joeyi

I have a yoga retreat planned for Jan 2009 to Costa Rica. I will be flying from San Diego. I have actually been able to find flights for my dates using my AA miles, but the only hitch is a 9 hour layover on the return in FLL from 9 pm Sat. night to 6 am sunday morning. I would still get back to San Diego sunday morning around noon.
Continental has better connections and return flight but it's pricing out at $733. I do not belong to their miles club so it would not give me any extra points to fly with them. AA ticket was pricing out around $633 but their return that would get me to San Diego the same day leaves early on Sat and i would have to miss the last morning of the retreat.

I know in the end I have to decide what to do but I am curious as to what others might do in this situation

AAFrequentFlyer

Why not just purchase a ticket through DFW?

I don't know what dates you need but it seems to me that SAN-DFW-SJO-DFW-SAN is available during the month of JAN for $633.

No overnight required.

Patty

AA SJO-DFW-SAN means missing the last morning of the retreat. With CO, the OP can take an afternoon SJO-IAH and still connect same day to SAN without missing the last morning.

Jeff_Costa_Rica

Is it an option to fly back home on Sunday, the day after the retreat ends?

You don't say where in Costa Rica the retreat is. Is it anywhere near San Jose? (I can think of a few places that hold such functions and they are several hours from the city.) Would you be able to make it to the airport in time to catch that SJO-FLL flight? It leaves about 5 p.m. You'd need to be at the airport around 2 p.m.

pat

I gave up flying to Costa Rica from Reno, the connections were so bad, through LAX, Houston and Dallas. They had a 40 minute connection time coming back through Phx, but no way would I make it through customs and immigration with that kind of connection. So now I`m going elsewhere. It`s also around $733.

joeyi

Jeff, the retreat is at Pura Vida Spa, i think it's about 45 minutes from San Jose. Sunday isn't really an option, but the flight that i will get on Saturday is the 5 pm flight to FLL, the problem is i just by the time you get to FLL the last flights west have already left for the day.

rkkwan

Use your miles. Book a hotel at FLL.

joeyi

rkkwan, thanks for posting, from my afternoon search of the airline board you seem to be the expert on Continental so i was hoping you would post.

rkkwan

Well, it has nothing to do with knowing CO. It's just that if you can get standard awards for 30K or 35K miles on AA, then that's a good use of your miles comparing to spending $733 on CO.

andrews98682

Could you get a later flight back from Fort Lauderdale and at least sleep in a little?