Hotel & Flights for Chicago

A few weeks ago when I signed up for the upcoming Chicago Marathon with Team Paws I wasn’t too sure what kind of hotel to book.

First of all I’ve tried to book one as close as to the start as possible. But than it turns out they are really expensive, even if I booked them on Booking.com 🙁

So after a bit of disappointment I’ve checked Chicago’s public transportation system and realised its pretty good. When I run New York in november I had to travel almost 25 mins to get to the Staten Island ferry station so I think I can travel around them same for Chicago.

The race is starting from Grant Park, so I decided to look for hotels within a 6 mile radius, according to google its only a 10 minutes car/taxi journey or if I would take any of the trains / subways it’s still only a 25 mins journey. Not bad at all 🙂

So after searching on booking.com for a few days I managed to find a not  too expensive, but still a good-looking hotel within my travelling range.

It’s called Chicago Lake Shore Hotel and it has 3 stars and it’s only 5.5 miles from the start area. Just above the University of Chicago.  I can easily hop on to the Red tube line and that gets me to the start in 24 minutes.

Have to say I’m pretty chuffed with the hotel. It turns out it has an outdoor pool as well, I mean I’m not too sure how hot the weather will be in October but I could give swimming a go.

We staying in the hotel from the 4th till the 8th of October and it’s only costs us £381         ( $522) and this already includes all taxes and extra fees, and we only pay it when we get there. This is another reason i love booking.com 🙂

Few days ago we also managed to book our flights. Searching for flights I used a website called ” skyscanner.com ” . If you haven’t heard from it, it compares all different airlines and ticket selling sites prices and you are able to pick whichever you prefer.

On our days the cheapest airline turned out to be Norwegian, but after reading through their terms and conditions about check in, food on the plane, extra luggage etc. I decided not to use them. too much extra fees to pay.

Surprisingly the second cheapest airliner turned out to be British Airways. With BA you get everything in the price. We choose to travel on their Economy class ( World Traveller ).   Free food and drink on the plane, 1 free check in luggage and carry on luggage and also online check in etc.  The flights cost us exactly £900. I don’t think its a bad price for BA.

As you can see on the photos above, we are leaving from Heathrow on the 4th at 08:40am, and getting to Chicago at 11:20am. It’s a british airways flight, but will be operated as an American Airlines flight, but we getting the same benefits. If my research is correct the plane will be a Boeing 787-8 (twin jet) plane.

On the way home we are leaving chicago at 19:25 and will get to London the next morning at 09:05. I’ve chosen the later flight in the evening, so will have plenty of time to do some last-minute shopping in the morning. This flight also will be operated as American Airlines and the plane will be the same Boeing 787-8.

The only other thing to need to buy is the Chicago sightseeing passes, but there’s no rush with them at all.

With BA we only can check in 24hours before the flight, so still a bit far away.

Just check out my ESTA and it turns out they are valid for 2 year, so I don’t need to renew it luckily . Its valid till May 2019, so hopefully I can use it for my Boston Marathon as well in 2019.

Love,