Thank you zebranz SpammersAreScum and dougzz , it does look like there are better options, my one complication is I'm trying to get back on the same day, and when I tried the LAX flights, connecting to the earlier flights looked closer to $1600... saying that I'm rusty on ITA Matrix and want to keep trying! Can you help me understand why it's returning a 'no flights found' error here, so I can try and keep working on this? I started with zebranz's suggestion, but it's failing to show me anything as a good starting point.
Sorry I know this is probably a very novice question...