Best Time to Book

Houston → San Diego flights

Houston to San Diego fares have a median of $98 over 30 days, though prices range widely to $232 — book when you see fares near $96-98.

Median fare $98 — but a few spikes to $232 make timing matter

Key takeaways

The median fare sits at $98, with a bottom quartile (p25) anchored at just $96 — close to the floor.
Top quartile fares jump to $232, meaning a meaningful share of snapshots are priced over double the median.
A 142% spread between low and high is wide, signaling real volatility rather than a stable price band.
With only 12 daily snapshots, this sample is thin — treat patterns as directional, not definitive.
Fares clustering near $96–$98 likely represent the achievable low end; anything above $150 looks like a premium window.

30-day price trend

IAH → SAN · cheapest cached fare per day · last 13 days · ↓ 59%

$96 low$232 high

See full numbers and stats on the IAH → SAN price history page.

The full picture

The data shows a sharp split in pricing for this route: half of all snapshots came in at or near $98, while the top quartile jumped to $232 — more than double. This bimodal-looking pattern, reflected in the 142% spread, suggests that fares aren't drifting gradually but rather swinging between a low-price regime and a high-price regime, possibly tied to demand surges, specific flight dates, or inventory changes on a dominant route carrier.

We don't have enough resolution in this 12-day sample to pinpoint which part of the booking horizon reliably delivers the $96–$98 fares versus the $232 fares. What we can say is that the bottom quartile (p25) essentially matches the observed low, meaning a solid chunk of snapshots cluster near the floor — so the $98 median is a realistic target, not a statistical outlier. If you're checking fares and see something in the high $90s to low $100s, that aligns with the cheaper half of the distribution we observed.

No clear day-of-week or carrier pattern is visible in this dataset — the payload doesn't surface a dominant carrier with enough confidence to generalize, and 12 samples isn't enough to isolate weekday effects. The honest takeaway: this route shows high volatility (a 142% spread is substantial), and the small sample size means our read on "typical" pricing could shift with more data. Treat $98 as a reasonable anchor price, but don't be surprised if live search results swing meaningfully above or below it on any given day.

Ready to look at fares?

Search IAH → SAN on Aviasales →See the price history →

Related travel pages

Why we regenerated this article: Median fare ↓ 58% ($232 → $98). We only rewrite when the underlying price index actually moves — stable weeks keep the previous take.

AI-authored from this route's 30-day price index. Article last regenerated Oct 10, 2026. Fares shift continuously — confirm at booking.