Options for flights from UK to US are becoming out of my budget and planning is proving problematical for this summer!

Putting it simply I have my approximate dates sorted and in conjunction with my daughter’s schedule but I have no clue why some connections are even an option this time around.

The initial plan is flying into Albuquerque – NM spend a week exploring there and Sante Fe then continuing to Salt Lake City and then flying back to the UK from there. The main objective for me is to visit both Utah and New Mexico and reach the tantalising total of 49 States, leaving Hawaii as the last challenge in the next couple of years.

Comparing a Multi-Flight ticket to a Return ticket differs by around £400. The best value airport is Austin-TX and then adding internal flights to get into New Mexico and Utah. One flight option was to fly via Boston and return via New York at a very reasonable £836 for Premium Economy flying Virgin Atlantic. After selecting a connection of 2 hours 15 minutes in Boston which is just enough time but under the recommended connection time at a US airport but the inbound flight!!! They were offering as first choice a flight with a total flight time of 30 hours. The layover in New York was 19 hours and arrived two days later! I mean ‘what the heck’?

Why are these online travel agencies (I won’t name them) using flight connections with no parameters or seemingly no sensible parameters?

An alternative on American Airlines again was a sensible connection over Dallas on the inbound and an almost terrible offering of 23 hours over New York.

The other factor is that arriving flights arrive late so really the first day is lost with the only advantage being having a day less car hire because I would collect it the following day. Also the return flights are leaving Austin early morning and again this means losing at least half a day.

Both suggestions on Virgin Atlantic and American Airlines then offered alternatives with ‘normal’ connections at a supplement of over £170 upwards to £400.

The internal flights on Delta Airlines are a more straight forward and conveniently between Austin and Albuquerque fly over Salt Lake City so I could land and take off again but having landed in Utah.

TIP: Do your research carefully and use a range of different dates. It is often cheaper to fly on weekdays Monday through Thursday.

Car hire prices are still running very high and haven’t really returned to pre-pandemic rates but there must be more inventory available by now. I started the search by splitting the dates by 4 days in both Albuquerque and Salt Lake City and both durations came in around £400 for an intermediate sized car. So I split it by a week in one and a couple of days in the other and that was a little cheaper but nothing like what seemed like value for money.

I know you might be asking about a Road Trip but the driving distances are huge and I would have to return the car to the pick up airport because of the one way rental fee that will be applied. If I had unlimited time then the Road Trip could be broken down so that not everyday is taken up with a 4-5 hour drive. It is researching trips that makes you realise how enormous America actually is.

This is a work in progress and again I might decide to break this up into a State in 2024 and another to look forward to in 2025.