Any suggestions???

Well if you can get to Houston, Continental has a red-eye direct to Bonaire on Friday nights.

Take the Continental option! Otherwise, your next best bet would be to take American from DFW to San Juan ("the eater of cameras" and yes someone did go through our bags in San Juan) and then to BON. Our American Eagle flight from San Juan arrived late in the evening after most of the stores and restaurants had closed. While both flights leave Bonaire early in the morning, the Continental flight lets you get in either your first dive or grocery store run on your first day.

The plan for our July 07 trip is to check in, drop the bags at Buddy's until our room is ready, get in the truck, hit the stores and get back in time to settle in and have a nice afternoon/evening dive.

Sleep at night on the plane and spend the day on Bonaire rather at an airport.

The other option is to look for flights to Aruba or Curacao. I just did a quick search and St Louis to Curacao will run around $700 then another $90 for the round trip on Divi Divi airlines to Bonaire.

Hi Jennifer:
We're from Kansas City and take American Airlines, going thru Dallas, SJU and onto Bonaire. You might also look into taking AA thru Miami.

Option One: AA to SJU and AE to BON. Probably via DFW. Flys most days of the week.

Option Two: AA to MIA to CUR (two jet flights daily) and then Divi Divi (many small aircraft during daylight hours) to Bonaire.

Option Three: CO via IAH or Newark. Flies only once per week.

What is most important to you? Price? Schedule? Stops? Airline?

Fewest stops -- Option Three. Best chance to grab a FF ticket all the way to Bonaire -- Option One. Need lots of schedule choices -- Option Two. Personally, I would gravitate towards options two (coming from Seattle, best flight times and price) and and three (SEA to IAH to BON means only one plane change!!)

Jennifer, I'm near Columbus, Ohio, and usually go through Chicago, to San Juan and then on to Bonaire via American Airlines.

Always a crapshoot though if you are traveling in winter. I chose to go through Miami in February, which may prove to be a mistake... I did the Miami route once on the old airline that used to go to Bonaire... can't remember the name, ALM? Something like that.

But I digress. You have lots of options, but I think the Houston overnight flight might be easiest.

Are you using travel agents for tickets or through an online source? If yes to the latter, which source???

Thanks so much

Jennifer

Most of the typical on-line sources such as Travelocity won't show you the Bonaire options unless they are direct flights. I usually book on-line www.Continental.com, that way you can save the $15 service fee. Having traveled through SJU, I highly recommend the Houston option.

Hi
i just tried Continental on line and for some reason they route through EWR, $676 a great deal I would say. One stop right to Bonaire.
Mick

Jennifer:

Warning: This post will leave no doubt that I am a true nerd. In my defense, it sounds more complicated than it is.

I always start by looking up the time tables for both AA and CO. That way, I know what dates/times the flights to/from Bonaire are. I am interested in that last leg -- MIA to CUR or SJU to BON or EWR to BON or IAH to BON. Getting to those gateways -- EWR, IAH, MIA or SJU -- is easy.

I next start with the AA website for SEA to BON and SEA to CUR. I try different days and often different routings. I pay attention to how decent the schedule seems and the price. (I prefer fewer stops but at least 90 minutes for each layover. I prefer two hours when clearing customs (SJU or MIA) when coming back. I do make exceptions to these layovers but 45 minutes would really be my lowest with at leats 90 minutes clearing customs).

Next, I check the CO website using a similar approach. I will also check Travelocity, Orbitz and Expedia.

At the end of this mess, I have a very good idea of what my options/prices are. I will also have seen what is available using FF miles as well as direct flights from MIA and SJU (both are fairly affordable to fly to from SEA). I will trade schedule for price and vice versa. Other than the AA/AE or AA/Divi thing, I try to never change carriers part way through a trip. In the end, I just pick an option (unless all prices are very high -- in that case, I might delay my purchase) and book the ticket. The products of your research are perishable and it is important to start your research only when you start the purchasing process.

Here are my best deals: SEA to BON via AA/AE for $250 and 15,000 miles. SEA to BON via AA/AE for 30,000 (25,000 of those I got for signing up for their credit card) miles and $20. SEA to CUR on AA and CUR to BON on Divi Divi for around $675 (plus one night hotel in STL on return). And I arrived around 5pm and departed BON at around noon.

I really hope to try the CO routing but the once a week thing is limiting for me as I prefer to go midweek at least one direction.

I personally still find value in a great travel agent but they seem to be very few of them anymore...

(Message edited by bonairetrip on December 4, 2006)

kayak.com is a good source for any int'l flight info.

Jennifer, no, I do all my booking myself, no travel agent. I book directly through aa.com.

Jennifer, maybe you should contact Ann Phelan? She lives on Bonaire and is a travel agent. Her email is ann@bonairewindsurfing.com.

I had some friends who just used her for their Bonaire travel and were extremely happy with their trip!

PS. She's pretty darn nice, too.

Thanks so much everyone...I really appreciate all of your assistance...cannot wait to visit your little bit of paradise

Jennifer, it will soon become YOUR little bit of paradise, too... and you will soon understand.

Jennifer, we live in St. Louis and just returned from Bonaire. In the past, we have drove to Chicago and flown Air Jamaica. Also we have flown on AA through Miami and San Juan. Next year we are trying Continental. I think it comes down to whether you are trying to find the cheapest flights or the fastest way to get to Paradise.

Beware of both Continental and American when flying from St. Louis.

I've been flying to BON from STL for 20 years on the last Saturday of the year. It just gets worse each year. Last year American had 3 OR 4 check in desks open and over 300 people in line at 5 AM. Needless to say most people going anywhere did not make their flights. (I felt sorry for the cruise people with kids.) The problem got compounded every day with more and more people showing up each morning. We finally got out by getting to the airport at 3 AM - and there was already a line. Luckily, we were going for 2 weeks so it lopped a couple of days off our vacation. American couldn't have cared less!

This year Continental got us halfway to Houston, the pint size jet developed a problem, we landed in Alexandria, LA and we sat there for 2 days before they got us back to St. Louis. We tried everything to get to Houston - rental cars, rental trucks, busses, etc. No luck. All flights that might have gotten us to Bonaire were sold out at the final point of departure - i.e., San Juan or CUR. Now we're fighting with Continental for a refund. It's absolutely ludicrous! We're out a lot of money since our accomodations are non refundable. They say they flew us "somewhere" so we owe them for that...

We're going to try to sneek away later in the month via Delta, Atlanta, and Air Jamaica - YIKES! This plan might be the topper of them all.

Here's my advice - give yourself more layover time than you could ever imagine that you might need. Leave a day earlier. Take a laptop so you can be your own advocate in case you land in a weird place. Trip insurance might help IF it covers airline misbehavior. You'll probably need it!

PS If you have a weather delay you are absolutely out of luck. PERIOD. The airlines are off the hook in "acts of God".

Given our trip to Bonaire is our big family trip of the year, we always buy trip insurance. If you buy it as soon as you book everything it runs under $200. In addition to having older parents, one with lots of health issues, we also travel in the winter, so we make sure the policies covers act of god (weather). Another point to look for is a daily benefit if you are late or delayed.

In 4 years we have missed two NYC blizzards that hit 1-3 days after we left. I'm just hoping our current weather (or this post!) is jinxing our upcoming trip (under 2 months, but who's counting!)