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Flying from X to SAT/AUS/IAH, etc for COTA

Flying from X to SAT/AUS/IAH, etc for COTA

Old Sep 22, 2017, 8:28 am
  #1  
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Flying from X to SAT/AUS/IAH, etc for COTA

I am at a crossroads.

I'm able to fly from either IAD/WAS or BWI and am interested in attending the F1 race at COTA. Any suggestions of why I should opt OUT of AUS and choose SAT or IAH? I know 1 of those is a good 3 hr drive or so......any ideas?

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Old Sep 22, 2017, 9:05 am
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Is this for OCt 20-22?

What are your dates and what airlines are you willing to fly?

Houston will be a lot cheaper with San Antonio being a bit cheaper than Austin. Frontier has cheap flights to Austin and if you fly early enough before the event, you can get it as cheap as Houston.

Austin is 20 minutes from COTA.
San Antonio is 1 hour away from COTA and 1 hour and 20 minutes away from Austin.
Houston is 2 hours and 45 minutes away from COTA and 3 hours from Austin.

For cost, don't forget to factor in the cost of a car rental. They can vary by $100+

The closer to the event date you get the bigger the savings flying to Houston. If I'm saving more than $150, I would drive.

If San Antonio and Houston are close in price then I would go to San Antonio.

If you are flying several days before the event and can stick around for a couple of days after the event and you are ok with Frontier airlines, they have cheap tickets to Austin.
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Old Sep 22, 2017, 11:18 am
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I can't imagine IAH or HOU being cheap enough to justify the additional drive time (and traffic and larger airport etc).

SAT ia a worthy alternative because it is close enough. Is compare rental car costs at AUS vs SAT and see how much cheaper SAT might really be. I'd need at least $200 to bother. Otherwise I'd stick with AUS. But YMMV
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Old Sep 22, 2017, 4:01 pm
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so if I am able to get a rate that is considerably lower than the legacy airlines, ama go for it...esp since it's direct to Austin. does frontier have luck in terms of loosing luggage or misdirecting luggage to a totally different airport? as long as I don't have to check in my camera gear, I'm considering them for a flight.
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Old Sep 22, 2017, 10:47 pm
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Choice is yours

IAH or HOU to Austin is horrible at best. SAT to Austin is tolerable. You can get IAD-SAT direct on UA - a barbie jet but quite comfortable. If you can snag US go for ite, but tier two is SAT. IAH/HOU is like flying to PHL to visit NYC.
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Old Sep 23, 2017, 11:01 am
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Originally Posted by QuesoDeCan

does frontier have luck in terms of losing luggage or misdirecting luggage to a totally different airport? as long as I don't have to check in my camera gear, I'm considering them for a flight.
Frontier is now ULCC, so you will have to pay for anything larger that a personal item.

Also up there with Spirit for most customer complaints.
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Old Sep 24, 2017, 9:09 pm
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so which would be worse for iad or was to aus or sat or hou? spirit? frontier? looks like if i take either, and include a car/hotel about $150 will be saved....
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Old Sep 24, 2017, 9:25 pm
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Originally Posted by QuesoDeCan
spirit? frontier?
Number one and number two of most complaints and least satisfaction.

It's a relatively short flight, so I'd say take the nonstop if there is one to get it over with.
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Old Sep 25, 2017, 12:55 pm
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At this point, I'd be looking at where hotels are available at a reasonable price. Austin tends to be pretty expensive overall and might just be worse with the race going on. If you wind up having to stay in San Marcos or New Braunfels in order to not have to spend a couple hundred of dollars a night on a hotel room, then I'd fly into SAT otherwise I'd fly AUS (even if you were staying in SM or NB). I wouldn't do IAH or HOU unless you reeeaaallly had to.
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Old Sep 25, 2017, 1:20 pm
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Originally Posted by Bluehen1
At this point, I'd be looking at where hotels are available at a reasonable price. Austin tends to be pretty expensive overall and might just be worse with the race going on.
Yup, hotels way more expensive than Dallas or Houston
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Old Sep 25, 2017, 1:27 pm
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Frying from X?

Is this a drug thread talking about ecstasy?
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Old Sep 25, 2017, 4:06 pm
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X= iad or was with flghts to either Y. Y being either AUS or SAT. UGH....
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Old Sep 25, 2017, 9:11 pm
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I've been a seat license owner since before the track opened and have attended every F1 race and many others. I was just at WEC a week ago. I've flown in and out of every airport mentioned and have stayed in San Antonio one year. I would not do that again, even though San Antonio is really nice. It's just too far for getting to the track early and leaving late. And there is a lot of cool stuff going on in Austin that weekend.

If you can fly into IAH outside of rush hour, it really isn't that bad if you don't mind driving. Rush hour though... noooooo. I flew in there and drove to COTA just last week and it was a breeze. But we like driving. Just make sure you avoid toll roads or those savings will be lost with tolls and possible charges from the car rental company.

SAT is definitely the easiest drive. DFW wasn't too bad, but I've made that drive many times and there are always kolaches in the middle to break up the drive.

As for hotels, look at Round Rock. Hotels in Austin are crazy high and are even if you book a year out like I do, but RR can be a bargain. Also some great deals up in the Arboretum area. That's where we normally stay but have done RR a couple of times. Having been to Austin dozens of times, I don't care if I stay downtown but that's just me.

I will likely fly in and out of IAH myself this year. The flight times out of AUS on Sunday night are too early and if I'm going to fly on Monday anyway, why not save a few hundred dollars? For my preferred flights, I think it's about $300 less for each of the two of us to fly out of IAH which is huge.

If price and times work, just fly into AUS. It's a very easy airport. IAH has a rental car shuttle that ads time. But like in our situation, it's a huge savings to spend a little more time.


As for Spirit or Frontier... nope. Won't fly those again. Awful and tons of extra charges.
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Old Sep 25, 2017, 10:00 pm
  #14  
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Originally Posted by MissJ
And there is a lot of cool stuff going on in Austin that weekend.
Nice post ^

And to address the one sentence out of your post, the cool stuff going on will make those expensive hotels even more expensive @:-)

Considering how inexpensive I can get a hotel in Texas outside of Austin, it just boggles the mind (at least my mind).
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Old Sep 25, 2017, 10:41 pm
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I booked $120 a night. I'm good to go
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