acarney

Dropping a friend off at LAX for a 11:30am flight on Saturday October 27th. She's going out AA first class to JFK so she'll be able to access the lounge and flagship first dining, so I can get her there a little early and I don't think she'll mind too much. I'm aiming for dropping her off at 9am.

Now here is the issue on my flight.... I'm flying out of SNA on Delta at 11:25am. I will have a Silver Car to return at SNA so I know that will add some time. I haven't been to SNA before (but will be flying in so I will get a feel for the airport at least) but I know it's smaller then LAX and more like BUR, I.E. really easy to get past security and find your gate. If I leave LAX at 9am, is that enough time to drive on a Saturday morning to SNA, return my Silver Car, and catch an 11:25 am flight? Right now traffic is showing the route takes 1 hr and 15 min, last night in the middle of the night with no traffic it showed 41 minutes. That means I could reach SNA's Silver Car return at 10:15am, that's 70 minutes to return the Silver Car, have them drive me to SNA and get past security. Silver Car drop off to SNA shows 4 min, 1.1 mile on MacArthur Blvd. Is 60 minutes enough time to get past security at SNA and to my gate for my Delta flight? I'm TSA PreCheck and flying F on Delta, but I don't know if SNA offers a PreCheck lane OR a priority lane for F passengers.

My issue is that I'm going to a Cirque du Soleil show in SEA (well, just outside SEA in Redmond) that night at 8pm. If I take a later Delta flight out of SNA the schedule shows I land at 5:56pm in SEA. That leaves just about 2 hours to rent my new Silver Car and drive ~40 min to Marymoor Park. I know sometimes the shuttle from SEA to the off site rental car lot can take like 15 minutes, so that gives me a buffer of like 60 minutes before the show starts if we're delayed on the runway at SNA or getting to our gate at SEA and maybe to stuff something in my mouth to eat... so I'm tight on one end no matter what... which do you think is do-able without setting myself up for failure?


3rd Option.... is there anyway on delta for someone without status to not pay a huge amount to change an award flight? It's been longer then 24 hours from when I booked it, but I'm exactly 55 days out from departure right now. I would be flying the same day but changing it from SEA to SNA to SEA to LAX instead. Initially I was trying to avoid LAX and traffic from LAX to Disneyland BUT, due to schedules the only flight that works for my friend is going into LAX and out of LAX.... soooooo, I'll be there anyway. (This would allow me to rent my Silver Car from the LAX location and depart back home from LAX instead of SNA -- Silver Car does not offer 1 way rentals between SNA and LAX)

Worst case option, switch my return home flight (not yet booked) to Alaska departing SNA at 11:55 am (which give me 30 extra minutes for my mad dash from LAX). Doing so means I pay out of pocket instead of an award ticket, current F fare is $278, also means I lose the E175 that Delta is using which has the single seats in F (since I'm flying solo) and instead would be on a 737-800 with a 2x2 F cabin...