The Cheapest Places to Fly to Asia From Australia, Ranked

If the goal is simply to get to Asia as cheaply as possible from Australia, some destinations are reliably kinder to your wallet than others. From the fares we track every day across around 40 routes, here's how the eight destinations rank by typical return fare — the cheapest cluster first, the pricey pair last.

The short answer: Vietnam, Bali and Singapore are the cheapest places to fly to Asia from Australia, typically around $550–$710 return on a budget carrier, with Thailand, Malaysia and the Philippines close behind. Japan and South Korea cost roughly double.

The cheap cluster — typically $550–$750 return (budget carriers)

Six destinations sit within a few hundred dollars of each other on the budget track, so the "cheapest" among them shifts with your dates. Rough typical fares from our tracking (budget / full-service):

• Vietnam (Ho Chi Minh City) — from ~$676 budget / ~$929 full-service. One of the cheapest, and you can fly it nonstop even on a budget airline.
• Singapore — from ~$550 budget (Scoot) / ~$950 full-service. Budget fares here are among the very cheapest we see anywhere — and the route rewards booking about 90 days out.
• Bali (Denpasar) — ~$707 budget / ~$926 full-service. Australia's default cheap escape — and barely a 4-hour hop from Perth.
• Malaysia (Kuala Lumpur) — ~$680 budget / ~$1,000 full-service.
• Philippines (Manila) — ~$690 budget (Cebu Pacific) / ~$1,100 full-service.
• Thailand (Bangkok) — ~$728 budget (one-stop) / ~$1,200 full-service nonstop.

The pricey pair — roughly double

• South Korea (Seoul) — ~$1,180 budget / ~$1,585 full-service.
• Japan (Tokyo) — ~$1,180 budget (one-stop) / ~$1,790 full-service. The dearest destination we track, at about double a Bali or Vietnam fare.

Cheapest on paper isn't always the best deal

There's a catch worth understanding: the destination with the lowest sticker price isn't necessarily the one where today's fare is genuinely good. A $700 Bali fare might be overpriced for Bali, while a $1,600 Tokyo fare could be a rare bargain for Tokyo. That's the difference between "cheap" and "a good deal" — and it's exactly what the Savvy Score measures: today's fare against that route's own history, not against other destinations. So use this ranking to pick a wallet-friendly destination, then check that route's live score to time the booking.

How to actually book the cheap one well

Picking a cheap destination is half the job; booking it in the right window is the other half. Each route behaves differently — Sydney to Bali rewards booking 3–4 months out, Sydney to Tokyo is flat, and the full method is in how to find cheap flights from Australia to Asia.

📊 Savvy Take: The cheapest places to fly to Asia from Australia are Vietnam, Bali and Singapore — typically $550–$710 return on a budget carrier — with Thailand, Malaysia and the Philippines close behind. Japan and South Korea cost about double (~$1,180+). But cheapest-on-paper isn't the same as a good deal today: pick a wallet-friendly destination here, then let that route's Savvy Score tell you whether the current fare is actually worth booking.

An honesty note: these are typical return fares from a few months of daily tracking (Sydney-origin, as of August 2026), not a live snapshot — the genuinely cheapest destination on any given day shifts with your dates and how far ahead you book. For today's live fare on a route, check its page above.