cant tell you which airline to use but the 2 airports are san fran international and the other is oakland international, both are well connected and near to san francisco its self.

Try Us airways link below

http://www.usairways.com/awa/

we used them last time we went flight is about 1 hour and plenty of leg room on plane,just checked on web for prices in may price is about $89 dollars one way about £50 sounds good to me.San francisco airport 20 minutes out the main city which is very easy to get around,in vegas you land right next to the strip about 5-10 taxi ride to hotel.

meant to say 5-10 minutes from airport in vegas..

I know the exchange rate is good at the moment but i do have to say San francisco is a lovely city but it is very expensive one of the most expensive in the USA and i think you find alot of the hotel rooms very expensive and we found the food expensive too,but its a lovely place to go.

Neither SF or Oakland airports are particularly close to the major attractions or downtown areas. Both are on the outskirts of the city so you would need some sort of transportation. Funnily enough, I'd almost say than San Jose is closer to attractions, since you have Paramount's Great America (theme park), the Winchester Mystery House, and the Great Mall all in the San Jose area. But that WOULD be further away from SF...

What a good decision, we did that split in 2004 and had a whale of a time. We actually picked a car up in downtown SF and drove the quite long distance to Vegas (we wanted to drive over the Oakland Bay Bridge), but in reality a flight is a more logical option.

I would suggest Southwest are your best option for flights internally in the USA. The option for you would be Oakland International to McCarran Airport in Vegas. Cost in May would be about $80pp I would think, but it all depends on day of month, time of booking, pretty much how Ryanair and Easyjet operate in the UK.

Oakland is easily accessible from downtown SF on the very efficient BART system, would take about 25mins I guess and would only cost $3 per person. You can get the BART from a number of locations in SF, such as Civic Center or the Embarcadero. Of course there are other options such as shuttle service from your hotel to Oakland, but this will be considerably more expensive.

When you get to LV, it is an easy 5-10 min taxi from the airport to most strip hotels. Cost to New York New York hotel for example was $10 one way. There are shuttle services also.

Hotels are a different matter, in SF they can be very expensive...best to shop around on various sites. Vegas is easier, especially if you hit there during the week...we paid only $60 a night to stay in the Excalibur last year for example.

Have fun anyway

J

Hi,
Thank you all for your help. I will be booking flights soon and will shop around for hotels thanks to everyone's advice. Are there any 'must do's' in your opinion folks?
ClaireT

I used Southwest to fly from LA to Vegas last year and it was excellent, cost about £45 and took 45 mins, and the amazing thing is.........they serve a drink and a sandwich in that time!! Easyjet and Ryanair could learn a thing or two from them!!

TC

Southwest have a pretty good reputation here in the US. I think you'd be in good hands with them.

Fly from SFO to LAS on Frontier or United Airlines.
You can take a look at routes and prices on Kayak com - it will show all the airlines that fly there and prices. Current price looks about $200 round trip. Southwest airlines only flies to Oakland,you don't want to go there.
At US airports look for Shuttle services- Supershuttle is one that operates out of SFO- for about $15 per person plus tip they drive you to your downtown hotel. They run 24hrs a day. These are minivans and you may make a couple of stops at other hotels,but it's cheaper than taxis..
When you pick up your luggage look for signs that say 'Ground Transportation' - (ie buses/taxis etc) and you will see the signs for Supershuttle. There are numerous companies that do this. They're usually lined up outside. Also check whether your hotel offers a free shuttle from the airport,a lot of them do.
Hope this helps.

From Claire's original post, it looks like she wants to fly from SF to Vegas, not the other way around , emdia. But that wouldn't make any difference to the airline, of course. To be honest, I didn't check if Southwest actually flew that route before recommending them! I've never flown with them, I just heard that they have a good reputation. I don't know about Frontier but they are usually cheaper than United (but perhaps you get what you pay for). United are decent, though.

Yes,I like Southwest too,one of the few airlines that still have customer 'service'. Frontier is fine,it's a popular Western airline,they fly to LAS several times a day.

Hi Claire

By 'main attractions' in San Francisco I presume you mean the city itself and in that case you want to fly into SFO the main airport. Expedia.co.uk have flights in August (don't know exactly when in the summer you're there) from LAS to SFO for around #48.00 (pound). I've used TED the budget United Airlines arm and booked direct on their UK website in the past on the LAS (Las Vegas) to Los Angeles route for around #28.00 (pound), but of course that's a shorter route. Vegas to San Francisco is about 1 hour 25 mins.

The supershuttle's a good suggestion as the airport is only about 30 minutes away from the City, if that. Car hire is a good option but you may want to wait until you're ready to move on from San Francisco (if you are that is) as parking is really expensive there (we paid $25 for a few hours).

My best tip for San Francisco is to pre-book the alcatraz tour through http://www.alcatrazcruises.com/ as they frequently sell out, we would have missed it if we hadn't pre-booked (we went during August). They used to sell their tickets through http://www.blueandgoldfleet.com but they don't appear to anymore and the official national parks now have alcatrazcruises.com operating this. I mentioned blueandgoldfleet though as they have lots of other interesting excursions/ferries you can do.

Have a great holiday!