How far have you driven to an airport? We live in Minneapolis, but we're seriously considering driving to ORD to catch Aer Lingus for our next trip to Ireland ( The savings in air fare would pay for our lodging and then some!).

Have you considered taking Amtrak? It may be a bit more of a hassle but may save even more, be less stressful, and a lot more fun possibly...

Jimbo- It crossed my mind, but it's way more expensive than driving, you then have to get from the train station to the airport, and perhaps most important it's not reliable enough when you have to catch a plane.

On a recent trip to England, we drove five hours to PHL to save the $400pp it would have cost extra for the flight originating at from our local home airport, which is about an hour away. <BR>

As an alternative, you might want to consider nesting a domestic r/t ticket around your Aer Lingus flight. Keep the connection very loose, since the domestic carrier really isn't responsible for your international flight and a delay of any length could be a disaster for you if you set it up too tightly. <BR><BR>I've seen fares to ORD from MSP for under $200, so if you're talking about two people, that might be a better than driving. MSP to ORD is a long drive; particularly AFTER your flight home. The cheapest econo-lot parking is $13/day at ORD and there is the direct (plus imputed) expense of driving your vehicle nearly 800 miles r/t, one and possibly two nights lodging & expenses, a good 12 hours of windshield time combined, etc. It's worth several hundred dollars to avoid that. <BR><BR>

Noname -<BR><BR>I'm in Minneapolis too, and frequently evaluate the cost/benefit of flying out of Chicago. As far as AmTrak goes - not only is it more expensive than driving, it's probably about the same $ as flying - when you consider that you can't get into Chicago until 4:20, and the last bus back home goes at 2:10, you're probably looking at one night of lodging at each end. I have to agree with Jim that driving eight hours back home after a long flight is not too fun. Plus the parking cost might be enough to pay for one flight....<BR><BR>The nice thing about flying in/ out of Chicago is that the loop back home runs almost every hour, and only takes ~90 minutes -- so there's a good chance of tacking it onto the same day as your longer flight.<BR><BR>p.s. - noname: Are you, like me, tired as heck of finding NWA more expensive than most other airlines, even out of its own hub???

Kelly, you shouldn't be surprised that NWA has high fares "even out of its own hub" -- airlines who are dominant in a particular airport always jack the prices up. When you control 75% or more of the traffic into and out of a particular airport, you can basically set the prices however you want, e.g. NW in MSP and DTW, USAirways in CLT, United in DEN.<BR><BR>The only time you can luck out is if the big dog in your market is a low-fare airline, like Southwest in Nashville.<BR><BR>I've been hoping for years that Southwest would start flying into MSP -- I enjoy visiting that area but hate paying the outrageous fares that NWA sets for that market.

Sam,<BR><BR>It wouldn't surprise me that flights out of MSP are generally higher, since one company has a lock on the majority of business. But why on earth should they be more expensive on the same flight that, say, Delta offers out of MSP? Good heavens... Am I actually arguing that Delta should be charging MORE than they currently are??? Well, maybe I will start driving to ORD! Would you believe it costs twice as much to fly to Costa Rica out of Mpls as out of Chicago?

Have you even priced a ticket out of MSP? Sometimes they are not that much different than ORD. Do that first...<BR>and if it is a huge difference, I say drive. I lived in Dallas and we have driven to OKC to fly. When there are 4 people, $200 a ticket is a huge price difference. We saved $800 last time..the drive is only 3 1/2 hours.

I will be driving from ORlando to Miami to fly Airfrance to Paris and save $100pp. that is a 4 hr drive