Super Savings? Fort Wayne vs. Indy

INDIANAPOLIS, Ind. (WANE)--Thousands of people have already flown into Indy for Sunday's big game.  But while all the attention is on Indianapolis, could people have actually saved money by staying in Fort Wayne?

After weeks of research, NewsChannel 15 uncovered Fort Wayne had an offer any Super Bowl bargain hunter wouldn’t have been able to refuse.

Let's say you wanted to fly in Thursday and leave Monday.  First off, you have to get plane tickets.  If you bought a ticket from Boston to Indy in January, the cheapest round-trip airfare would have cost $1,011.  It would have been $976 from New York to Indy.

It would have been a different story flying to Fort Wayne.  Tickets would have cost $257 round-trip from Boston and $315 from New York.

Next up:  Hotels.  If you wanted to stay in the brand new JW Marriot hotel in downtown Indianapolis, that would have cost $3,000 a night with a four night minimum during the week of the game.  That is, if you could have got a reservation.

That's why people like Derek Vilalobos of Brooklyn are staying in the outlying cities.

“We're staying in Bloomington, it's beautiful there,” said Vilalobos.  “We're shopping around and seeing what's going on.  We have a car.  It's a 45 minute trip.”

NewsChannel 15 figured the best hotel for the price was in Greenfield, Indiana, 35 minutes east of downtown Indy.  The cost was $400 a night with a four night minimum.  On the bright side though, there's a free shuttle service from the hotel to Super Bowl Village, so you wouldn't have to rent a car or pay for parking.

But if you stayed at the brand new Hilton Garden Inn on the southwest side of Fort Wayne, that would've been $99 a night with plenty of availability in the middle of January.

Economy car rental from Enterprise and gas for four trips back and forth to Indy came out to $185.  If you would have used the Super Bowl's park and ride shuttle service, parking would have only been $48 for four days.

The cheapest tickets NewsChannel 15 found for the big game online ran $1,930 each.

So without food, your grand total for a four-day Super Bowl trip from Boston to Indy ran about $4,541.  From Boston to Fort Wayne was about $2,816.  That makes a Summit City savings of about $1,725.

The grand total from New York to Indy was about $4,506.  From New York to Fort Wayne was about $2,874.  That makes a Summit City savings of about $1,632.

The news left Vilalobos with some buyer’s remorse.

“I should've went to Fort Wayne,” said Vilalobos.  “That would've been a better option.”

Friday, five hotels on the southwest side of Fort Wayne said there weren't many people staying there for the Super Bowl.

If travelers would have picked to stay in Fort Wayne, the total drive time during the four day trip would have been more than 16 hours without traffic.