Myer

As the title says, I'm just thinking a bit for 2011 and possibly GNP.

I took a quick look at arrival locations: Spokane, Kalispell, Missoula & Great Falls.

Spokane appears to give the most airline options at a reasonable price and auto rentals are half of the others.

It appears to be a 4.5 hour drive wheras Missoula looks like 2.5 hrs. Kalispell is much shorter.

Is Spokane really a viable option?

starrs

Have you checked Butte or Billings?

If you haven't played around with kayak.com, give it a look.

John

Correct. Spokane is approx. 4 hours from Kalispell, Missoula 2 hours. Kalispell is 34 miles or 1/2 hour from the west entrance of GNP. Billings would be approx. 7 to 8 hours away and Butte 4 hours.
Haven't checked but I can almost guarantee Butte will be much higher in $.
Where are you coming from?
Delta, United, Air Alaska and Allegiant(from Vegas and Phoenix) fly into Kalispell.

lvk

Allegiant Air also flies from LAX to Missoula. We found ridiculously cheap flights -- nonstop from LAX to MSO for this summer.

kureiff

Butte has very few flights anymore. John's right, you're not going to get a good deal in and out of Butte. I'd check Bozeman, too. You'd be looking at a five hour drive from Bozeman. Great Falls is another option for an airport. It's about a 2.5 to 3 hour drive from Great Falls to East Glacier.

lvk's suggestion to look at Allegiant is a great idea depending on where you're flying from. Great Falls, Billings, Missoula, Bozeman, and Kalispell have Allegiant flights but only to and from certain cities. Only Missoula and Billings have flights to and from LAX, for example.

starrs

Last year I looked at flights into Butte and Billings vs Salt Lake City for flight options and was surprised to find roundrips in the $350 range for Butte and Billings. I just checked and Delta offers over 40 flight combinations for a random date I just checked (July 16th) from my home city.

That's why I suggested kayak. You can opt to include "nearby airports" in your search and it may help find other options.

We are flying into Jackson and out of Kalispell for this summer's trip - but are using frequent flyer miles.

I don't mind driving a few hours to save a lot of money - IF it's countryside I'd like to see. I really want to go to Sundance, which is why I was considering SLC as an option.

Good luck! Have fun!

Myer

I'm flying from FLL.

I really don't see anything better than Spokane.

A 4 hour drive isn't too bad.

kureiff

The only thing with Butte is that they have two flights from Salt Lake a day (Delta) and two flights a day from Seattle on Northwest. Northwest and Delta are the only two airlines you can use in Butte, plus if the weather is at all bad, you'll end up Bozeman instead of Butte because Butte isn't instrument rated.

John

Northwest no longer exist. Delta bought out NW and it's all one line now.
Thinking out of the box, you can fly into Calgary, Alberta and drive down to GNP, again in about 4 hours. One catch, I understand it's a hassle to cross over in a rental car. If you did this you could take time to see Banff National park in Canada also.

spirobulldog

Myer,
Just saw that you were considering this trip. We are going to be there July 14-19. Have my airline tickets already purchased, flying into Kalispel. $450 from Tulsa, OK. I didn't think that was that bad of a price. We rented a house on vrbo.com that is about a mile from the entrance(near Apgar). Only really big hike I have planned is doing a ranger hike on Highline Trail. Not sure if my daughter or wife will hike that one with me or not. I know my parents won't.

Don't know if you are familiar with the website below or not, but it has a lot of info.

http://glacier.nationalparkschat.com/phpBB3/

Ackislander

kureiff's point about weather issues is worth expanding.

Most of these airports have relatively few flights on relatively small planes. If you are bumped on a late flight or the last flight of the day, there may well be no flights until next day, and they may already be booked. Your choices may be to stay over for another 24 hours (Airline X paid for our room and gave us a food allowance) or drive hundreds of miles to an airport that does have flights, paying for your own one way rental. The airline doesn't pay for that because their obligation is not to get you home at a particular time but to get you home.

So if I had to be home, I would pick the airport with the most flights and not book the last flight of the day to squeeze in a little more vacation.

spirobulldog

The last flight of the day being you only option, pretty much is the norm for most major airports. The exception to that might be Major Hubs. There are no Major Hubs close to Glacier. I have yet to have an airline pay for my hotel or food due to a weather related issue

I think price and time are most peoples concerns. You can alway look at "on time" statistics. Don't get me wrong, I fully understand what you are saying. But, do I want to drive 4 or 5 hours one way. That basically is equivillant to a full day lost that I could be doing something else(unless the drive is exceptionally scenic or a person just enjoys driving). I do always try to make connecting flights(when there is the option) of say Phoenix over Denver if I am flying Southwest. The problem with the big airport is that when they get "backed up", there is a real problem. If Kalispel of Butte gets behind then they can catch back up within 15 minutes or so. It just all depends on how you look at it. As always with flying, nothing is absolutely certain.

Dayle

Myer,

Are you back from Utah? How was your trip?

Ackislander

My Montana delay wasn't a weather delay, although I have had plenty of those during my road warrior days. It was an aircraft substitution. They paid, though I don't know if they had to. I was nice because I am retired and didn't have to get home. Most people weren't nice because they did, and the only way to do it was to rent a car and drive to Spokane or maybe Helena.