Favorite Airline when flying to Vegas?

I fly United exclusively. Not the greatest airline, but with my 1K status I usually get upgraded and they at least pretend to care about me.

 

I have a love/hate relationship with Untied. 99% of the time the flight goes smoothly, but when it does not, it's a major frustration and no, they do not seem to care about me, it's always been the "You get there when you get there" attitude.

Having said that, they have (or did have before Covid) frequent nonstops to both ORD and EWR, which is (well, was) the most convenient single seat to the NYC area from here. The problem is that the flight I like the best to EWR, which takes off noonish (or did, pre Covid) is late taking off over half of the time, and they always blame it on a request to delay from the EWR traffic control folks due to supposed congestion.

They also have a lot of big-plane/little-plane roulette, or at least did pre-covid.

I just realized that as of this coming weekend, it's been a year since I've been anywhere by air, or even been in an airport, or even been out of the immediate metro area, or even ridden in someone else's car, or ... or ... or ...

 

Southwest Airlines. From my working days of traveling primarily between Reno/Las Vegas and other west coast destinations), I've become a fan. Used to be 8-10 non-stop flights between the two cities, which made travel VERY convenient. Not that way anymore, but still my preferred option. Lots of friends rave about Alaska Airlines and one of these day when I start to travel again, I intend to try 'em.

 

I'm a Delta fan, too. When I started flying with them for work, I began using them for vacations, too. Cost more on average but status offsets help and they tend to be good service wise. ATL is pretty easy to navigate for transfers...I was taught a good trick there, that if your transfer is more than two letters away, tram. 1-2 letters away, walk it. Apparently this is quite the learned trick. It has saved me many a headache when connections were pressing time-wise.

 

It has been AA as I had several choices of non stops daily out of Philly.
Just found out that ended recently. So now I have to figure out a new favorite.
I'll use all my AAdvantage miles and move on.

 

Generally SW out of Buffalo mixed with Air Canada and Westjet out of Toronto. I have a tentative booking Rouge business class out of Toronto in December. I have a fair bit of points to burn so I did OB business and NB coach. Otherwise SW is simple to book, to change and to bring the clubs!

 

When my daughter was first born, we had a rule that my wife and I would take separate flights. We live about equidistant to three airports (IAD, DCA and BWI). There were two flights that worked perfect for us. There was a direct flight in the morning from DCA (American) and direct flight from IAD (United) that worked perfect for us. Both flights left and arrived around the same time. Usually, there was about 10-15 minute difference. The return flights were similar. Now that we travel together again I don't really care. Both airlines are mediocre. We tend to fly United because they have more direct flight offerings. Plus, we tend to fly business class. I would say the Southwest flights out of BWI are a great option as well. I have done that on several occassions.

 

Good tip. Thanks.

 

Three non-stop options out of MSP. Delta, Spirit and Sun Country. Whichever’s cheapest and has flight times amenable to my schedule. I couldn’t care less what the company name is as long as I get to Vegas when I want to get to Vegas.

Although I do hedge against Spirit if possible. Too many negative experiences with them.

 

Hawaiian air to fly from Hawaii to vegas. direct flight, plus during the daytime flights Hawaiian serves a meal. Unfortunately because of covid the meal now consists of just a sandwich but it beats having to bring your own food for a 5 to 6 hour flight.

But Hawaiian air fares beat the big airlines by a mile pricewise. Not sure, I heard that SW was supposed to fly direct to lv when they get the max back in service (but do you want to fly on a max? lol).

The past few years I qualified for their premium membership (pualani gold and platinum) so I get a free upgrade to the economy plus seats while paying cattle car prices. This year I qualified for pualani platinum so I get a free upgrade to first class when I fly again (in a few months after I get vaccinated, lol). Last year because of covid HA halved their qualifications to premium memberships and I was lucky to have flown to asia and lv before the shutdown (but I had to fly to vegas in December to reach platinum, hence my dec trip).

 

Southwest non-stop out of BWI. Out of the DC area, it’s the only way to fly, unless you want to connect. I think DCA and IAD both have one non stop a day, if you miss that, you’re connecting.

 

Southwest out of Milwaukee

 

Delta....the only non-stop to Vegas available from MSP. I'm not too fond of layovers; just takes away from time in VEGAS! (I don't count Sun Country...they are very unreliable and might just leave you stranded somewhere.)

 

Southwest. We work the credit card points signups pretty well, so a RT non-stop flight for the 2 of us is $122 including early-bird checkin. BNA has 2 or 3 non-stop flights daily and there are also a few one-stop flights that aren't bad. They have a nice, simple system that includes checked bags, carryons, and the like.

If we're out of points, we get interline discounts and Southwest flights are (last time I used the discount, at least) less than $100 RT, anywhere in the lower 48 if you fly standby. Don't remember if any of the other airlines have a flat rate like that. A regular SW flight can be had for less than $300 RT but I'd consider one of the cheapo airlines.

 

SW is a 90 min drive but has a lot more options, Allegiant has direct flights with a 10 min drive but only 2 days a week.

 

Since the demise of Thomas Cook, the part of the UK I'm in only has Virgin Atlantic to fly with if going direct, although at the moment they have knocked off directs from Manchester for the foreseeable future. My next trip is from Heathrow as they are still flying direct from there, I have points to use with them so that's why I prefer them over BA.

 

SWA always from BUR. Easy in and out for both outbound and return. Plus you often see dancers/escorts making the weekend trips which makes for nice eye candy.

 

Thinking hard - AA from my local airport (SPI), but only two flights daily and both involve a change at DFW, but it's only 15 min from my house and parking is free, lines are non-existent and fares are usually not more than $50 - $75 higher than a trip to STL (2 hrs). When you factor in the parking in STL, drive time, and potential traffic issues, changing usually beats a SW non-stop from STL. There are other Central IL choices as well, but my favorites there would also be AA.

 

I'm the same way.

Since I have a Delta Am Ex card which gets me priority (zone 1) boarding and one free checked bag I (mostly) fly Delta. I've done Sun Country a few times. They're OK. Have not flown with Spirit nor do I plan to if I can avoid them. Heard lots of horror stories about Spirit.

 

Used to be SWA. Now, Alaska from PDX to LAS. Or from PDX to MSY.