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Going forward, moderation staff will be reviewing new posts for (perpetually) free software & websites and based on specific circumstances, move it to this megathread. The selection criteria is not finalised and may be subject to change in the future, based on observation and user feedback.
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Mod Note: Update on 15 Sept. We removed the third criteria for L / P plate holders, as those do not carry across from Deal posts to forum posts. Due to internal coding, a user account who has already graduated L/P Plate for Deal posts, can still be marked with a Provisional L/P plate for their first ever forum post, regardless of the age of their account.
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Merged from I've tracked 200,000+ Australia–Asia airfares daily since March. Waiting cost more 81% of the time. Here's the data.
Book Australia to most Asian routes about three months out from the Departure date for the lowest cost!
This is especially true for Bali, and also Bangkok and Seoul has waiting hurting the most!
My numbers are below from an extensive analysis!
I built the site this comes from (SavvyFlyer, savvyflyer.com.au). It's free, the "check this fare" button goes straight to Google Flights. This isn't a deal post. It's the data, because I haven't seen anyone publish it for Australian routes.
What we did
Since 2 March 2026 we've logged the cheapest fare of the day — any airline, any number of stops — every day, on 40 routes: Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth and Adelaide to Bali, Japan, Thailand, Vietnam, Singapore, the Philippines, South Korea and Malaysia. Prices are Google Flights results. Over 200,000 fares so far. Medians throughout, not averages.
The one number
For 1,935 route-and-date pairs (departures 25 July to 20 October), measured on 20 September, we saw the same trip priced both about 90 days out and about 30 days out. The later fare was dearer 81% of the time.
By route, worst first (as at 20 September 2026):
Perth–Bali: dearer later on 47 of 47 dates, median +$247 (+60%)
Melbourne–Bali: 82 of 82, +$252 (+41%)
Sydney–Bali: 82 of 82, +$233 (+38%)
Brisbane–Bali: 47 of 47, +$266 (+34%)
Melbourne–Singapore: 44 of 47, +$124 (+21%)
Sydney–Ho Chi Minh City: 78 of 84, +$117 (+19%)
Brisbane–Ho Chi Minh City: 42 of 46, +$171 (+19%)
Brisbane–Singapore: 44 of 47, +$145 (+17%)
Sydney–Tokyo (Haneda): 71 of 83, +$182 (+15%)
Brisbane–Tokyo (Narita): 67 of 82, +$166 (+15%)
Sydney–Singapore: 79 of 85, +$82 (+14%)
Sydney–Manila: 68 of 85, +$91 (+14%)
Sydney–Kuala Lumpur: 71 of 85, +$48 (+9%)
Sydney–Bangkok: 66 of 85, +$37 (+5%)
Sydney–Seoul: 56 of 83, +$52 (+5%)
Melbourne–Seoul: 24 of 46, +$12 (+1%). A coin flip.
Bali is the standout: every single date on every Bali route was dearer a month out than three months out. Bangkok and Seoul are where waiting hurts least.
Does "wait for a sale" ever work?
We score each fare 0–100 against that route's own history. The top band ("Rare") means "this is unusually cheap, book it". Honest numbers on the last 30 days of completed departures, 1,148 of them:
Rare fired on 88 departures (7.7%). Most trips never get one.
When it fired inside the 90-day mark, following it saved a median $83 versus booking at 90 days.
When it never fired (the other 92%), waiting until two weeks out cost a median $141 more than booking at 90 days.
So the boring conclusion holds. For Asia from Australia, book about three months out unless something unusually cheap turns up earlier. Sales exist; they're rarer than the marketing suggests.
Christmas
We can't score December honestly yet. We've never watched a Christmas fare approach departure, so we don't know whether they come down. What we can say: at the same booking distance, December departures were priced 40–87% above November on the Sydney routes (Bali $674 vs $1,261; Singapore $1,037 vs $1,763; Bangkok $1,196 vs $1,970; Tokyo $1,940 vs $2,711). Book it when you can wear the number.
Check it yourself
Every country page shows today's board: the cheapest full-service nonstop return we found this morning for each departure window, the score, and a button that opens the same search on Google Flights. Pick any route, click through, and you'll see the same carrier, the same dates, the same price. Normally our number is the cheapest full-service nonstop, not the cheapest thing on the page, so a budget one-stop will often undercut it; that's by design.
If you check and the fare doesn't match, say so in the comments with the route and time. That's the test the site has to pass, and I'd rather hear it here.
Caveats, stated plainly
Seven months of data, one southern winter. This is a current reading, not a law.
"Cheapest fare of the day" is Google's result, so it's what you'd see searching, not what every agent sells.
8 of our 40 routes (Perth to Singapore, KL, Bangkok and Saigon; Adelaide to Singapore and KL; and Hanoi from both Melbourne and Sydney) only started in August and don't have 90-vs-30 pairs yet.
The 88 "Rare" departures are a small sample. The median saving is $83; the mean is $171. Both are true; take the median.
Fares move. The board updates each morning after 07:00 AEDT; a fare you check at night may differ from the one it showed at breakfast.
Happy to answer method questions in the comments.