When is the cheapest day to fly? 💸

Are Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Saturday afternoons actually the best times to book? We put it to the test.

We’ve long been told the cheapest day to fly is mid-week or on a Saturday afternoon, but times have certainly changed since Covid disrupted the travel world, so we wanted to test it out to see if this is still true.

Our guess: Nah.

We looked at a few domestic routes within Australia, as well as some international fares to see if that made a difference.

Skip to the verdicts

Cheapest day to book domestic flights

First, we looked at a shorter flight and a longer flightd on the three major domestic airlines — Jetstar, Virgin Australia and Qantas. We checked flights on the popular Sydney-Melbourne route, as well as the longer Brisbane-Perth haul. We also checked during different times of the year.

Jetstar

✅ Sydney-Melbourne

Looking at flights that were within eight weeks of today’s date, and ones that were six months away, we found this theory to definitely be true. But, with an added bonus – Thursday travel also seemed to be one of the cheapest. We did find Saturdays to be a bit hit-and-miss. Sometimes they were cheaper, and sometimes they weren’t.

For travel six months away, we found the same. Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays were constantly the cheapest days to fly this route with Jetstar. However, being a Club Jetstar member did give you access to the better price on Saturdays.

✅ Brisbane-Perth

Here’s where things got a bit messy.

On this route, the cheapest days were a bit all over the place for travel that’s within the next month or two. Wondering if it was this route in particular, we also checked flights between Darwin and Adelaide, but found the same results.

For flights booked further in advanced though, we did find these three days are the best. Tuesdays and Wednesdays definitely had the lowest prices overall, but Saturday fares weren’t too far behind.

So for longer-haul domestic flights, the Tuesday-Wednesday-Saturday theory is true when you book far enough in advance. For last-minute flights though, it’s not really going to work in your favour.

Virgin Australia

✅ Sydney-Melbourne

In Virgin Australia’s case, we found Saturdays to be just as expensive as any other day of the week. Tuesdays and Wednesdays were the winners here. Although we did find the occasional Thursday with the same-priced tickets. This was the case both for flights departing soon and further in the future.

❌ Brisbane-Perth

On this route, we found the prices to be exactly the same no matter which date you booked and no matter how far in advance you bought your tickets. Of course, this isn’t always going to be the case, especially when there are sales, but considering there isn’t one currently, it’s certainly worth noting.

Qantas

❌ Sydney-Melbourne

Like Virgin, Qantas prices tended to be exactly the same no matter what day of the week you fly. This was true both for flights departing soon and flights departing in six months or more.

❌ Brisbane-Perth

Interestingly, we found Wednesdays and Saturdays are actually the most expensive days to fly if you’re booking a flight relatively last-minute.

But, for flights booked far in advance, Tuesdays and Wednesdays did prove to be the cheapest days to fly. Saturdays though… not so much.

Cheapest day to book an international flight

For international trips, we only looked at flights departing in six months or more as most people would be booking an international trip further in advance.

We looked at flights with Qantas and Jetstar again, to see if the full-service vs. budget airline factor would make a difference, and a search on Skyscanner to see more options.

Jetstar

✅ Sydney-Auckland

True to the theory, Tuesdays and Wednesdays were indeed the cheapest days of the week to fly this international route with Jetstar on various weeks we checked.

✅ Melbourne-Bangkok

Thursdays were actually coming up as the cheapest on this route, followed by Tuesdays and Saturdays. Jetstar doesn’t actually fly this route on Wednesdays, so we’re not going to consider that one a win or a loss here.

Qantas

❌ Sydney-Auckland

The same, however, can’t be said for Qantas on this route. Every flight we checked, no matter what day of the week it was departing on, was the exact same price.

✅ / ❌ Melbourne-Bangkok

Like Jetstar, Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays are the cheapest days to fly this route. Considering the two airlines do have a codeshare, we’re not too surprised about this one.

Just to check, we looked at a route that Jetstar does not codeshare with Qantas: Perth-London. On this route, we found Sunday through Wednesday actually had the lowest prices. So we can’t really trust the theory on this one.

Skyscanner

❌ Sydney-Auckland

Prices were the exact same on all days we checked. Thanks to AirAsia’s daily flights from Bangkok to Auckland via Sydney, you can jump on the leg crossing the Tasman for about $215 each way. Surely, when there’s a Jetstar sale these prices will be trumped so this daily deal may not be as flash. But at the time of writing, you can catch a bargain any day of the week.

❌ Melbourne-Bangkok

Wednesday and Sunday actually ended up being the cheapest on this particular route.

So how do you find the cheapest day to fly?

Our recommendation is make the most out of booking calendars and flexible date functions.

Jetstar’s is quite helpful, but often during sales it seems to conveniently break.

Skyscanner is our personal favourite. While it wasn’t working great when international travel was first making its comeback, it’s definitely getting better and better each day.

More Cheaptrips.au travel deals