Route brief · LAX → SJO
Los Angeles → San José
$448
−39% vs typical
seasonal median $740 · difference $292
Oct 6 – Oct 13 · 7 nights
Southwest1 stop
- Usual monthly lows
- $523–$741
- Board rank
- Stronger than 88%
- Route sample
- 4 observed months
Cached fare — the booking search re-prices live before you pay.
Destination briefSJOSan JoséNobody comes for the capital — they come for two coasts, volcanoes and cloud forest, all within four hours.Best windowDec–AprAirportsJuan Santamaría (SJO)All routes into San JoséWhen this route gets cheap.
Cached-fare history: across 4 months, Oct is the cheapest for LA → SJO. Best time to be there: Dec–Apr.
Fares bottom out in October around $448 and peak in December near $758 — a $310 spread across the 4 months we track. The cheapest itinerary we are tracking makes one stop and takes about 7 hours outbound, on a 7-night trip — ticketed under Southwest, which on a connecting fare need not operate every leg. At $448 for 4,389 km each way, that works out to about $51 per 1,000 km flown. That is above the $39 typical of medium-haul fares here. Across the 7 departure cities we track at a similar distance from San José, this fare ranks 6th — 56% above the $288 from New York. For context, the middle fare among the 11 routes of similar length we watch out of Los Angeles is $397.
The 5 days we hold a cached fare for
Tap a date → live search
The median cached fare across this calendar is 13% higher than when tracking began on Aug 8 — $672 then versus $758 now, across 4 recorded snapshots. This is a calendar-level trend, so an individual deal above can be lower. The lowest single day we have seen here is $448, on Oct 6.
These are the only days we have a cached price for on this route so far — not the only days it flies. The search above covers any date.
Cheapest in Oct · around $448
39% below the $740 typical fare
Cheapest round-trip fare found per month · Los Angeles → San José · cached-price history
Route facts
- Airports
- LAX · Burbank (BUR) · Long Beach (LGB) ↔ Juan Santamaría (SJO)
- Flight time
- ~7 hours outbound
- Distance
- ~4,389 km each way
- Typical price
- $740 round-trip (seasonal median)
- Airlines on the board
- Southwest
- Itineraries
- Connections on current fares
- Best months to visit
- Dec–Apr
LA → SJO, answered.
Is $448 a good price for Los Angeles to San José?
Yes — the seasonal median for this route is around $740 round-trip. At $448 you're 39% below that, saving about $292, which we rate great for this route.
What is the cheapest month to fly from Los Angeles to San José?
Across 4 months of cached-fare history, Oct comes out cheapest on this route. The best months to actually be in San José are Dec–Apr — when those overlap, that's your window.
How far in advance should I book LA → San José?
We do not publish a number for this, because we cannot measure it yet. Answering it honestly means watching the same departure date on this route over many weeks as it approaches, and that archive is still filling up — so any "book N days ahead" figure here would be borrowed from somewhere else rather than measured. What we can measure is which month is cheap: across 4 months of cached fares, Oct comes out lowest on this route. See /guides/what-moves-a-flight-price/ for what does move a fare.
Are there nonstop flights from Los Angeles to San José?
The current cheapest fares involve a connection, ticketed under Southwest. Nonstop options exist on many dates at higher prices — check the live search for your exact dates.
Are these prices guaranteed?
No — these are cached fares found on real searches (this one on September 1). Airlines reprice constantly, so the booking search re-checks the live price before you pay. Fresher finds are far more likely to still be available.
Next step
Sleeping in San José?
Lock the flight first — then compare stays for Oct 6 – Oct 13 · 7 nights.
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Missed it?
Cached fares expire. This route has a feed of its own — follow it and the next LA → SJO drop reaches you as soon as we find it.
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