Trying to Figure Out Flights

After moving to Bloomington, it has become a bit more difficult to plan my trips. Denver was much easier. (But, it was more time consuming to get to/from the Denver airport compared to Bloomington)

I have a trip to the Silicon Valley area of California coming up. The closest airport to the customer is San Jose, but San Francisco and Oakland are also possibilities. Looking at flights, there are some ugly options for BMI (Bloomington) to SJC (San Jose) or SFO (San Francisco). The return is the worst - it is a 4 hour flight + 2 time zones going from SFO - ORD (Chicago). That means allocating 6 hours for just that leg of the trip. Leaving at 6:00 AM? I would have to get up pretty early to get to the airport. Leaving at 10:00 AM? I would finally get home around dinner time. Leaving after work at 7:00 PM? I'd have to sleep on the plane. There just aren't that many good options.

When I was flying out of Denver, the longest flights were to the east coast. The return on those flights was gaining 2 hours. A four hour flight would be a "net" of 2 hours, so I could leave at 7:00 PM and arrive in Denver at 9:00 PM or so.

But I didn't talk about the outgoing flight... No matter where I'm flying out of, I always go to a customer site the day before the actual visit. With too many potentials for delays, it doesn't make sense to fly out the same day as the visit. This means I have a lot more flexibility on when I fly. From Denver, I would get a direct flight to the east coast, so I could easily fly out at 10:00 AM and get to the hotel at a reasonable hour. Out of Bloomington, I have to connect somewhere to get to the west coast, but I have a lot of choices that work since I have the whole day and will be gaining 2 hours going to the west.

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