The cheapest Chicago to London round trip in our 28 October 2026 check was $971 on Icelandair, with one stop. For $75 more, United flew nonstop at $1,046, and that trip took 8 hours 10 minutes against 19 hours.
From 10 real fares found in our latest check, checked Oct 28, 2026, 8:35 AM EDT. Prices are per person and can change.
Fares shown are the lowest found at the time of the snapshot, per person, and are subject to availability and change at the time of booking.
$78 between the cheapest and priciest fare
In this search the same route ranged from $971 to $1,049 - a 7% difference for the same journey. Comparing before booking is where the saving is.
10 real fares from our latest check, cheapest first. Prices are per person and can change until ticketed.
FI
1 stop · 19h · Sat, Dec 12
UA · United Airlines
Nonstop · 8h 10m · Sat, Dec 12
$1,046
Check availabilityUA · United Airlines
Nonstop · 8h 10m · Sat, Dec 12
$1,046
Check availabilityUA · United Airlines
Nonstop · 8h 10m · Sat, Dec 12
$1,046
Check availabilityAC · Air Canada
1 stop · 13h 33m · Sat, Dec 12
$1,046
Check availabilityWe searched Chicago to London, all airports at both ends, for 12 to 19 December 2026. The search returned 326 itineraries. Only one came in under $1,000, and it was the slowest of the ten we looked at closely.
The rest of the top ten sat in a tight band between $1,046 and $1,049. Most of those were United nonstops.
| Option | Round trip fare | Journey time |
|---|---|---|
| Icelandair, 1 stop | $971 | 19 hours |
| United, nonstop | $1,046 | 8 hours 10 minutes |
| Air Canada, 1 stop | $1,046 | 13 hours 33 minutes |
| United, 1 stop | $1,049 | 11 hours 15 minutes |
Travel 12 to 19 December 2026. Round trip, economy, one adult, taxes included. Journey time is the outbound trip as the search reported it. Fares change daily, so check the live search above before you book.
For most people, no. The $75 you save on the Icelandair fare costs you close to 11 extra hours on the way out, plus a connection in Iceland in December.
The United nonstop is the one we'd book from this check. It cost $1,046, and three United nonstops at that price came back, so you get some choice of departure time too. Take the one-stop only if $75 matters more to you than most of a day.
O'Hare (ORD). Our search covered every Chicago airport under the city code CHI, but the nonstops to London leave from O'Hare, and Midway doesn't run transatlantic flights.
If you live on the South Side, that's worth knowing before you compare fares. Allow for the trip up to O'Hare and an international check-in, which closes earlier than a domestic one.
Our search covered all London airports under the code LON, so check the arrival airport on the fare you pick. The two you'll see most are Heathrow (LHR), west of the city, and Gatwick (LGW), south of it.
Both have direct trains into central London. Heathrow suits the west side of the city and anywhere on the Elizabeth line. Gatwick suits the south. A fare into the airport on the wrong side of London can easily cost you an extra hour on arrival day.
The United nonstop in our check took 8 hours 10 minutes. London is 6 hours ahead of Chicago in December, so most flights leave in the evening and land the next morning.
A 6:00 pm departure from O'Hare lands around 8:10 am London time. Plan a gentle first day: you'll arrive after a short night, whatever the airline.
We don't have enough of our own checks on this route yet to name the right week to book, and we'd rather say so than guess. What we do have is one search on 28 October 2026, which found $1,046 nonstop for a mid-December week.
Fares change daily, and December is a busy month for transatlantic travel. Try a few sets of dates in the search above and compare again before you commit.
Our 28 October 2026 check found $971 round trip as the lowest fare, on Icelandair with one stop, for travel from 12 to 19 December 2026. The cheapest nonstop was United at $1,046. Fares change daily and depend on your dates, so run your own search above and treat these numbers as one real check rather than a promise.
Yes. United nonstops came back in our 28 October 2026 check at $1,046 round trip, with a journey time of 8 hours 10 minutes. Three of them sat at that same fare, so you had a choice of times. Nonstops to London leave from O'Hare (ORD), not Midway, so check which airport you're booking from.
Icelandair had the single lowest fare in our 28 October 2026 search, at $971 round trip with one stop. United had the lowest nonstop at $1,046, and Air Canada matched that price with a connection. That's one search on one set of dates, so run your own dates above to see which airlines come back for you.
About 8 hours nonstop. The United nonstops in our 28 October 2026 check took 8 hours 10 minutes, while the one-stop trips ran from 11 hours 15 minutes to 19 hours. London is 6 hours ahead of Chicago in December, so an evening departure from O'Hare usually lands the next morning.
Pick the airport on the side of London where you're staying. Heathrow (LHR) is west of the city and Gatwick (LGW) is south, and both have direct trains into central London. Our search covered all London airports, so check the arrival code on any fare before you pay, especially if the price gap is small.
Rarely, on the dates we checked. The cheapest one-stop fare saved $75 against the United nonstop but added close to 11 hours to the outbound trip. A connection makes more sense when the saving is several hundred dollars, or when you want a stopover. Compare the journey time beside every fare before you choose.
About this page
Written and fact-checked by the Flyingscanner team, last updated 28 October 2026. The fares quoted here come from our own live search on 28 October 2026, not estimates. Fares change until the airline issues a ticket, so check the live search on this page before you book. How Flyingscanner checks fares
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