$162 Find Cheap Flights from Santa Barbara to Illinois - Compare and Save

1 adult
1 adult, Economy, 0 bags

Save 25% or more on flights. Compare deals from all over the web.

Never overpay with our price tracking tools.

Filter searches by price, airline and more to find your best flights.

Flight Deals
Booking Insights
Flight Deals

Cheap Flights from Santa Barbara to Illinois

Cheapest round-trip prices found by our users on KAYAK in the last 5 days
Moline
Moline1 stop$499
Bloomington
Bloomington1 stop$576
Moline
Moline1 stop$499
Bloomington
Bloomington1 stop$576
Booking Insights

KAYAK's insights & trends for Santa Barbara to Illinois flights

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

How much is a round-trip flight from Santa Barbara to Illinois?

Flight prices are below average for this route right now.

Flights to Illinois from Santa Barbara usually cost between $529 and $767 in December.
The lowest price found in the past 5 days was $257 on Alaska Airlines (Dec 5-Dec 8).

What is the cheapest Santa Barbara to Illinois flight route?

The cheapest ticket to Illinois from Santa Barbara found in the last 5 days was to Chicago, at $266 round-trip. The most popular route is from Santa Barbara (SBA) to Chicago O'Hare Intl Airport (ORD), and the cheapest round-trip airline ticket found on this route in the last 5 days was $266.

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

The cheapest time of day to fly to Illinois is generally in the morning, when round-trip flights cost $433 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 $498.

Can I save money by flying with a layover from Santa Barbara to Illinois?

No, with an average price for the route of $559, prices are generally cheapest when you fly direct.

What is the cheapest month to fly from Santa Barbara to Illinois?

The cheapest month for flights from Santa Barbara to Illinois is January, when tickets cost $343 (return) on average. On the other hand, the most expensive months are November and October, when the average cost of round-trip tickets is $529 and $528 respectively.

What’s the cheapest day of the week to fly from Santa Barbara to Illinois?

Your flight ticket price will generally be cheaper if you fly to Illinois on a Wednesday and more expensive on a Monday. On your return trip to Santa Barbara, you should consider flying back on a Saturday, and avoid Mondays for better deals.

How far in advance should I book a flight from Santa Barbara to Illinois?

To get a below average price on the flight from Santa Barbara to Illinois, you should book around 6 weeks before departure, which saves you about 41% compared to booking last minute. For the absolute cheapest price, our data suggests you should book 24 weeks before departure.

Good to know

Low season

February

Cheapest flight

$162
Best time to beat the crowds with an average 19% drop in price.
Most popular time to fly and prices are also 10% lower on average.
Flight from Santa Barbara to Chicago

FAQs - booking Illinois flights

  • How does KAYAK find such low prices on flights from Santa Barbara 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 Santa Barbara to Illinois.

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

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

Top tips for finding cheap flights to Illinois

  • Looking for a cheap flight? 25% of our users found tickets from Santa Barbara to the following destinations at these prices or less: Chicago $283 one-way - $379 round-trip

Reviews of the top 3 airlines serving from Santa Barbara to Illinois

 
Need help choosing which airline to fly with from Santa Barbara 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
SouthwestOverall score based on 4220 reviews
8.6Crew
7.0Food
8.1Boarding
8.0Comfort
7.5Entertainment
Airline reviews

Delayed over 3 hours, extremely rough landing on all four flights. Would not recommend

2.0 MediocreKevin, Oct 2026
Read more Southwest reviews

Delayed over 3 hours, extremely rough landing on all four flights. Would not recommend

The entire crew were wonderful but 1 flight attendant stood out with his sense of humor on the microphone. I told him as much as I exited the plane.

Maybe different snack selection. To much sodium in them. I know refrigerators are not available but there has to be healthier items.

Wasn't expecting this, but, we actually ended up getting assigned to the first row of seats!!!!! The extra legroom came in handy

Flight was delayed over 3 hours. Planes were dirty. Staff indifferent. And they serve vegan pretzels as snacks.

The flight was smooth. The Southwest experience has degraded overall, but this one was okay.

The checking experience in Orlando was terrible, almost missed the flight. Too many travelers and Southwest completely understaffed.

no service at all due to turbulence. they should've at least given us snacks, there were only 10 people on the entire flight.

Flight was ok. Boarding wasn’t fun. Flights were delayed by 12 minutes on each leg.

Wifi didn’t work, no service, seats are hard as rocks

Better management of the boarding process. Is there any way you could forward all the window seats first? That's the Way Reno Air used to do it, and they had the fastest boarding in the industry!

Santa Barbara is a super small and easy airport. Breezed through rental car return, breezed through Security, ordered a coffee and muffin and to my gate in less than 30 minutes. Maybe because it was a small airport we got the oldest plane. Hardly any overhead space and absolutely zero internet. Its NFL Sunday man! That hurt.

We were delay because so many bags needed to be gate checked and it was disappointing not to have outlets in the seats for such a long flight.

Excellent. I had a medical emergency on flight SNA-ORD and the attendants were very helpful.

Boarding, time to take off, in flight offerings, and staff were all great. I recommend using UA for this short flight.

Crew was great (professional, attentive, prompt). Snacks for 4 hrs flight is deplorable.

It was a pretty standard flight... until the almost hour and a half spent on the taxi way. I get that the weather has been poor but the delay had nothing to do with the weather and more to do with a plane with several issues tying up the gate. I get that that happens from time to time but this has been EVERY flight I've been on for the past 5 years and I fly 3 to 5 times a year. This isn't just United... it's American, it's Delta. It's an issue with the entire industry. I work for UPS and packages on a cargo plane get better service than people do these days. Anymore I HATE flying.

I paid $380 for my one-way ticket from California to Minnesota. The fair did not include online check-in. I received instructions from their app to check in at a kiosk. At the kiosk, the boarding pass would not print until an actual person came to verify that I had a personal item and not a carry-on item, On the plane, the person next to me was drunk and allowed to continue to order alcohol. United is garbage I’d rather fly spirit.

Delays!!! Maintain your planes so your customers don’t have to sit on their assess for over an hour on the tarmac!! Also, United app is buggy. Videos did not load. Overall a miserable experience. Flight crew was awesome though.

My fi t er t esed to Denver was cancelled and need to schechedule

No food on 4.5 hour flight, wi-fi did not work. Terrible experience for a long haul flight.

first leg from san diego to chicago, only had cookies for snack. 1 flavor of sparkling water chicago to washington dc had option of cookies, pretzels, or gold fish. had 2 flavors of sparkling water. 2nd flight better however the best part was there was no delays!!! Got to chicago and washington dc early. That was wonderful!!!!

Business class flight attendant was very good. But our flight was delayed two hours for a “mechanical” bathroom issue that literally took 5 minutes to fix. Our plane landed early from its previous flight but still waited for a mechanic to show up to fix an obvious minor issue for almost three hours. This caused us to miss our connecting flight. They put us up in a Days Inn that was 17 miles away from the airport that took a half hour of driving just to get to and this was at 11pm at night. Then when we finally got back on a plane after a full day delay they left our luggage back in the airport. This was an international flight, so no luggage or belongings after flying 8 hours to a different country. We will NEVER fly American Airlines again.

I was truly shocked at how poor this flight went. The crew was not friendly during the checking process. The asked for people to gate check and were rude about it. They didn't handle my luggage with care. When I got to my seat I noticed a large section of the ceiling vent area was, no joke, TAPED TOGETHER WITH CLEAR PACKING TAPE! To add insult to injury, the back rest button was disabled on my seat and all the seats I could see. The wifi, never connected for me, despite troubleshooting it for a while. I did everything from restarting my wifi/phone to forgetting the network and restarting the app. But that didn't stop the mandatory 2 ads from playing every single time. Even the bags took over 45 mins to arrive at the carousel. Everything about this flight was a flop and I am beginning to notice that some of these events are becoming a trend. Perhaps it's time I switch loyalty programs.

My seat had a worn out cushion, which made it a bit uncomfortable. Other than that, the flight was excellent.

The flight from LA to Chicago was smooth and service was very good overall.

Terrible planning. And even worse gate agents. Absolutely rude behavior.

The chicken wrap was tiny ($13 for what looked like a 1/3 of a normal wrap?) and disgusting.

We flew in first class. The crew did not offer drinks before the flight took off, but they treated us well during the flight. The food was excellent. There was actually too much food served, but it was nice to have all the options.

The flight was smooth, the pilot kept us informed about delays and we arrived more of less on time

More options for your flight from Santa Barbara to Illinois

Complete your trip to Illinois with a hotel stay or car rental