
I also vote for refund + rebook on Southwest. Driving from San Diego to Las Vegas is a real pain. Under the best of circumstances, it's 5 hours (manageable), but unless you're leaving at the crack of dawn (or earlier) on a random weekday, expect traffic & bathroom stop to push that to 6-9* hours.

* = long weekend holiday traffic
 
+1 for rebooking your flight. I've done the drive to Vegas from San Diego multiple times. Every so often traffic can get stupid. It's taken me over 9 hours on a few occasions and you can just get stuck in the middle of nowhere sitting in traffic for seemingly no reason.

Southwest, Frontier, and Delta all do affordable flights from SAN to LAS if you book quickly enough.

Driving up to LAX is a waste of time (as stated before). You'll lose almost as much time doing that as you will driving out there.
 
Thanks for everyone's input! We decided to be adventurous and drive the meandering way back. We have 2 days so we aren't in a big hurry. We love road trips so decided this was the way to go. Maybe swing by Palm Springs, Joshua Tree National Park and/or find some of old Route 66 to travel. We're still working out the details. :)
 

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