www.CostaRicaTicas.com

anyone know of flight deals flying out of chicago to sjo??? i will be be flying 12/1-12/6...any help would be appreciated...thanks!

I fly out of chicago and seem to have the best luck with U.S. Air.
There is usually a 1 hour layover in Charlottel North Carolina.
My round trip for this nov. is $326

Brother Dean is a frequent flyer from the Wind. A PM to him is advised.

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"A man accustomed to hear only the echo of his own sentiments, soon bars all the common avenues of delight, and has no part in the general gratification of mankind"--Dr. Johnson
"Amen, brother"-ED

I always fly AA ORD to SJO, typical prices are 330 - 460 R/T

I fly out of Chicago and I haven't found any thing close to the low 3's this year. I used to find them for as low as 2 1/2.
But I just booked a flight for Feb. and I had to settle for 480. But I want certain times. I want to leave early (6) and arrive at about 1. Then I want to leave late and not have an overnight layover. If you'll take overnight layovers or late arrivals I guess you can get it cheaper.

I fly 7-8 times a year from Chicago. Since Mexicana went under, the prices have stayed over $400. I did find a replacement flight on Spirit Air for my suspended Mexicana flight that totaled $290...I carried a personal item back and returned with carryon and two checked.

My advice is to go to http://www.kayak.com, start an account, and get daily fare alerts. Your dates are still before the Christmas rush. Decide what you need for luggage, arrival/departure times, and other considerations. You can go to Spirit Air website and check, they will give you a calendar with prices. Usually it is less money than what appears on the kayak search

I thought I heard that Taca may add flights there. I track flights daily on Kayak with many dates selected. An overview:

Aeromexicanas and Spirit Air prices on kayak are misstated.
American Airlines is around $425 with 2 free checked bags and breakfast, lunch or dinner on the SJO - MIA/DFW segment. Price jumps $150 -$200 within two weeks of departure date. AND you can hold a reservation for 24 hours. That's what I do when I'm closer to booking.
Delta has 2 free checked bags
Continental has 1 free, charge for 2nd
US Air has charges for both bags, but allowed two free return. Go figure.
Taca dinner, lunch booze 2 free checked but a stop or two in Guatemala or El Salvador.

I booked my 3 month flight at $255.00 Delta in July. Then the prices stayed at $300 until Mexicana suspended all flights. Then they went to $400, staying at $425 range since.

Delta flys to both Midway & Ohare I booked an early morning departure at Ohare and a return to Midway.

I booked yesterday with AA because I booked a Friday departure, it offered more than one arrival time in Chicago (Delta only arrives at 10:30 PM) free checked, food, and price. Prices jumped $15.00 for most carriers on 1 day.

Whosear has it correct, cien perciento!!! Ever since Mexicana tanked and UA/CO merger (I believe bcs UA has Chicago as the main hub), we have seen a $150 increase, standard. Now, Taca has a great schedule, I just haven't tried them yet. I went 100% AA, got gold status and then the increases. The early flight (5:40 AM) on AA has good connection times. Be careful with the 5:40 on CO. The connection time is about an hour. An outbound delay at Ohare can mean you miss your flight. One thing, get your info from Kayak, Orbitz, or wherever but book direct with the airline.

Dean

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my first wingman sent me this, how true

" most of the girls down here, lie as a self defense mechanism and to not have to face the truth, thinking most men couldn't accept them knowing the whole truth. Simpler, they may just want men to think they are as perfect as they want to appear to them, trying to hide what they consider to be the ugly truth about themselves. And I may be reading more into it than is there, but I do believe they consider the basis of the lies to be justified."

Now $450 does seem to be the going rate. Started looking 3-4 weeks ago for tickets for trip the first week of Feb. and also found the $150 increase across the board....CO, AA, Delta, Spirit and USAir. Guess I/we had it too good at the $ 280-$330 fare that I have enjoyed for the past 2 years.

Try looking on kayak, atiflights.com, etc. and the airline websites on Tuesdays and Wednesday's, sometimes I have seen a little better pricing on those days. Also, once you get your trip dates established and want to pull the trigger, I have found that the airfares and available flights fluctuate often so when you see what you want.....book it right then and there!

Keep an eye on Taca http://www.taca.com, they've been very competitive lately.. I will start flying them again if they approve my status match

I think that depends. I used to give this advice not too long ago when you would only get 50% of your elite qualifying miles if you booked anywhere other than Continental's website. But that restriction has been lifted. There are still reasons why you would want to do this, for example with Continental you can earn a $5 bonus (caveat: $25 annual membership), and a mileage bonus (currently only 250 miles) for booking your itinerary there, plus they give you a low fare guarantee (although other sites do to varying degrees).

However, many 3rd party websites (eg. Orbitz, Expedia, Travelocity) offer various incentives and promotions to get you to book there on both airline and airline/hotel packages. It's worth it to check around a bit. Compare it with any benefits or promotions you would earn with booking directly. If miles and status are important to you, be careful of using a discount site or bucket shop like hotwire, priceline, etc.

Absent of a promotion though I do book directly with the airline.

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Sex with Gringas in the U.S. is like modern art. Most of it is pretty bad, and the good stuff is out of your price range.

prices are definitely higher than expected...i booked with taca RT ticket for 440...wish it was cheaper but oh well....

I found a pretty good deal at http://www.ticotravel.com for an early February trip. I'd read about it in a few other posts here and wound up with AA from ORD to SJO for $275. I'm not really wild about the flight times, but it was $100 cheaper than the next flight.

I went to this site and it is cheap. I am wondering if there is a catch? This used to be the fare we used to get. It didn't seem like I needed to reserv e a hotel either. I am suspicious but happy you found this site.

Dean

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my first wingman sent me this, how true

" most of the girls down here, lie as a self defense mechanism and to not have to face the truth, thinking most men couldn't accept them knowing the whole truth. Simpler, they may just want men to think they are as perfect as they want to appear to them, trying to hide what they consider to be the ugly truth about themselves. And I may be reading more into it than is there, but I do believe they consider the basis of the lies to be justified."

[quote="Whosear"]Delta flys to both Midway & Ohare I booked an early morning departure at Ohare and a return to Midway.

I saw this and it is a lot cheaper than what I got stuck with. The problem is for many reasons I like to ride and park to my flight. But if I took this package where do I park? I suppose I could find many free spaces near Madison and Central which is right in between. But then where do I pray that my car is still there and in one piece when I get back?

My guess is they bought up a big block of tickets back when we were seeing the 277 to 297 RT flights out of O'hare.. Grab them while they last... doubt it will last long