Originally Posted by
FlyerAVL
It depends on the city pairs and dates. looking at google flights for me. AVL-ORD the round trip is $179-299 on a random dates in march/april, the one way AVL-ORD is $90 on certain days but $225 on others, and the ORD-AVL leg is at minimum $170. This is for the nonstop UA and AA services.
For your example of IAH-LAX its between $90-190 for the oneway and the same in reverse depending on day, the round trip is $200-300. both directions are $90 in march for example.
All fares between IAH-LAX are one-way fares (you can see this on EF with a one week roundtrip search as min/max stay field is always blank). This is due to competition on route with likes of WN (from HOU) which only has one-way fares.
AVL, being a less competitive station, has roundtrip fare filings to ORD, IAH, EWR, etc. Fare differences vary based on seasonality. One-way Tue/Wed fares on ORD-AVL start at $90 in March/April (domestic fare filings are symmetric). The Tue/Wed travel requirement for them is baked in their fare rules (it is not simply based on bucket inventory availability). There are not cheaper roundtrip fares for Tue/Wed travel. However, other days of the week one-ways start at $224 and there are cheaper roundtrip fares on these days. In the summer, there are no separate Tue/Wed one-way fares and all one-ways start at $224, while roundtrip fares start at $209 roundtrip and thus savings can be signficant. Upcharge from Basic economy is $35 each-way.