Cheap Flights to Minneapolis St Paul
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More suggestions for finding cheap flights to Minneapolis St Paul
Connecting flights to Minneapolis St Paul
One surprising thing that we noted when doing our price and routes comparison is the lack of connecting flights to Minneapolis via London Heathrow, even though Northwest Airlines offer daily flights between the two cities. This means that the vast majority of flight connections are funnelled through Amsterdam, leaving a lot less competition than there might otherwise be.
Although many UK regional airports offer flight connections to Minneapolis via US gateway hubs, this is of limited use for those airports which do not have scheduled flights to the USA. Even though most UK international airports do offer feeder flights into Amsterdam, this lack of competition appears to explain why all the Minneapolis flights prices we found, except for flights from Dublin, were above £400 return.
Can I get it cheaper?
Here are a few suggestions to help you find cheaper flights to Minneapolis.
Direct booking with Northwest
We also looked at the prices on flights when booked directly with Northwest Airlines to see if there was any major difference in price, or any opportunity to gain savings on direct routings. The best prices on the Northwest website were $705 for a direct flight (approximately £485) or $666 (£460) for a connecting flight via Cincinnati with their Skyteam partners Air France/Delta. As our price sample for direct London to Minneapolis flights shows (click on link above), it is notably more expensive to book flights direct with Northwest, when compared with booking flights on either Expedia or Netflights.
No-frills cheap flights to Minneapolis within the USA
Another option which you might consider exploring is looking for flights to somewhere cheaper, and then taking a no-frills connecting flight within the USA. For example, there are four different airlines competing to offer direct flights to Chicago O’Hare from London, and the American budget airline Southwest offers an extremely high-frequency of shuttle flights from Chicago Midway to Minneapolis St Paul.
The cheapest flights to Chicago on the dates concerned were £315 with KLM via Amsterdam on the outbound leg, and returning with Northwest via Detroit on the inbound leg. The outbound flight arrives into Chicago at 4.55pm, and the return flight departs from Chicago at 1.40pm. The last flight of the day from Chicago to Minneapolis leaves at 8.30 pm, and costs $49 (£34). This gives you three hours to go through customs and immigration at O'Hare, and transfer between the two airports on the Chicago Metro (change from Blue to Orange line at Clark - further details).
On the return, an 8am departure from Minneapolis arrives into Chicago midway at 9.35am. This should give you plenty of time to catch your return flight home from Chicago. This flight is also $49 (£34) -- with taxes and charges, the total fare for this return trip ends up at $119 (approximately £85). This gives a total cost of pretty much bang on £400 -- a saving of just over £25 when compared to the cheapest direct flights from London to Minneapolis.
Considering the extra hassle of having to transfer airports in Chicago, we really don't think this is worth it, unless you want to include Chicago on your itinerary (you will get a fantastic view of downtown Chicago from the Orange Line, which is part of the elevated 'EL' system). Of course, we can think of plenty more reasons why Chicago is a great place to explore, but you came here looking for cheap flights to Minneapolis, not flights to Chicago! Should you notice a wider gap between the prices for Minneapolis flights and Chicago flights at the time you make your booking, then this option might be worthy of further consideration.
Option three -- cheap flights to Minneapolis via Dublin
Our search found that flights from Dublin came in at just £301, compared to the cheapest flights from Heathrow at £422. The example quoted above of combining cheap flights to Chicago with no-frills domestic flights in the USA might not have worked out so well, but surely Ryanair could get you to Dublin cheaply enough to make this deal worthwhile? The quoted flights (with American Airlines via Chicago) depart from Dublin at 2.20pm, and arrive back from Minneapolis at 7.15am. This should be perfect for making connecting flights with Ryanair or Aer Lingus from many different UK regional airports.
Let's look at the prices and timings on cheap flights to Dublin from Stansted -- we would suggest leaving plenty of time to make your connections, but you probably won't quite need the very first flight of the day. Ryanair have a flight at 8.10am, which arrives into Dublin at 9.25am, and a departure at 11.30am on the April 23, which arrives back in Stansted at 12.45pm. This will set you back just £35 if you pay by Electron debit card, and don't take any hold luggage with you (the charges soon escalate when you start adding extras). This might not be realistic for a transatlantic trip, but it shows the potential to get cheap flights to Minneapolis from London for a total of £336, which is a notable saving of the best price quoted by Expedia and Netflights. However, there are a number risks involved with making this booking -- if any of your flights are late, neither Ryanair, nor American Airlines, will offer you any kind of assistance in making the next connection, and you will probably have to buy a fresh ticket. Taking this option also still involves a transferring through Chicago in addition to Dublin, whereas the flights from London operate non-stop. By the time you factor in all this risk, and the inevitable extras spent on three sets of airport food instead of one, it probably isn't worth the hassle.However, if you don't live near to London, and can still get a good connection with Ryanair to Dublin, then this option might be worthy of more investigation.
Minneapolis St Paul Flight News
- Three new US routes from Heathrow - 12/12/2007
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Flights to USA - Other Cities
Can't find any good value flights to Minneapolis St Paul? Read our general guide about finding flights to USA, or try one of the other cities in USA mentioned below:
- Flights to New York Any (NYC)
- Flights to Chicago Any (CHI)
- Flights to Washington D.C. Any (WAS)
- Flights to Boston (BOS)
- Flights to Orlando Any (ORL)
- Flights to Atlanta (ATL)
- Flights to Philadelphia (PHL)
- Flights to Houston Any (HOU0)
- Flights to Dallas Any (DAL0)
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Other useful Minneapolis St Paul travel websites
- Minneapolis Airport - Official Website
Related terms: Flights to Minneapolis St Paul from the UK, cheap Minneapolis St Paul flights, direct flights to Minneapolis St Paul, flights to Minneapolis St Paul, USA |
