$84 Find Cheap Flights from San Francisco to Illinois

This is the cheapest one-way flight price found by a KAYAK user in the last 72 hours by searching for a flight from San Francisco to Illinois departing on 6/4. Fares are subject to change and may not be available on all flights or dates of travel. Click the price to replicate the search for this deal.
1 adult

KAYAK searches hundreds of travel sites at once for deals on flights to Illinois

 
These are the airlines KAYAK users have selected most often from within our search results in flight searches from San Francisco to Illinois.
These are the airlines KAYAK users have selected most often from within our search results in flight searches from San Francisco to Illinois.
Travelers love KAYAK
41,299,237 searches in the past 7 days on KAYAK

Save 22% or moreCompare multiple travel sites with one search.

Track pricesNot ready to book? Create a price alert for when prices drop.

Bundle and saveSave money when you bundle your flight + hotel.

Filter your dealsChoose cabin class, free Wi-Fi and more.

Flights Deals
Useful Info
Flights Deals

Best Illinois Flight Deals from San Francisco

Cheapest round-trip prices found by our users on KAYAK in the last 72 hours

Chicago
Chicagononstop$161
Moline
Moline1 stop$289
Peoria
Peoria2 stops$344
Bloomington
Bloomington1 stop$379
Champaign
Champaign1 stop$477
Springfield
Springfield2 stops$383
Decatur
Decatur1 stop$374
St. Louis
St. Louis1 stop$212
Chicago
Chicagononstop$161
Moline
Moline1 stop$289
Peoria
Peoria2 stops$344
Bloomington
Bloomington1 stop$379
Champaign
Champaign1 stop$477
Springfield
Springfield2 stops$383
Decatur
Decatur1 stop$374
St. Louis
St. Louis1 stop$212

Cheap Flight Deals from San Francisco to Illinois (SFO-USIL)

 
Here are some of the best deals found on KAYAK recently from the most popular airlines for round-trip flights from San Francisco to Illinois that are departing in the next months. While these flights were available on KAYAK in the last 72 hours, prices and availability are subject to change and deals may expire.
Discover the best prices for you by selecting your travel dates on KAYAK.

Recent round-trip flight deals from San Francisco to Illinois

Sat, May 17 - Sat, May 24
Alaska Airlines Logo
12:33 pm - 6:59 pmSFO-ORD
4h 26mnonstop
Alaska Airlines Logo
7:59 pm - 10:49 pmORD-SFO
4h 50mnonstop
$161Alaska Airlines
Find Deal
Sat, May 17 - Sat, May 24
Hawaiian Airlines Logo
12:33 pm - 6:59 pmSFO-ORD
4h 26mnonstop
Hawaiian Airlines Logo
7:59 pm - 10:49 pmORD-SFO
4h 50mnonstop
$168Hawaiian Airlines
Find Deal
Tue, Jun 3 - Thu, Jun 5
Southwest Logo
6:35 pm - 5:20 amSFO-MDW
8h 45m1 stop
Southwest Logo
8:00 pm - 12:15 amMDW-SFO
6h 15m1 stop
$183Southwest
Find Deal
Fri, May 30 - Tue, Jun 3
United Airlines Logo
11:15 pm - 5:38 amSFO-ORD
4h 23mnonstop
United Airlines Logo
6:26 pm - 9:15 pmORD-SFO
4h 49mnonstop
$188United Airlines
Find Deal
Tue, Jun 3 - Thu, Jun 5
Southwest Logo
6:35 pm - 5:20 amSFO-MDW
8h 45m1 stop
Southwest Logo
1:35 pm - 4:05 pmMDW-SFO
4h 30mnonstop
$192Southwest
Find Deal
Tue, May 27 - Fri, Jun 6
American Airlines Logo
5:00 am - 11:23 amSFO-ORD
4h 23mnonstop
American Airlines Logo
8:44 am - 11:28 amORD-SFO
4h 44mnonstop
$198American Airlines
Find Deal
Tue, May 20 - Sat, May 24
Frontier Logo
2:03 pm - 6:50 pmSFO-ORD
26h 47m1 stop
Frontier Logo
5:03 pm - 10:28 amORD-SFO
19h 25m1 stop
$200Frontier
Find Deal
Fri, May 30 - Mon, Jun 2
Frontier Logo
8:45 pm - 12:04 amSFO-ORD
25h 19m1 stop
Frontier Logo
9:56 pm - 9:21 pmORD-SFO
25h 25m1 stop
$201Frontier
Find Deal
Wed, Jun 11 - Sat, Jun 14
American Airlines Logo
11:55 pm - 6:10 amSFO-ORD
4h 15mnonstop
American Airlines Logo
6:35 pm - 9:27 pmORD-SFO
4h 52mnonstop
$202American Airlines
Find Deal
Sun, May 18 - Fri, May 23
United Airlines Logo
12:10 am - 6:30 amSFO-ORD
4h 20mnonstop
United Airlines Logo
6:30 am - 9:09 amORD-SFO
4h 39mnonstop
$245United Airlines
Find Deal
Useful Info

KAYAK's insights & trends for San Francisco to Illinois flights

Get data-powered insights and trends into flights from San Francisco to Illinois to help you find the cheapest flights, the best time to fly and much more.

What is the cheapest San Francisco to Illinois flight route?

The cheapest price for flight routes found by users searching on KAYAK in the last 2 weeks for round-trip flights from San Francisco to Illinois.

The cheapest ticket to Illinois from San Francisco found in the last 72 hours was to Chicago, at $205 round-trip. The most popular route is from San Francisco (SFO) to Chicago O'Hare Intl Airport (ORD), and the cheapest round-trip airline ticket found on this route in the last 72 hours was $205.

Can I save money by flying with a layover from San Francisco to Illinois?

The average round-trip price for all non-stop flights, flights with one layover, and flights with two layovers for the route found by users searching on KAYAK in the last 2 weeks.

No, with an average price for the route of $671, prices are generally cheapest when you fly direct.

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

To calculate monthly average prices, KAYAK takes all prices for each month over the last year for round-trip flights from San Francisco to Illinois, removes the top 0.1% to account for outliers, and then takes the median of all values for each month.

The cheapest month for flights from San Francisco to Illinois is February, when tickets cost $286 (return) on average. On the other hand, the most expensive months are December and July, when the average cost of round-trip tickets is $436 and $358 respectively.

What’s the cheapest day of the week to fly from San Francisco to Illinois?

The average price of all round-trip flights from San Francisco to Illinois clicked on KAYAK for each day over the last 12 months.

If your flying dates are flexible, you should consider flying to Illinois on a Wednesday, as we generally find the cheapest rates on that day for this route. On the other hand, Sunday is the most expensive day to fly from San Francisco to Illinois. For your return ticket, we recommend flying on a Thursday and avoiding Sundays for the best deals.

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

To calculate weekly average prices, KAYAK takes all prices for each week before departure over the last year for round-trip flights from San Francisco to Illinois, removes the top 0.1% to account for outliers, and then takes the average of all the values for each week.

To get a below average price on the flight from San Francisco to Illinois, you should book around 4 weeks before departure. For the absolute cheapest price, our data suggests you should book 12 weeks before departure.


Good to know

Low seasonJanuary
High seasonMay
Cheapest flight$84
Best time to beat the crowds but there is an average 1% increase in price.
Most popular time to fly with an average 1% increase in price.
Flight from San Francisco to Chicago Midway Airport

Flights from San Francisco to Illinois: the best tips from KAYAK users

Insights shared by verified travelers who flew the route from San Francisco to Illinois 
DinaFlew with United AirlinesSFO-ORDDec 2024
Choose an airline that will accommodate your needs
GeraldFlew with Alaska AirlinesSFO-ORDOct 2024
Book a flight as early in the day as possible to avoid incoming flight delays.
DonFlew with American AirlinesSFO-ORDJun 2024
United offers the best service from SFO to ORD. Great capacity and several redundant flights in the event of a cancellation or delay.

FAQs - booking Illinois flights

  • How does KAYAK find such low prices on flights from San Francisco 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 to Illinois.

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

    KAYAK’s flight Price Forecast tool uses historical data to determine whether the price for a flight from San Francisco 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 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 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 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 to Illinois up to 3 days before/after your preferred dates. You can then pick the flights that suit you best.

  • 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 $414 on average. Morning departures are around 10% 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 $522.

Top tips for finding cheap flights to Illinois

  • Looking for a cheap flight? 25% of our users found tickets from San Francisco to the following destinations at these prices or less: Chicago $149 one-way - $314 round-trip

Top 5 airlines serving from San Francisco to Illinois

 
See real verified KAYAK customer reviews for airlines flying from San Francisco to Illinois. Airline scores are aggregated from all reviews left by passengers on KAYAK after flying with an airline. KAYAK doesn’t show reviews that are older than 5 years. Learn how KAYAK collects reviews.
Need help choosing which airline to fly with from San Francisco 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 9991 reviews
8.5Crew
7.1Entertainment
8.1Boarding
7.1Food
7.9Comfort
Airline reviews

No non-alcoholic drinks available except water and small apple juice cans.

8.0 ExcellentJohn, Apr 2025SFO - LAS
Read more Alaska Airlines reviews

No non-alcoholic drinks available except water and small apple juice cans.

The flight was delayed over two and a half hours thus causing me to miss my best friend’s funeral. All because the flight crew had to get more rest. That was the reason stated. I understand however very unfortunate. Glad everyone is well rested and resting in peace.

All good except both the outbound and return flights were delayed about 1 1/2 hrs.

Not great. My flight was canceled due to a mechanical problem and I could not get rebooked for the same day. I needed to get to my destination yesterday, not today. I was able to book with another airline but it was a layover and ultimately a 1 hour flight took me 12 hours. Normally I like Alaska much more than Southwest, but Southwest came through with a not terrible price for same day.

The plane was late arriving. The Alaska people did a great job of turning it around quickly and getting us off. We took off about 35 minutes after it reached the gate.

I liked the flight attendant named Tyler. He was charismatic and genuine. I like the pilot in my second flight, he was considerate to everyone’s feelings. I liked the people I sat beside. I like the plane size. I like Alaska airlines

Flight delay was inconvenient and exhausting getting in at 1 am. However the crew and lounge was very comfortable.

No complaints. Great service. A first class entry lane at boarding wouldn’t hurt.

I appreciate the priority for safety. I did not enjoy how the delays were handled.

Awful . Extra charge on my bags even after it was confirmed it wasn’t overweight.

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.

Great flight staff. Ease of boarding. Overall, very uneventful and easy trip.

Flight was awfully bumpy and landing was a bit jolting. I was in the restroom when snacks and drinks were served and was not asked if i wanted any. I had to ask for water finally.

Employees were kind and funny, as always! Flight was late but no announcements were made for people with tight connections to help them transition quickly. No service due to turbulence.

I recently flew Southwest from San Jose to Honolulu. I was very impressed with the flight crew, especially the flight attendant in charge of the front of the plane. She came through the aisle at least five times for drinks and water, and two times for snacks. I have not seen such service since I flew first class. Also, for the first time, they gave us the correct baggage claim number, and the luggage came out quickly. I can't wait for Southwest to have assigned seating! I absolutely hate the Cattle Call boarding procedure and the mad dash to get seats and overhead bins. However, the boarding was efficient.

We had a nice flight. Boarding was easy, our seats were comfortable and the on board service was pleasant.

Service was great, boarding and exiting went smoothly, and the flight was very pleasant.

Was as expected. Crowed planes. Too many carryons delaying takeoff. But the ride only took an hour and saved me a lot of time SFO is a not a great airport.

Liked fold flat bed. Didn’t like having no window. Didn’t like poor choice of food and being served dinner very late, hours after take off of a 7:40pm flight. Servers not friendly. Food horrible in business class.

Everything is good except the dinner and breakfast. The sandwich is very delicious. Toilet is clean, I only use one of them. Flight attendants are very nice. 👍👍

Compared with other carriers business class for an overnight was not worth the extra expense.

Easy to board. Flight was super crowded though so I didn't sleep well on that cross country red-eye flight. The aisles seem ot have gotten narrower and the seat smaller whn luggage and people are getting bigger so it would be AWESOME to have more space and breathing room in general ;)

Pilot Erika DeLong made us feel safe and at ease in a frankly scary time to be flying. Her warm smile and greeting and excellent command of the aircraft in foggy bumpy weather helped us all to calm our nerves and get us home safely.

AWFUL. I have had the experience of traveling with many airlines across the world, and hands down United Airlines is the worst. Not one flight was on time, and I don’t think I met one crew member or staff member who wasn’t rude.

For an 8.5 hour flight the service on board lacked a bit. Service start was slow, the food was worse than usual and they skipped the snack they were supposed to deliver before landing.

Wish movie and music choices changed more often. Mostly same from a month or two ago when I last flew.

It was good. Just that the seats could not be reclined. The people behind were not ready to let the chairs be reclined

Checkin was painful and slow! Lady didn’t seem to know what was going on and couldn’t explain the delay. Seemed ahe couldnt see the computer scree and we couldn’t hear her talk through her mask.

British Airways staff are very polite and willing to help.

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.

We kept being told that the flight was full and that all overhead compartments were full and therefore had to check in our hand luggage. We were some of the last people to board and noticed that there was still sufficient space in the overhead compartments. We were obliged to check in hand luggage when there was space and so had to wait at luggage retrieval which took a while to then noticed damage to our luggage - not a great experience!

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

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

Per usual, flight status, staff courtesy and professionalism were excellent

Everything was on time, we arrived early, everything worked well.

The only thing is if Wi-Fi is available after you land and taxi to the gate. It takes forever to get to the gate, and having the Wi-Fi continue would be great to bide the time at least 5 minutes before you arrive at the entrance. That is my only comment; otherwise, everything was good.

Amazingly comfy flight - I had upgraded for a reasonable price and it was worth it. The food also was good.

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.

They changed the timing , first delayed by 4 hours then went back to 40 mins late, we had to run back to airport to not miss our flight. This is ridiculous

No frills for sure. No gate announcements about flight delay, not even water to drink on the flight.

After waiting several minutes to be acknowledged by 3 employees on their phones, was told we had missed our flight because the doors were closed at that literal moment. Had they given any actual service or help while we were standing there we would have been on with time to spare. More than 10 people were turned away in this fashion claiming there was no way they could let us on the plane, even though it was still sitting connected to the terminal. After the desk agents let us know they didn't care about the situation we were forced to pay more than twice the price of our original tickets as no credits were given for the price of the "missed" flight. And the icing on the cake was after being treated poorly, fleeced for another few hundred dollars for new tickets? We waited on the next plane for 25 minutes passed the "doors closed" time, letting almost an extra dozen passengers on board. You're company has lazy, disinterested employees and your lack of any real help will ensure this was the first and last time we fly Frontier. Awful.

I loked walking out on the tarmac to board and no first class. I didn't like that they have no snacks or onboard wifi to bide your time.

It was a redeye flight, so every passenger just wanted to sleep, but through the entire flight, the flight crew made announcements over the loudspeaker at maximum volume every few minutes making sleep impossible. For example: it’s 2am, and the crew decides to give an extremely detailed announcement about snacks and beverages for sale. And 3am is the perfect time to wake up everyone with a lengthy announcement about how to get a coffee refill and how to take advantage of new offer from frontier for a credit card.

Everything you need to know for your flight from San Francisco to Illinois

Information on your arrival and departure airports

Not what you’re looking for? Find thousands of other hotels, flights, car rentals and package deals with KAYAK.