$45 Find Cheap Flights from Detroit to California

This is the cheapest one-way flight price found by a KAYAK user in the last 72 hours by searching for a flight from Detroit to California departing on 7/9. Fares are subject to change and may not be available on all flights or dates of travel. Click the price to replicate the search for this deal.
1 adult
1 adult, Economy

KAYAK searches hundreds of travel sites at once for deals on flights to California

 
These are the airlines KAYAK users have selected most often from within our search results in flight searches from Detroit to California.
These are the airlines KAYAK users have selected most often from within our search results in flight searches from Detroit to California.
Travelers love KAYAK
41,299,237 searches in the past 7 days on KAYAK

Save 20% or moreCompare multiple travel sites with one search.

Track pricesNot ready to book? Create a price alert for when prices drop.

Bundle and saveSave money when you bundle your flight + hotel.

Filter your dealsChoose cabin class, free Wi-Fi and more.

Flights Deals
Useful Info
Flights Deals

Best California Flight Deals from Detroit

Cheapest round-trip prices found by our users on KAYAK in the last 72 hours
Los Angeles
Los Angeles1 stop$115
San Francisco
San Francisco1 stop$216
San Diego
San Diego1 stop$101
San Jose
San Jose1 stop$167
Palm Springs
Palm Springs2 stops$286
Fresno
Fresno1 stop$227
San Luis Obispo
San Luis Obispo1 stop$410
Arcata
Arcata1 stop$431
Redding
Redding1 stop$746
Reno
Reno1 stop$203
Sacramento
Sacramento1 stop$179
Los Angeles
Los Angeles1 stop$115
San Francisco
San Francisco1 stop$216
San Diego
San Diego1 stop$101
San Jose
San Jose1 stop$167
Palm Springs
Palm Springs2 stops$286
Fresno
Fresno1 stop$227
San Luis Obispo
San Luis Obispo1 stop$410
Arcata
Arcata1 stop$431
Redding
Redding1 stop$746
Reno
Reno1 stop$203
Sacramento
Sacramento1 stop$179

Cheap Flights from Detroit to California

 
Here are some of the best deals found on KAYAK recently from the most popular airlines for round-trip flights from Detroit to California that are departing in the next months. While these flights were available on KAYAK in the last 72 hours, prices and availability are subject to change and deals may expire.
Discover the best prices for you by selecting your travel dates on KAYAK.

Recent round-trip flight deals from Detroit to California

Tue, Jul 8 - Wed, Jul 9
Spirit Airlines Logo
9:37 am - 6:26 pmDTW-SAN
11h 49m1 stop
Spirit Airlines Logo
3:57 pm - 7:04 amSAN-DTW
12h 07m1 stop
$101Spirit Airlines
Find Deal
Sun, Jul 20 - Thu, Jul 24
Frontier Logo
10:08 pm - 11:36 pmDTW-LAS
4h 28mnonstop
Frontier Logo
8:21 am - 3:28 pmLAS-DTW
4h 07mnonstop
$106Frontier
Find Deal
Thu, Sep 18 - Mon, Sep 22
American Airlines Logo
1:04 pm - 8:50 pmDTW-SFO
10h 46m1 stop
American Airlines Logo
11:25 pm - 12:09 pmSFO-DTW
9h 44m1 stop
$265American Airlines
Find Deal
Mon, Aug 4 - Mon, Aug 11
Delta Logo
7:55 pm - 9:46 pmDTW-SJC
4h 51mnonstop
Delta Logo
10:25 pm - 6:00 amSJC-DTW
4h 35mnonstop
$279Delta
Find Deal
Wed, Aug 20 - Sun, Aug 24
American Airlines Logo
9:42 am - 7:51 pmDTW-SFO
13h 09m1 stop
American Airlines Logo
12:45 am - 10:51 amSFO-DTW
7h 06m1 stop
$281American Airlines
Find Deal
Mon, Aug 4 - Mon, Aug 11
Delta Logo
7:55 pm - 9:46 pmDTW-SJC
4h 51mnonstop
Delta Logo
10:58 pm - 9:22 amSJC-DTW
7h 24m1 stop
$289Delta
Find Deal
Fri, Jul 25 - Mon, Jul 28
United Airlines Logo
6:06 am - 8:13 amDTW-SFO
5h 07mnonstop
United Airlines Logo
9:30 pm - 5:10 amSFO-DTW
4h 40mnonstop
$289United Airlines
Find Deal
Fri, Oct 10 - Sat, Oct 11
United Airlines Logo
6:00 am - 10:04 amDTW-SFO
7h 04m1 stop
United Airlines Logo
8:55 am - 4:40 pmSFO-DTW
4h 45mnonstop
$299United Airlines
Find Deal
Tue, Aug 5 - Mon, Aug 11
Southwest Logo
8:10 am - 2:40 pmDTW-SFO
9h 30m1 stop
Southwest Logo
5:15 am - 6:05 pmSFO-DTW
9h 50m2 stops
$302Southwest
Find Deal
Tue, Jul 29 - Fri, Aug 1
Southwest Logo
11:50 am - 7:05 pmDTW-SFO
10h 15m2 stops
Southwest Logo
3:00 pm - 1:05 amSFO-DTW
7h 05m1 stop
$344Southwest
Find Deal
Useful Info

KAYAK's insights & trends for Detroit to California flights

Get data-powered insights and trends into flights from Detroit to California to help you find the cheapest flights, the best time to fly and much more.

What is the cheapest Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County Airport to California flight route?

The cheapest price for flight routes found by users searching on KAYAK in the last 2 weeks for round-trip flights from Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County Airport to California.

The cheapest ticket to California from Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County Airport found in the last 72 hours was to Los Angeles, at $166 round-trip. The most popular route is from Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County Airport (DTW) to Los Angeles (LAX), and the cheapest round-trip airline ticket found on this route in the last 72 hours was $166.

Can I save money by flying with a layover from Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County Airport to California?

The average round-trip price for all non-stop flights, flights with one layover, and flights with two layovers for the route found by users searching on KAYAK in the last 2 weeks.

Yes, flying with a layover may cost you more time, but you can also save money on the route, with a 1 stop layover the cheapest option at $863 on average.

What is the cheapest month to fly from Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County Airport to California?

To calculate monthly average prices, KAYAK takes all prices for each month over the last year for round-trip flights from Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County Airport to California, removes the top 0.1% to account for outliers, and then takes the median of all values for each month.

The cheapest month for flights from Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County Airport to California is January, when tickets cost $231 (return) on average. On the other hand, the most expensive months are December and March, when the average cost of round-trip tickets is $394 and $348 respectively.

What’s the cheapest day of the week to fly from Detroit to California?

The average price of all round-trip flights from Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County Airport to California clicked on KAYAK for each day over the last 12 months.

Your flight ticket price will generally be cheaper if you fly to California on a Friday and more expensive on a Sunday. On your return trip to Detroit, you should consider flying back on a Friday, and avoid Sundays for better deals.

How far in advance should I book a flight from Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County Airport to California?

To calculate weekly average prices, KAYAK takes all prices for each week before departure over the last year for round-trip flights from Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County Airport to California, removes the top 0.1% to account for outliers, and then takes the average of all the values for each week.

To get a below average price on the flight from Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County Airport to California, you should book around 2 weeks before departure. For the absolute cheapest price, our data suggests you should book 6 weeks before departure.


Good to know

Low seasonApril
High seasonDecember
Cheapest flight$45
Best time to beat the crowds with an average 5% drop in price.
Most popular time to fly with an average 17% increase in price.
Flight from Detroit to Los Angeles

FAQs - booking California flights

  • How does KAYAK find such low prices on flights from Detroit to California?

    KAYAK is a travel search engine. That means we look across the web to find the best prices we can find for our users. With over 2 billion flight queries processed yearly, we are able to display a variety of prices and options on flights from Detroit to California.

  • How does KAYAK's flight Price Forecast tool help me choose the right time to buy my flight ticket from Detroit to California?

    KAYAK’s flight Price Forecast tool uses historical data to determine whether the price for a flight from Detroit to California is likely to change within 7 days, so travelers know whether to wait or book now.

  • What is the Hacker Fare option on flights from Detroit to California?

    Hacker Fares allow you to combine one-way tickets in order to save you money over a traditional round-trip ticket. You could then fly from Detroit to California with an airline and back with another airline.

  • What is KAYAK's "flexible dates" feature and why should I care when looking for a flight from Detroit to California?

    Sometimes travel dates aren't set in stone. If your preferred travel dates have some wiggle room, flexible dates will show you all the options when flying from Detroit to California up to 3 days before/after your preferred dates. You can then pick the flights that suit you best.

  • What is the cheapest time of day to fly to California?

    The cheapest time of day to fly to California is generally in the afternoon, when round-trip flights cost $286 on average. Morning departures are around 14% cheaper than evening flights, on average. The most expensive time of day to fly to California is generally in the evening, which is peak travel time and where the average cost of a ticket is $443.

Top tips for finding cheap flights to California

  • Looking for a cheap flight? 25% of our users found tickets from Detroit to the following destinations at these prices or less: Las Vegas $108 one-way - $205 round-trip; Los Angeles $157 one-way - $288 round-trip

Top 5 airlines serving from Detroit to California

 
See real verified KAYAK customer reviews for airlines flying from Detroit to California. Airline scores are aggregated from all reviews left by passengers on KAYAK after flying with an airline. KAYAK doesn’t show reviews that are older than 5 years. Learn how KAYAK collects reviews.
Need help choosing which airline to fly with from Detroit to California? KAYAK airline reviews give an overall score for each airline based on loads of factors, including comfort, boarding, in-flight entertainment and more, to make your decision easier. See airline scores according to verified KAYAK customer reviews.
8.0
DeltaOverall score based on 7950 reviews
8.2Boarding
7.3Food
8.5Crew
7.9Comfort
7.9Entertainment
Airline reviews

5 hours of delay that could've been much shorter if Delta had taken the 1 hour delay they imposed on the flight before boarding to run any of the plane checks required for flight to find the hydraulic issue that required nearly 3 hours to fix. $24 of meal credit buys a sandwich and a soft drink. Poor communication within the terminal about what gate we'd be re-boarding from and when we'd be re-boarding.

2.0 MediocreAnonymous, Jun 2025BOS - LAX
Read more Delta reviews

5 hours of delay that could've been much shorter if Delta had taken the 1 hour delay they imposed on the flight before boarding to run any of the plane checks required for flight to find the hydraulic issue that required nearly 3 hours to fix. $24 of meal credit buys a sandwich and a soft drink. Poor communication within the terminal about what gate we'd be re-boarding from and when we'd be re-boarding.

The entertainment and wifi mostly didn't work on this flight.

Terrible entertainment system - kept freezing and audio kept cutting out. Snacks were mediocre at best for a 5 hour flight.

I am still upset that my bag was lost on a recent trip to Rome ; we were inconvenienced and out €150 Euros ; delta has refused to reimburse us

Crew was friendly Love the entertainment in the seat head rest.

This had nothing to do with Delta… The flights were on time and flawless. The service was excellent. We purchased seats in (aisle/middle) comfort plus since this was a cross country flight. Unfortunately, the woman seated at the window was 300+ pounds and, as might be expected, covered up about a third of the middle seat also. there was absolutely nothing that Delta could have done about that… I just don’t know what the answer should be. If you purchase a seat, you should should be able to use the entire seat and not just the portion that someone else is not sitting/oozing in. Disappointing…there should be something that could be done….I'm just not sure what solution could be.

Seats are much much more comfortable than United, which is what I usually fly

Rode in a smaller plane and short trip meant no snacks, no free wifi or tv. It was only 30min flight so honestly wasn’t a big deal to lack these items.

Kind staff. Snacks are small but that’s the new normal.

If I pay extra for "comfort+" I expect leg room where I can stretch my legs. I was seated with an attendant's seat blocking my feet. Knee space was fine but my feet had less room than the non-"comfort+" seats. Also, don't go cheap on food when you have flights of 3+ hours. It's insulting.

Boarding was mayhem. Late boarding by 15 minutes because of lack of staff (missing 1 flight attendant. We had to wait for an arrival of another plane before we could board). Flight was a little rough, but cannot blame on airlines.

Great experience…left a bit behind schedule but made up fir that in the air and landed 10 minutes early 😁

United out of SFO is having issues with catering so none of our meals were loaded on the plane and no offer of compensation for our tickets purchased was offered.

A bit rush for transit. Food and entertainment are not available

The gate was too far away for the connecting flight

Generally good. The aisles have gotten narrower which can slow down boarding. Flight crew was great! Healthier complimentary snacks would be appreciated. Due to earthquake in San Francisco we had to circle in air space for a bit but then had a smooth landing. I laud the flight crew for their patience ;)

The agents was very rude and they charged me $50 for a carry-on bag saying that it was too big and then I saw someone going on a plane with the same size bag as me

For the most part united was a good experience, how ever when they came by with the snacks and water, they completely passed by my wife and I. As we were in separate rows. On a 5 hr flight we were not offered water

Fantastic crew. Flight was delayed at last minute but we were given updates every 20 minutes and the crew was so friendly and considerate. I miss the touch screens on the back of the seats, wish they would bring that back though.

Awful. Worst airline I have ever been on. Crew were among the rudest people I have ever dealt with. United staff members were rude and disrespectful. My flight was delayed, causing me to miss a connecting flight. I understand things happen, but when staff start lying about what actually happened, that is when I have an issue. Just be honest, really it isn’t that hard. I’m being very honest with this review and I don’t find this difficult what so ever. In fact, because of United Airlines, my Christmas holiday was off to a really rocky start. As someone who has traveled across the world, it has only been United that I have had a truly awful experience.

Honestly, I haven’t flown American in years, probably due to the pandemic and my being unable to travel for certain periods in the last two years, but it was a good experience to dig out or obtain a new American Airlines account after many years of traveling for business with American in the past.

Long 5 hour and 45 min flight and only one drink service and cookie snack

The trip was very smooth and they provided great customer service

One bottle of water and a package of cookies for comfort plus. We had to literally beg a flight attendant for an extra bottle of water later in the flight due to feeling dehydrated.

Flight boarded from Gate 39 at OGG, the farthest gate in the terminal. There were no Hawaiian themed amenities for the flight. The first class service was mediocre at best; I received not special welcome or recognition as an executive platinum member of American Advantage program. The flight attendants were more concerned with their cell phones than saying "thank you" to the passengers as we disembarked. Fortunately, the flight arrived at LAX a few minutes early.

Bigger seats. Board back to front! Disembark front to back!

Extraordinary service in business class, and very good breakfast and snacks. A really lovely flight.

This flight didn’t happen because AA agents didn’t let us board the flight

Plane was pretty clean, staff was friendly and helpful, flight left about on time arrived early. Took a long time to board and get off the plane - carry on items didn't have enough room so people had to move all around to find places.

The service and food needs to improve to catch up with other international flights

Boarding was a breeze, however, two of the flights that I boarded with Spirit did not have Wi-Fi available.

Tell them to chose a better, less bumpy route :( my seat had no window all the way at the end 😔

Very good. Nothing more or less than expected. No complaints.

Boarding east and ontime. Seat spacing was tight, and seats don’t recline.

My experience with the spirit as a first time it was OK, but the seats need a little cushion, the problem I had the most impacted me was when checking in the scales were so off and wrong. It will tell that you would have more weight, which was not true. The scale was say that it had Thirty Eight Pounds, when get in the labels when we send the luggage into the band. It says that it was overweight. I really really dislike that because the scales are not accurate. If I use Spirit and I have that issue again. That will be my last time flying with the spirit, even though I like so much to service the planes, and everything else

hahaha we are delayed for one hour plus.. but thx we arrived San Diego safe

Overall flight was good, the attendant at the desk was pretty rude to me and some other customers. It was my second time flying on my own and I was repeatedly told to use the app to find my seat assignment but the app would not work, in the end it took just a few seconds to print a physical copy, but I was given a lot of trouble over it.

The flight attendant spilled ice all down my leg and all over my suede boots and didn’t even apologize or anything. They just gave me a look like “what?!” Incredibly rude and dismissive. I saw them roll their eyes at other guests and even once yell at a lady with a baby.

Worst airline ever! The guy weighing my bag had his foot on the metal plate and when I called him out on it, I got this stupid little smirk. La is a scam and so is Spirit Airlines. All the flight attendants looked like they hated our flight just as much as we did.

My flight was good from my wheelchair assist to the plan & my exit.

Book with frontier airlines with the mentality that they'll cancel your flight, kick you off and lose your luggage. Anything besides that is a win. Compare prices with other airlines (to include luggage) and if frontier is still worth it, book it but know all of their policies.

You get what you pay for nothing essentially but a hard uncomfortable seat that doesn’t recline and kids screaming all around you and chaotic boarding and limited check bag weight allowance when compared to other airlines

I never got to experience the flight because they delayed my first flight and I missed this one. Then Frontier didn't want to help me rebook a flight to get me to my final destination.

The Boarding process in Denver was chaotic, and since the line was so long, we were lined up very far from the gate. If there were any announcements from the gate staff, we didn't hear them. The flight attendants were spectacular. The only negative part of the flight was sitting by a 2 1/2 year old who was unruly and unfortunately had parents that matched his behaviors. Also, the restaurants in Denver on the E concourse, they didn't have food (passengers could only order 1 item on the entire menu) or the restaurants had 12-14 people waiting for orders to be prepared and another 6 people waiting to order. If you have a layover in Denver and need to grab food, be prepared to visit the shops with pre-packaged sandwiches, or you can visit another concourse but it may take a while to transit throughout the airport.

I liked the turn-style feature at gate 209B at LAX. Very efficient process. The gate staff also made several, clearly directed announcements so I felt very informed.

Although an hour and a half early was told by staff at check in they had overbooked and could not check us in for the flight.

The crew was delayed because they came on another flight that was delayed due to weather 10pm flight left at 1.30 am The airline made no effort to align alternate crew

Plane was down graded and I lost my uncharged exit row with more leg room. No mention or offer of refund from podium. Flight attendant was nice to explain this happens often and that I could request a refund via online form submission. I did this and have heard nothing back.

Worst airline experience. They were rude and kept changing our seats and/or giving our seats away so our family didn’t get to sit with each other. Almost everyone we dealt with at both airports with this airline was rude. The app kept giving us wrong information making things take longer. Dealing with them before TSA can take close to an hour…longer than I’ve ever had to deal with before. Never using this airline again.

Horrendous. I do not recommend Frontier. The passengers lack manners and decency, and the flight attendants lack professionalism. If I wasn’t in a bind to fly with 48 hours notice for a job interview, I would not have selected a flight with Frontier and I never plan to fly with them in the future.

Everything you need to know for your flight from Detroit to California

Information on your arrival and departure airports

Not what you’re looking for? Find thousands of other hotels, flights, car rentals and package deals with KAYAK.