Does a cheapest place of origin search tool exist?
 

I don't know if something like this exists, I'm hoping it does.

A flight finder where it can find the cheapest place of origin to fly to a certain destination? rather than have to price search each origin separately.

E.g
I want to go to Singapore using Qatar, I have dates and put them in, while it searches all points of origin then it comes back and tells me that on those dates CDG is the cheapest airport to fly from

Assuming you have a limited number of starting points in mind and aren't looking to do a worldwide search, you can do this with Matrix - ITA Software.

In the Origin field enter in all the possible departure points separated by commas. In the advanced routing codes field put in C:QR+ to limit the search for Qatar. SIN will be your destination. Select your dates and class and away you go. Sort by price to get the cheapest.

I had originally tried that in the matrix but unfortunately it's really quite a pathetic search for most ex EU flights, everything it gives me can be bought much cheaper so how exactly it links to the airlines I have no idea.
To give one example, I can easily find MXP-CEB for £333 direct from CX but the matrix cannot find anything close to that price.

Ideally I want something as powerful as ITA but with actual prices instead of inflated numbers which force me to search the origins individually anyway but I fear it does not exist.

With matrix, try the following.

For QR eg. Try locking down to only QR fare basis
In advanced routing: /f QR..

Also turn off 'check for available seats' It should help actually find the cheapest possible ticket for the day. Then you can hunt down available inventory to make it work.

I found some success using Google Flights "explore map" tool. Put the destination in and then look to see where low prices pop up.

If your dates are firm, you may have to hover over the bar graph to the left to see if your date pairs are included or if they are unfortunately found in one of the "higher" bars on the graph, rather than the lower ones where the great price was found.

I have no idea if you can limit the map to a certain airline or alliance. I just started playing with this a few days ago and quite by accident.

Hope it helps!

how did you manage to keep the origin airport field empty? it keeps auto-filling that field for me and so it basically reverts to "cheapest flights from somewhere".

Cheers

bump. anyone?

i have been thinking about this very same thing recently, and am quite surprised to find this thread here, and that there isn't something on the market with this service.

surely you would think with the power of ITA and google flights, to search prices for any destination, that the opposite should be easily available.

based in shanghai, and tickets are usually more expensive compared to other cities. would be useful if i can search for cheapest price to a certain destination from any city in china, and then just buy a cheap domestic ticket to connect from/to.

You can't leave origin blank in google flights, but you can include up to 5 origin airports separated by a comma.

Perhaps the issue with ITA is that the search is timing out - limiting yourself to a few origins at a time may help?

Also some fares aren't on the matrix - I've found this a few times with QR.

I'd start with the reverse of what you want, finding the cheapest outbound flights. That will narrow your search to find the inbound flights you want assuming that outbound/inbound prices are roughly comparable.