Flight Strategy from Midwest to Honolulu

larsonb74

Disney Padawan
Joined
Apr 21, 2017
Looking to plan future trip in the month of June '18 or '19 and hoping to get input on good flight strategy to save. Flying out of Moline IL or Chicago IL.
 
There was just a discussion on an Aulani planning FB page. That person was flying out of Wisconsin in June 2018, so a similar situation. We are going in June from Chicago, and this is what I've found out.

June is a more expensive time, no matter how you slice it.

Direct flights are the most expensive.

Red eye flights are a little cheaper. A bonus is that you get most of the day at the resort on the way home. Our return flight leaves at 9:00 at night, so we can potentially spend most of our last day at the resort.

If you want to break the flights into 2 similar sized chunks, LAX, San Francisco, and Seattle all work pretty well. We are changing planes in LAX on the way home. Someone said on the FB group that there are lots of cheaper flights from Seattle to Honolulu.

You can use 2 different airlines for the 2 legs of the trip. If time and finances allow, you can spend a night or 2 in the in between city (Disneyland? Disney Family Museum?).
 
I've flown through Chicago once (we're on the East Coast), and from there it was a nonstop on AA. The return flight is always a red eye if you go direct or nonstop.

There is only one nonstop in my area, but I don't fly United, so I always have to go with one stop. I prefer a shorter flight and then the very long one, so this time we're going through DFW first class on AA (lie flat seats, which especially make the redeye return flight more bearable).
 
This past September my husband and I flew from KCI to LAX then on to HNL. Due to flight price increase on the way back we flew from HNL to LAX to MSP to KCI. If you don't have to do 2 stops I would say avoid that. Physically it was taxing on us. We flew Delta Main Cabin.

Be aware the time change can mess you up a bit especially if you've never flown overnight (which we did on the way back it was an overnight flight from HNL to LAX). On the way there we did a flight that had us leaving KCI around 3ish or so and arriving local time just before 10pm same day (due to time change) in HNL. We stayed at a hotel for one night (was just over $100+$25 parking fee however the hotel rate was something like 50% off normal rate) in Honolulu before going the next day to our for rent by owner condo in Makaha).

I don't know how June will shape up but giving you my experience from going in September.
 


we are from Des Moines area and I have booked flying from DSM to Minneapolis and then direct to Honolulu arriving at 3p.m on Delta. Our return is AA red eye and we leave around 9 p.m. with a stop in Phoenix and then back to DSM. This will give us last day as full resort day.
 
Look at the Alaska air credit card companion fare and save a decent amount of money. We found out to late for our June 2017 trip.
 
We flew direct to Honolulu from Chicago for spring break. I looked at stopping for a night on the west coast (to make sure we make our connection), but after factoring in luggage fees, rental car, hotel, etc., it wasn't that much more to fly direct and we saved a lot of time which meant more time in Hawaii! For traveling with a family, I don't like to connect. Too much hassle if things go wrong.
 


We live just outside Chicago and always fly united to Honolulu. There is one nonstop a day, leaving about 915 and arriving About 130 pm. Then we fly back leaving around 330 and get in at 5 am. I hate stopping so the nonstop is perfect. I have not found it to be more expensive. I always fly United because I have gold status and always get free bags for everyone in our party, two free upgrades to economy plus and early boarding. Plus I belong to the united club and use it in chicago and honolulu before the flights. Makes a big difference.
 
We live just outside Chicago and always fly united to Honolulu. There is one nonstop a day, leaving about 915 and arriving About 130 pm. Then we fly back leaving around 330 and get in at 5 am. I hate stopping so the nonstop is perfect.

I did this direct return flight on United last summer back to ORD. Probably would've done the direct flight out too except I was stopping in San Francisco for a couple nights on the way.

The direct flight was long enough, there's no way I was doing a stop if I could avoid it.
 
I am going this July from KC. What we are doing is we are breaking the trip up in two. We are flying to LA, and we are going to spend 5 days at Disneyland/D23 Convention. After those days, we are going to fly from LAX to Honolulu. When we return, we have a stop in LAX before continuing home which is going to make for one long day of traveling. If you haven't been to Disneyland, this would be a great way to do it.
 
We live just outside Chicago and always fly united to Honolulu. There is one nonstop a day, leaving about 915 and arriving About 130 pm. Then we fly back leaving around 330 and get in at 5 am. I hate stopping so the nonstop is perfect. I have not found it to be more expensive. I always fly United because I have gold status and always get free bags for everyone in our party, two free upgrades to economy plus and early boarding. Plus I belong to the united club and use it in chicago and honolulu before the flights. Makes a big difference.

How do you like United? I've flown a lot of airlines (I'm from Canada) but never tried United. The flights I'm eyeing up are on United, but I've read a lot of bad reviews, especially when it comes to delays etc...
How's the onboard entertainment and food you can purchase onboard? Do you know if they have IPads you can rent? My boys always love to get those (We get them on Air Canada Rouge) all the time. Even though we bring ours, they like the airline ones with lots of different games and movies.
I'm hesitant to book, but would love to hear your experiences.
Thank you:)
 
We took American from Chicago (live about 40 minutes from O'Hare) with a layover at LAX for a couple hours. It helped break the flight up a bit. On the way back we stayed for 3 nights at Disneyland. I like the stay at Disneyland for the return better than on the way there. The jet lag is worse traveling east so a couple days on the west coast makes that easier, plus leaving Hawaii isn't so depressing because you know you've got time at Disneyland to look forward to.

The flight from HNL to LAX we took Hawaiian, then used Southwest points from LAX to MKE.
 
We flew United direct from Chicago to Honolulu. It was ok. It was the only direct flight, so we didn't really have a choice. What drove me nuts was that they kept changing our seating assignments and didn't tell us. I had checked our flight before we left and found that our seats changed so I was still able to change it to what I prefer (2 rows by the window). At the same time, I checked our return flight and everything looked okay. Then, when I checked into our return flight, our seats changed again and this time--there were no seats for us to change to. We were put in the center row of the plane which was the last place we wanted to be for an overnight flight. We were arriving at 5am and my husband had to work at 8am so he was really hoping to get some sleep. Without having a window seat to lean against, it was hard for him to sleep. If you do book United--keep checking your seat assignments!!!

Re: the inflight entertainment--the back of the seats are designed to hold a personal device (tablet or phone). I have no idea if you could rent them. Be sure to download the United app before you leave to be able use the inflight entertainment. However, about 90% of the time, I was not able to connect to the United wifi. I saw that other people were connected. I just don't think they had the capacity which is something they really need to fix. Also, not all of the outlets work (to charge your device). The outlets are between the seats so for a row of 3, there are only 2 outlets. Annoying, if you don't know the people next to you and they hog it.
 
We flew United direct from Chicago to Honolulu. It was ok. It was the only direct flight, so we didn't really have a choice. What drove me nuts was that they kept changing our seating assignments and didn't tell us. I had checked our flight before we left and found that our seats changed so I was still able to change it to what I prefer (2 rows by the window). At the same time, I checked our return flight and everything looked okay. Then, when I checked into our return flight, our seats changed again and this time--there were no seats for us to change to. We were put in the center row of the plane which was the last place we wanted to be for an overnight flight. We were arriving at 5am and my husband had to work at 8am so he was really hoping to get some sleep. Without having a window seat to lean against, it was hard for him to sleep. If you do book United--keep checking your seat assignments!!!

Re: the inflight entertainment--the back of the seats are designed to hold a personal device (tablet or phone). I have no idea if you could rent them. Be sure to download the United app before you leave to be able use the inflight entertainment. However, about 90% of the time, I was not able to connect to the United wifi. I saw that other people were connected. I just don't think they had the capacity which is something they really need to fix. Also, not all of the outlets work (to charge your device). The outlets are between the seats so for a row of 3, there are only 2 outlets. Annoying, if you don't know the people next to you and they hog it.

Thank you!! I will keep your tips in mind if we do end up flying United. I'm still on the fence lol

Does sound very irritating what you went though with having to continue to pick your seats after they changed them. I've never ever had that happen to me and we travel a lot. I wouldn't like that because my husband is a tall man, and always picks an aisle seat.
 
We're flying direct Chicago to Honolulu on United at the end of the month. I hate hate hate United...but i wanted a bigger plane and direct flight and that was my only option. I'm hoping for no maintenance issues and delays, but we shall see.

For those that have done this, I have a question...does United provide a meal on that 9 hour flight either way? When I looked it appeared no. But DH thinks for that long of a flight they have to provide something. Thanks.
 
We're flying direct Chicago to Honolulu on United at the end of the month. I hate hate hate United...but i wanted a bigger plane and direct flight and that was my only option. I'm hoping for no maintenance issues and delays, but we shall see.

For those that have done this, I have a question...does United provide a meal on that 9 hour flight either way? When I looked it appeared no. But DH thinks for that long of a flight they have to provide something. Thanks.

The do not in economy, there are no requirements for meals set.
 
Nope, it's considered a domestic flight so no meal included in economy/economy plus. They will have a meal available to pay for, and I'm pretty sure you can view the options on the United website. It's usually some sort of hot pasta, a couple of sandwiches, and a variety of snack boxes. Decent but way overpriced of course!
 
We're flying direct Chicago to Honolulu on United at the end of the month. I hate hate hate United...but i wanted a bigger plane and direct flight and that was my only option. I'm hoping for no maintenance issues and delays, but we shall see.

For those that have done this, I have a question...does United provide a meal on that 9 hour flight either way? When I looked it appeared no. But DH thinks for that long of a flight they have to provide something. Thanks.

We did the Chicago to Honolulu flight in January 2016. They provided beverages and a snack, additional meals were for purchase and some did sell out. I brought a small, lunchbox sized soft sided cooler with fresh fruit, goldfish, sweet petite carrots, and Hormel snack packs. It worked out well as we could snack throughout the long flight.
 
Have another question....United, larger plane chicago to honolulu....did it have tvs, movies, wifi, etc? Trying to plan how much the kids need to bring to entertain themselves.
 
Have another question....United, larger plane chicago to honolulu....did it have tvs, movies, wifi, etc? Trying to plan how much the kids need to bring to entertain themselves.

You can look on the United app to see what is typically offered on a particular flight. We are flying first class from Chicago, but I believe the economy class instructions are download the United app to your device to watch movies, etc., on your own device in flight.

We will be flying economy class back with a flight from HNL to LAX and a flight from LAX to Chicago. We and our kids have the Netflix app, the Disney Movies Anywhere app, and our local library's app for books.

Last year we flew from Chicago to John Wayne on American. The flight out had a newer plane with the screens in the seat backs and lots of content to choose from. The flight back was an older plane with the overhead screens. DD 12 wasn't interested in the movie ("Hello My Name is Doris" with Sally Field), couldn't get the wifi app to work on her iPad, and was bored and cranky as a tween can be.

So, we are making sure we all have movies/shows/books downloaded to our respective iPads so we have plenty to do on the return flights, just in case the wifi or United app is not cooperative.
 

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