$157 Find Cheap Flights from Santa Barbara to Illinois - Compare and Save

This is the cheapest one-way flight price found by a KAYAK user in the last 72 hours by searching for a flight from Santa Barbara to Illinois departing on 8/29. 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.
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Cheap Flights from Santa Barbara to Illinois

Cheapest round-trip prices found by our users on KAYAK in the last 72 hours
Moline
Moline2 stops$443
Bloomington
Bloomington1 stop$579
Moline
Moline2 stops$443
Bloomington
Bloomington1 stop$579

Book Cheap Santa Barbara to Illinois Plane Tickets

 
Here are some of the best deals found on KAYAK recently from the most popular airlines for round-trip flights from Santa Barbara 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 Santa Barbara to Illinois

Wed, Sep 23 - Tue, Sep 29
Alaska Airlines Logo
3:26 pm - 5:10 pm-
23h 44m
Alaska Airlines Logo
6:08 pm - 2:47 pm-
22h 39m
$264Alaska Airlines
Thu, Sep 17 - Mon, Sep 21
Alaska Airlines Logo
3:26 pm - 5:10 pm-
23h 44m
Alaska Airlines Logo
6:08 pm - 2:47 pm-
22h 39m
$264Alaska Airlines
Fri, Sep 18 - Tue, Sep 22
Alaska Airlines Logo
3:26 pm - 5:10 pm-
23h 44m
Alaska Airlines Logo
6:29 am - 11:50 pm-
19h 21m
$274Alaska Airlines
Wed, Sep 9 - Sat, Sep 26
American Airlines Logo
12:32 pm - 12:27 am-
9h 55m
American Airlines Logo
5:43 am - 11:46 am-
8h 03m
$333American Airlines
Wed, Sep 2 - Tue, Sep 8
United Airlines Logo
12:33 pm - 6:52 pm-
4h 19mnonstop
United Airlines Logo
8:49 am - 11:31 am-
4h 42mnonstop
$339United Airlines
Fri, Aug 21 - Wed, Aug 26
United Airlines Logo
12:33 pm - 6:52 pm-
4h 19mnonstop
United Airlines Logo
8:49 am - 11:31 am-
4h 42mnonstop
$339United Airlines
Wed, Sep 9 - Sat, Sep 26
American Airlines Logo
6:10 am - 1:44 pm-
5h 34m
American Airlines Logo
5:43 am - 11:35 am-
7h 52m
$340American Airlines
Thu, Aug 27 - Tue, Oct 6
American Airlines Logo
12:20 pm - 10:41 pm-
8h 21m
American Airlines Logo
5:40 am - 11:45 am-
8h 05m
$347American Airlines
Sat, Oct 24 - Fri, Oct 30
Southwest Logo
5:30 am - 4:05 pm-
8h 35m
Southwest Logo
4:50 pm - 12:05 am-
9h 15m
$383Southwest
Fri, Sep 18 - Tue, Sep 22
Southwest Logo
11:30 am - 10:00 pm-
8h 30m
Southwest Logo
6:30 pm - 10:35 pm-
6h 05m
$385Southwest
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?

This analysis is based on the cheapest round-trip price found on KAYAK in the last 12 months by searching for a flight from Santa Barbara to Illinois departing in November.

Flight prices are below average for this route right now.

Flights to Illinois from Santa Barbara usually cost between $429 and $719 in November.
The lowest price found in the past 5 days was $303 on Alaska Airlines (Nov 2-Nov 3).

What is the cheapest Santa Barbara to Illinois flight route?

Data is based on round-trip flight searches on KAYAK over the past month.

The cheapest ticket to Illinois from Santa Barbara found in the last 5 days was to Chicago, at $329 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 $329.

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

The average price for all round-trip flights from Santa Barbara to Illinois depending on the time of departure, clicked by users on KAYAK in the last 2 weeks.

The cheapest time of day to fly to Illinois is generally in the morning, when round-trip flights cost $421 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 $490.

Can I save money by flying with a layover from Santa Barbara 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 $456, prices are generally cheapest when you fly direct.

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

To calculate monthly average prices, KAYAK takes all prices for each month over the last year for round-trip flights from Santa Barbara 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 Santa Barbara to Illinois is January, when tickets cost $343 (return) on average. On the other hand, the most expensive months are November and August, when the average cost of round-trip tickets is $555 and $537 respectively.

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

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

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

Good to know

Low season

February

Cheapest flight

$157
Best time to beat the crowds with an average 19% drop in price.
Most popular time to fly and prices are also 14% 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 $169 one-way - $397 round-trip

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

 
See real verified KAYAK customer reviews for airlines flying from Santa Barbara 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 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 4222 reviews
8.1Boarding
7.0Food
7.5Entertainment
8.6Crew
8.0Comfort
Airline reviews

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

2.0 MediocreMatthew, Jun 2026
Read more Southwest reviews

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.

For the first time in a long time, the Wi-Fi actually worked the entire flight! The flight crew was amazing as usual.

Great flight. I didn't get a drink because I was asleep whole on the flight.

Love them will get a Southwest card to track my points and keep flying with them. My family and I were pleased with the services.

WiFi was not working and didn’t have a beverage service

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

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.

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.

As usual, United scheduling is completely misleading. A 54-minute layover at O’Hare is too short to make a lot of connections, especially since the flight landed “on time” but had to wait on the taxiway 15 minutes for a gate to open up. Then it takes another 10 minutes to exit the plane before one can run to another concourse to catch a connecting flight.

when you can say you don't remember being at any point upset during a flight, the airline is winning .

I had a great flight. Everything went smoothly and the flight arrived early.

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

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

Was not able to watch most shows on the entertainment site. They would not load

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

Had to wait on pilot and crew to depart and had to wait to arrive at the gate because they only had 2 crews working. Delays, delays....Planes just keep getting smaller and tighter and they nickle and dime for everything. When will an airline actually wake up and make flying more enjoyable?

It was nice being on a flight that had working wifi. The boarding was quick - why don’t all airlines have small boarding groups window to aisle? Makes so much sense!!! I was disappointed to be the first person stopped to have to gate check my carryon. Especially when there was plenty of overhead space at the back! But I get it…keeps it moving. Crew was nice.

Everything you need to know for your flight from Santa Barbara to Illinois

Information on your arrival and departure airports