Flights home are already expensive for potential 49ers Super Bowl trip

The 49ers’ path to the Super Bowl got a little clearer on Sunday with a win over the Commanders. But for Niners fans already thinking ahead to Las Vegas in February, the path home is already looking quite costly.

With six weeks until Super Bowl Sunday, the prices on flights going from Las Vegas back to the Bay Area’s three airports for the Monday after the big game already have prices through the roof. Southwest Airlines flies from all three Bay Area airports to Vegas, and shows a grand total of 57 flight options from Vegas to the bay on Feb. 12. Out of the 23 flights to Oakland, 21 to San Jose and 13 to SFO, the cheapest Southwest option for a one-way flight is around $450 out of each airport: $448 to SFO, $453 to SJC and $455 to OAK.

It’s not much better on other airlines that fly from the Bay Area to Sin City. The cheapest nonstop flight on Alaska is a $409 flight from Las Vegas to SFO on Monday evening. United’s cheapest SFO flights from Las Vegas are listed at $589. American currently lists a $588 one-way flight to SFO that comes with a layover of six hours or longer in Phoenix. Alaska is offering a bevy of flights for as cheap as $226 to the Bay Area, but all of those flights come with overnight layovers in either Portland or Seattle — so leaving Vegas on Monday wouldn’t actually get you back home until Tuesday.

Flight prices do go down on Feb. 13, with Southwest options back down to their typical range of around $100 and United showing flights for as cheap as $213. But that would also require any game attendees to pay for another night in Las Vegas, likely neglecting a chunk of the savings one would get from the later flight.

The cheapest option for fans in the immediate aftermath of the game might also be the riskiest. With an anticipated kickoff of 3:45 p.m., if fans were able to get to the airport by 8 p.m., there are four Southwest flights out of Las Vegas back to the Bay Area to choose from. Alaska has one 8:59 p.m. flight to SFO that is currently listed at $168.

Spirit also has two late-night flights for cheap: a 10:27 p.m. flight to SJC for $80 and an 11:04 p.m. flight to OAK for $48. For fans already spending hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars on tickets to the game, the chance to fly in and out of Las Vegas on Sunday for cheap might be worth it — after all, you can’t get charged for a bag if you don’t travel with any.

The other cheap option, should the 49ers make the big game? It’s “only” a 528-mile drive.