Domestic airfare has a reputation for climbing every year, but a handful of short-haul routes are quietly defying it. Expedia’s own pricing data, drawn from average ticket bookings between December 2024 and November 2025, identified six domestic round-trip routes still running under $160, according to the company’s 2026 budget-route report. Most connect midsize or secondary airports rather than the country’s biggest hubs — proof that avoiding the largest, priciest airports on either end of a trip is often the simplest way to find a genuinely cheap fare.
1. Orlando to Fort Lauderdale — around $107 round-trip
The cheapest route on Expedia’s list connects two of Florida’s busiest leisure airports, and it isn’t close: about $107 round-trip, according to Expedia’s report. Both airports sit in Expedia’s own list of the cheapest U.S. departure points, so the route benefits twice over — heavy budget-carrier competition at both ends keeps the whole trip inexpensive in either direction.
2. Las Vegas to San Diego — around $125 round-trip
This West Coast hop links two major leisure destinations for about $125 round-trip. With Las Vegas already ranked among the country’s cheapest airports to fly from, the route functions as an easy add-on trip for travelers who booked a Vegas getaway and want to tack on a few days at the California coast without paying a premium to get there.
3. Tampa to Fort Lauderdale — around $136 round-trip
Another Florida-to-Florida connection, this route runs about $136 round-trip and reflects the same dynamic driving down the Orlando–Fort Lauderdale fare: dense in-state competition among carriers serving Florida’s biggest leisure markets keeps prices low on short hops that would cost considerably more between comparably sized cities elsewhere in the country.
4. Los Angeles to Las Vegas — around $140 round-trip
One of the most heavily flown leisure routes in the country comes in at about $140 round-trip. High frequency is the driver here — with dozens of flights running between Southern California and Las Vegas most days, competition among carriers keeps average fares well below what a route of similar distance would cost between less-traveled cities.
5. Austin to Midland — around $152 round-trip
A less obvious entry on the list, this Texas route connects Austin’s fast-growing hub to Midland for about $152 round-trip, largely driven by steady business and energy-sector travel demand between the two cities that keeps regional carriers flying the route reliably and, per Expedia’s data, affordably.
6. San Francisco to Ontario, California — around $155 round-trip
Rounding out the list, this intra-California route runs about $155 round-trip. Ontario International, roughly 40 miles east of Los Angeles, functions as a lower-cost alternative to LAX and Burbank for Southern California travel, and the fare gap shows up clearly on this specific city pair.
Budget pricing extends past the border too
The same report tracked international routes as well, and the pattern holds up there too: Houston to Comayagua, Honduras runs about $229 round-trip, Fort Lauderdale to Nassau about $242, Las Vegas to Vancouver about $242, and Orlando to Toronto about $260, all still under Expedia’s $275 international budget threshold, according to the 2026 Air Hacks report. Three of those four international bargains touch the same airports — Fort Lauderdale, Las Vegas, and Orlando — that anchor the cheapest domestic routes, reinforcing how much a single well-priced home airport can shape a traveler’s options both within the U.S. and beyond it.
Why these particular routes stay cheap
“As travelers continue to look for ways to stretch their budgets, these saver routes offer some of the best opportunities to fly for less,” said Melanie Fish, head of Expedia Group Brands public relations, in the company’s own release on the findings. A separate summary of Expedia’s broader 2026 Air Hacks data, covered by Business Wire, found that Fort Lauderdale, Las Vegas, and Orlando are consistently the least expensive major U.S. airports overall — which explains why so many of these budget routes touch one of the three.
When to book matters as much as where
Finding one of these routes is only half the equation. Expedia’s broader Air Hacks findings show that domestic economy fares are typically cheapest when booked 15 to 30 days before departure, saving travelers roughly $130 on average compared with booking six months out, according to a summary of the report. Applying that same window to an already-cheap route — say, booking Orlando to Fort Lauderdale three weeks ahead instead of six months ahead — can push an already-low fare even lower, rather than relying on the route alone to do all the work.
Taken together, the routes share a common thread: short distances, high flight frequency, and at least one end anchored at an airport already known for cheap fares. None of them require an obscure booking trick — just picking a route where competition, whether from budget carriers stacked at the same airport or dense point-to-point demand, is already doing the work of keeping prices down, and booking it inside the window when fares tend to be at their lowest.
