Best value flight routes from Australia revealed — along with the rip-offs

THERE are two cities that offer Aussies the best bang for buck with airfares, and one city that’s burning a big hole in our wallets.

IF YOU’RE keen to snag the best value flights — and who among us isn’t? — it’s worth knowing which destinations to aim for, and which to give the flick.

Despite how near or far the destination, some flight routes out of Australian cities deliver better bang for your buck than others in terms of the cost per kilometre travelled.

Travel search website kayak.com.au has analysed airfare data to come up with lists of the cheapest, and most expensive, destinations to fly from Sydney and Melbourne. And there were some surprises.

The data-crunch found New Zealand’s adventure capital Queenstown was the most expensive international destination to fly from either city, with routes averaging 12.20 cents per kilometre from Melbourne, and 16.89 cents per kilometre from Sydney.

That was significantly more than destinations on the other end of the spectrum: Manila, the cheapest destination for flights from Melbourne, cost just 3.13 cents per kilometre and Bangkok was cheapest from Sydney at 3.85 cents.

“Queenstown is one of the top searched destinations on Kayak, despite the fact it appears on the least cost-effective flight routes from Sydney and Melbourne,” Robin Chiang, Kayak’s country head of Australia and New Zealand told news.com.au.

“One reason that Queenstown appears on this list may be because most of the routes are serviced by full serviced carriers, as opposed to low-cost.

“Despite Queenstown not returning the best cost per kilometre value, there are plenty of popular sights to see and things to do that Aussies are willing to travel for, such as boating at Lake Wakatipu, hiking Routeburn Track and swimming in Lake Wanaka.”

Plus, Queenstown has been counted among the most scenic airport landings in the world.

Stunning Queenstown is the most expensive city to fly from Sydney or Melbourne in terms of cost per kilometre. Picture: iStock

Despite being just a few hours across the ditch, it turned out New Zealand was an expensive place to fly from Australia more generally, according to the data.

Wellington came second on both cities’ lists, Auckland was third, and Christchurch was fourth.

And despite its popularity with Australian holiday-makers, Bali was also one of the most expensive destinations for Aussies to fly to, with Denpasar airport making an appearance on both Melbourne and Sydney’s lists along with repeat offenders Vancouver, Seoul and Tokyo.

If you’re looking to get the most value on airfares, Manila was named the cheapest place to fly out of Melbourne, according to kayak.com.au’s data.

It was followed by Hanoi, Bangkok, Athens, Rome, Milan, Honolulu, Delhi, Amsterdam and Berlin.

From Sydney, budget-conscious travellers will get the best value flying to Bangkok, followed by Delhi, Los Angeles, Singapore, Frankton, Mumbai, New York, Hong Kong, Manila and Colombo.

And Manila is the best-value destination from Melbourne.

Bangkok is the cheapest city to fly from Sydney in terms of cost per kilometre.

Kayak.com.au also assessed the cost per kilometre of domestic destinations from Sydney and Melbourne.

The Sunshine Coast was found to be particularly expensive for Sydneysiders (17.64 cents per kilometre), as opposed to Darwin (8.16 cents).

For travellers from Melbourne, Cairns was the most cost-effective destination at 7.89 cents and Canberra — despite being only about 460km away — offered the worst-valued flight costs at a whopping 32.40 per kilometre.

Mr Chiang said travellers who wanted to make sure they were getting the best prices on their flights could use kayak.com.au’s Price Forecast tool, which offered advice on whether you should buy airfares now or wait for a better price, and its Price Alert, which let travellers know as soon as fares dropped to the destination they hoped to travel.