$51 Find Cheap Flights from San Francisco Bay Area to Illinois

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Low seasonJanuary
Cheapest flight$51
Best time to beat the crowds with an average 1% drop in price.
Most popular time to fly and prices are also 16% lower on average.
Flight from Oakland to Chicago O'Hare Airport

FAQs for booking flights from San Francisco Bay Area to Illinois

  • How does KAYAK find such low prices on flights from San Francisco Bay Area to Illinois?

    KAYAK is a travel search engine. That means we look across the web to find the best prices we can find for our users. With over 2 billion flight queries processed yearly, we are able to display a variety of prices and options on flights from San Francisco Bay Area to Illinois.

  • How does KAYAK's flight Price Forecast tool help me choose the right time to buy my flight ticket from San Francisco Bay Area to Illinois?

    KAYAK’s flight Price Forecast tool uses historical data to determine whether the price for a flight from San Francisco Bay Area to Illinois is likely to change within 7 days, so travelers know whether to wait or book now.

  • What is the Hacker Fare option on flights from San Francisco Bay Area to Illinois?

    Hacker Fares allow you to combine one-way tickets in order to save you money over a traditional round-trip ticket. You could then fly from San Francisco Bay Area to Illinois with an airline and back with another airline.

  • What is KAYAK's "flexible dates" feature and why should I care when looking for a flight from San Francisco Bay Area to Illinois?

    Sometimes travel dates aren't set in stone. If your preferred travel dates have some wiggle room, flexible dates will show you all the options when flying from San Francisco Bay Area to Illinois up to 3 days before/after your preferred dates. You can then pick the flights that suit you best.

  • Which airlines fly most frequently to Illinois?

    San Francisco Bay Area and Illinois are connected by different airlines. The airlines that fly that route the most regularly are Air Canada (103 flights per week), United Airlines (102 flights per week), and Air New Zealand (98 flights per week).

  • How many airports are there in Illinois?

    There are 12 airports in Illinois. The busiest airport is Chicago O'Hare Airport (ORD), with 92% of all flights arriving there.

  • Which is the cheapest airport to fly into in Illinois?

    Prices will differ depending on the departure airport, but generally, the cheapest airport to fly to in Illinois is Chicago Midway Airport (MDW), with an average flight price of $230.

  • What is the cheapest day to fly to Illinois?

    Based on KAYAK data, the cheapest day to fly to Illinois is Wednesday where round-trip tickets can be as cheap as $408. On the other hand, the most expensive day to fly is Sunday, where round-trip prices are $511 on average.

  • What is the cheapest time of day to fly to Illinois?

    The cheapest time of day to fly to Illinois is generally in the evening, when round-trip flights cost $415 on average. Morning departures are around 7% more expensive than evening flights, on average. The most expensive time of day to fly to Illinois is generally in the afternoon, which is peak travel time and where the average cost of a ticket is $478.

  • What is the cheapest flight to Illinois?

    The cheapest ticket to Illinois from San Francisco Bay Area found in the last 72 hours was to Chicago Midway Airport, at $163 round-trip. The most popular route is Oakland (OAK) to Chicago Midway Airport (MDW) and the cheapest round-trip airline ticket found on this route in the last 72 hours was $163.

  • What is the cheapest month to fly from San Francisco Bay Area to Illinois?

    The cheapest month for flights from San Francisco Bay Area to Illinois is September, when tickets cost $203 (return) on average. On the other hand, the most expensive months are March and April, when the average cost of round-trip tickets is $508 and $426 respectively.

  • How far in advance should I book a flight from San Francisco Bay Area to Illinois?

    To get a below average price on the flight from San Francisco Bay Area to Illinois, you should book around 4 weeks before departure, which saves you about 43% compared to booking last minute. For the absolute cheapest price, our data suggests you should book 10 weeks before departure.

  • How many cities have direct flights to Illinois?

    From San Francisco Bay Area, there are direct flights to Illinois from 2 cities. The city with the most direct flights is San Francisco, with 751 direct flights each week.

  • How many direct flights to Illinois are there each day?

    There are around 111 direct flights from within San Francisco Bay Area to Illinois every day. Most flights (38%) depart in the morning.

  • How many direct flights to Illinois are there each week?

    Each week there are around 776 direct flights from within San Francisco Bay Area to Illinois. The most common day for departures is Sunday, with 16% of flights taking off on this day.

  • How long is the flight to Illinois?

    An average nonstop flight from San Francisco Bay Area to Illinois takes 11h 22m, covering a distance of 1771 miles. The shortest route is San Francisco (SFO) to St. Louis (STL) with an average flight time of 3h 40m.

  • How many long-haul flights are there to Illinois each week?

    There are not any long-haul (6-12 hour flight duration) or short-haul (up to 3 hour flight duration) flights to Illinois. Instead, there are 776 medium-haul flights (3-6 hour flight duration), with the most arriving from San Francisco.

  • What are the most popular destinations in Illinois?

    Based on KAYAK flight searches, the most popular destination is Chicago (92% of total searches to Illinois). The next most popular destinations are St. Louis (6%) and Moline (1%). Searches for flights to Peoria (0%), to Evansville (0%) and to Decatur (0%) are also popular.

Reviews of the top 5 airlines serving from San Francisco Bay Area to Illinois

 
Need help choosing which airline to fly with from San Francisco Bay Area to Illinois? KAYAK airline reviews give an overall score for each airline based on loads of factors, including comfort, boarding, in-flight entertainment and more, to make your decision easier. See airline scores according to verified KAYAK customer reviews.
8.0
Alaska AirlinesOverall score based on 10000 reviews
8.1Boarding
7.1Entertainment
7.1Food
8.5Crew
7.8Comfort
Airline reviews

Departing flight to San Diego was delayed. Return flight from SD to SBP was delayed. Not terrible but not ideal

4.0 OkaySean, Jul 2025SBP - SAN
Read more Alaska Airlines reviews

Departing flight to San Diego was delayed. Return flight from SD to SBP was delayed. Not terrible but not ideal

I always heard this was a terrible airline but I was happy to experience otherwise. The seats were more comfortable than delta. They did board late and gate was a little chaotic, which is to be expected for a budget airline. I would definitely do it again for that price.

My email notifications were silenced, so I didn't get word that the departing flight had changed gates. It wasn't until I noticed that few people had gathered for the flight that I checked the airport schedule board, 20 minutes before boarding. I then told several people at the old gate of the change. If I was to receive a text I would have been notified of the change earlier, Or to hear an announcement over the airport intercom.

Canceled flight. No communication of this prior. Rescheduled to next day. Our good seats we purchased months ago turned into last row middle. No apology, reason, nor compensation for time and $ spent.

delayed flight 3 hours, then took 45 min to get to gate and another 10 min to open door

Delayed flight both ways. Then, on the return flight, we were stuck on the tarmac for at least 30+ minutes. Idk what happened, but this was a bad experience.

The plane was put out of service and had to wait for a new plane to be assigned. No one had any information and the information on the screens was never updated. The call wait time was 2 hours and the estimated time for text assistance was 55 minutes which was a lie because after 55 minutes nothing happened. I understand that delays happen but to not have anyone available to provide any update or reassurance was just negligent. Also, what is the point of having an 800 number if no one answers it and don’t get me started on the text message system. Ridiculous!

Great flight, no bumps to speak of, pleasant crew, good inflight entertainment choices

Coffee or tea service would be nice for an evening flight, water or juice not good enough.

Very expensive for short flights. Can’t communicate with Alaska Air about passport issue at check-in. Also no replies to my text messages. Wanted to extend our vacation for two more days but this expensive flight ticket is called SAVER and I couldn’t make changes or cancel or get a credit even, so I paid another airline for the return trip. Extremely disappointed.

Worst experience I had on Southwest. Still better than most, but the seating was barely tolerable.

It was okay. The plane was delayed from earlier in the day, but they kept updating the departure time, sometimes later, sometimes earlier. That was stressful. Once we finally got on and took off, it was fine. I was supposed to have a connection in Chicago to Los Angeles, and the time for so late I was rebooked to arrive in LA 3 hours late. The departure time to Chicago later became early enough to have taken my original connection and arrive earlier but that wasn't an option.

Delayed flight. Nicest crew member was a SW pilot flying seated next to me who kindly move to seat the final passenger. Flight extra delayed. My cup of refreshment of ginger ale was so packed with ice it was literally 2 sips.

No trays in our seats, we sat in first row, purchased a business class fare. Had to hold our drinks and snack in our hands. No plugs for our cell phones. Had to pay for it a drink cocktail each. Seats so uncomfortable.

Flight wasn’t even full, but too many carry-ons caused us to run out of bin space. New bag fee has folks who would usually check their bags carrying on. Watching Southwest morph into Spirit/Frontier is so sad to watch

Everything was on time. I was disappointed by the front section female, African American flight attendant. I did not see her name tag or would have identified by name not race. As passengers moved to the bathroom early in flight, she would say with a disdainful tone “I have to say the seat belt light is on” then go back to her book. Better trained flight attendants say something like be careful the seat belt light is on.

Southwest is Southwest. No frills. If you're luck enough to get a happy crew (we did), then it makes for a nicer flight.

It was a perfect flight in all aspects! Both legs!

Great flight, 47 passengers on a 180 seat plane. Stewardess was pleasant and cheerful.

I liked the crew member who gave flight instructions on "in case of a problem:. The seats are so small that only a young teenager could sit in middle seat.

Weather delay in Chicago?. No sense of urgency to make connection in Chicago for our connecting flight that wasn't delayed. Connection was missed.

Overall it was good. I missed my connection but I was put on another flight.

Overall a very poor experience - booked premium economy tickets but due to last minute flight delays , all my itinery went for a toss and had to fly economy class with no access to lounge or any compensation by united airlines to make up for the flight delays . i had expected better experience than that from united.

It was fine, definitely older planes with no charging or anything. There’s no entertainment set up on board, but it is nice that they allow you to access the in flight entertainment from your phone without having to pay for the Wi-Fi and they do offer free texting.

I liked that the flight was nonstop from ORD to CIU for $200 round trip.

The schedule to Moline changed 5 times. The gate changed 6 times. That is a pathetic way to run an airline. No wonder that no one in our company flies on United Express to or from Moline. Changes happen most of the time. I learned my lesson on this trip…never again!

While the staff was pleasant and helpful, the following observations are for your awareness. There was some delay on the tarmac on take off and landing. The paid lunch/food offerings were limited. Entertainment was only available on WiFi at a cost.

The first flight was better in terms of the aircraft.

Smooth flight. Boarding was chaotic. Could not hear the gate agent over the intercom. People were lined up in the wrong lines. Groups one and two were told to board through line one and group 3 through line 2. All very confusing. Once in the air, the flight was smooth. There was no entertainment option on this aircraft, even though it was a larger aircraft.

Overall poor for me I paid extra for seats with leg room and my regional flights exit row seats have less leg room then the others that's money that could have been saved and on my final flight home the flights air was not operating it was unbearably hot in the cabin I will be contacting United and filing a DOT complaint

Couldn’t get the door on the plane to close leading to a nearly 2 hour delay. But, hey at least they didn’t cancel the flight.

The flight was fine and the crew awesome. The problem is ORD and AA. Computers went down, ORD fell apart and a 40 min flight turned into a 3 hour trip. Guess the answer is to not try and fly to ORD after noon. But, as I said, crew was awesome and did everything they could to lesson the flight time.

The flight was fine but the 8 hour delay in Chicago was awful - 5 gate changes and repeated delays without an explanation. No vouchers. Nothing.

Most miserable flight ever. We waited almost 2 hours on the runway because the flight was oversold. American offered $1200 credit. Then there was some nonsense about weight distribution. Ridiculous. No food for 8 plus hours on the flight. I will be writing a letter.

The flight was 2 hour delayed, otherwise everything was excellent. The delay was due to the hourly limit requirement so given that as a reason, I'm happy with the flight!

Not sure the logic of the boarding in Groups. I was loaded first on the aisle. Then the guy in the middle. Then the guy by the window. Constantly holding up the other people boarding behind them with us blocking the aisle and this happened in most of the other rows

To start, I’d like to say that every American Airline personnel I interacted with on the ground, especially flight crew, was very friendly and did their best to help me out. Despite this, however, my experience with the airline was an entire mess. The 7:19 PM flight was heavily delayed due to weather, and pushed to 10:30 AM the next morning. Because of this, I had to spend the night inside of the airport. At some point later in the night, I got an email saying that the flight had been canceled. I called the support number, and the representative on the other line told me that the flight was still on and that I didn’t need to rebook. The next morning, no one came to the gate to open the door for the crew until almost 11 AM. By this time the flight crew had been waiting for over an hour, and they had called management to get someone to open the door for them multiple times. Around 11:30, the gate screen had changed to a different flight. I ended up buying a last minute ticket with Southwest airline just to get to Chicago, because the next flight with American wasn’t until 7:19 pm that day. Now, earlier that morning my suitcase had been sent ahead of me to ORD. I went to baggage claim to ask them if I could have my suitcase forwarded to where I was staying. The representative at SDF baggage claim said they could and put the claim in for me. As I was going back through TSA, I got an email that the airline had found my suitcase, but the next step was to send it BACK to SDF. I called the airline support number again, and I made it clear that my suitcase needed to stay in Chicago and to not come back to SDF. The representative told me that they would hold my suitcase at ORD and that it wasn’t going to be forwarded anywhere. Once I got there, I found that they had loaded my suitcase onto a plane to send it back to SDF. Thankfully, I had gotten to the baggage claim counter in time for them to put in a request to bring my suitcase back up. My refund with the airline is processing already, but because of this entire experience and miscommunication at every turn of the way, I will not book with American Airlines in the future.

The plane was late and then sat on the runway for almost 45 minutes before taking off.

Crew professional. Easy bag drop off. On time. Good entertainment.

Everything was great. Boarding, early departure, early arrival, and deplaning were smooth. Smooth flight.

Severe turbulence. Captain never came on to reassure passengers after things settled down.

We were delayed three times ,and that destroyed my plans, and reservations

Cancelled flight after I arrived at airport after 75 min drive and parking. Next flight was 4 days in the future. Had to scramble and buy a much more expensive flight on another carrier.

I liked the turn-style feature at gate 209B at LAX. Very efficient process. The gate staff also made several, clearly directed announcements so I felt very informed.

The crew was delayed because they came on another flight that was delayed due to weather 10pm flight left at 1.30 am The airline made no effort to align alternate crew

The seats were awful, hard plastic covered in sheet vinyl. The airline tries to scam you into paying extra to get seat together when the flight wasn’t full. They were going to separate a family with young children but my wife who had a row to herself gave up her seat so the young mom could be with her young boys. I’m never giving this airline my money again.

It was a short flight so no food or entertainment….

Frontier had yet another flight cancellation. Have never made a complete round trip with this airline without at least one leg getting cancelled. Miserable flights - dirty, uncomfortable planes that apparently always have issues since I've had multiple delays and cancellations with them.

Flight was delayed 3 times, would have been nice to have received text message instead of email notifications. Frontier app wasn’t even updated accordingly, no gate number disclosed. No agent at front desk of gate to inform of delay. Very confused and left if the dark

The flight itself was ok and the pilot was very communicative. However, our flight was delayed for almost 3 hours, the gate was changed 3 times and there was no communication as we were waiting. The flight staff was overall a little crabby...I understand as they probably had a long day but we all did.

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