How to Find Cheap Coachella Airfare

Let’s face it – the people who go to the Coachella Music Festival aren’t generally the type who jet-set around the globe and have money to burn on airline tickets. So if you can’t drive all the way to the festival, that means you’ve got to fly to a nearby airport and then find ground transportation to Indio. Luckily for you, you’ve got a few airports to choose from – which means your chances of finding cheap airfare to the Coachella Festival are pretty good.

But the multitude of airports near Coachella isn’t the only way to get a cheap flight to the music festival. In this article, we’ll go over the tips you’ll need to find the best price on an air ticket to Coachella – and many of these tips will come in handy no matter where or when you’re looking for cheap fares for other trips, too.

Check Alternative Airports

Normally, when there’s a big event going on in one place and lots of people are trying to get there, there’s one airport that they’re all flying into. The airlines know this, and they raise prices accordingly. With several airports in the area around the Coachella Valley to choose from, you’ve got that many more ways to get around paying a festival-related fare.

There are five airports that can be considered alternatives for getting to the Coachella Festival, although the Palm Springs Airport is closest.

>> Read more about the airports closest to the Coachella Festival

Keep Your Travel Plans Flexible

The easiest way to increase your chances of getting a good deal on airfare – no matter when or where you’re flying – is to keep your itinerary flexible when you’re searching for fares. If you’re set on one particular day or time of day when you start out, you’re potentially missing out on a special bargain fare that’s the day before or after – or even just a few hours on either side of your desired flight.

Most airfare booking sites make it easy to check nearby dates and times with one click – there’s usually a box near where you fill out your travel plans that says something like “my dates are flexible.” Check that box, and the website does the work for you. As a side note, if there’s a box around that says “check nearby airports,” check that, too – again making the website do the work for you.

If you don’t see the “my dates are flexible” box, you can still get an idea about whether you’re a day away from a cheaper fare by manually entering a few options for dates and times for your flights. It’s important to know that the cheapest days to fly tend to be Wednesdays, Tuesdays, and Saturdays – and the cheapest flights of the day are typically the ones earliest in the morning.

Use Budget Airlines

As noted in the point above, there are several airports into which you can fly for a trip to Coachella – and all of them have more than one budget airline with frequent flights in and out. Using these budget airlines can save you a bundle, but you can’t always find their fares by looking on the big booking websites.

Some of the budget carriers don’t submit their fares to the booking websites – or they reserve their best fares for people who buy directly from their websites. So if you’re not finding a cheap enough fare by using your favorite booking engine, take a shot at the budget airlines’ websites to see what comes up.

>> Read more about budget airlines in the USA

photo by vonlohmann