Made any travel mistakes lately?

[justinbrett]

Robert Bus Hawaii works well.

It was 2330 on a Friday and I had nothing pre organised as I usually just get Ubers. I was grateful to be able to jump straight in and not have to wait around. However next time I’ll just pay the surge price.

 

[RAM]

It was 2330 on a Friday and I had nothing pre organised as I usually just get Ubers. I was grateful to be able to jump straight in and not have to wait around. However next time I’ll just pay the surge price.

Or...

Next time fly Hawaiian Airlines with the much more customer friendly departure time around midday to 1pm depending which Australian destination you're going to.

I could not wait for the first chance to ditch Q. As we always head to The Big Island & avoid Oahu - it would mean sitting around from the Q arrival time to when the inter-island flights commenced around 6am. Far more enjoyable to get into HNL around 11am and hop a 2pm'ish flight across with the bags interlined (apart from picking them up and wheeling them to the nearby drop-off point around 30m away vs having to cart them across to the other terminal and queue to check them in etc.

 

[justinbrett]

Or...

Next time fly Hawaiian Airlines with the much more customer friendly departure time around midday to 1pm depending which Australian destination you're going to.

I could not wait for the first chance to ditch Q. As we always head to The Big Island & avoid Oahu - it would mean sitting around from the Q arrival time to when the inter-island flights commenced around 6am. Far more enjoyable to get into HNL around 11am and hop a 2pm'ish flight across with the bags interlined (apart from picking them up and wheeling them to the nearby drop-off point around 30m away vs having to cart them across to the other terminal and queue to check them in etc.

I wasn’t flying Qantas nor coming from Australia.

I flew AS from Anchorage and was the only direct flight from Alaska.

 

[Foreigner]

I forgot to take the digital scale on recent trip. Fortunately the hotel had a scale in the gym. Helped me keep checked luggage at 79.5kg, just within the 80kg allowance

 

[Foreigner]

PS: 2pax, 30kg each plus 20kg extra on being platinum QF/QR

 

[kamchatsky]

Booked 4 * J CX Savers BNE-HKG in early Feb this year (as part of the QF seat release) for travel on 27 Dec (departing 00:40). Somehow, I never booked domestic SYD-BNE awards to get to BNE when there was plenty of availability, at least on AA miles with free cancellation. At that time, we were not sure if the trip was happening or not.

Now that we confirm we are going, tickets for SYD-BNE on QF/VA are very expensive. After pondering Rex/JQ, I ended up paying ~$975 for 4 of us for SYD-BNE on VA Y departing 9am on 26 Dec, to ensure that we make the CX flight in time and not miss connection to HK. Whilst there were awards available on 25 Dec, we could not fly on that day.

I even thought of booking QF so that I could get luggage checked through to HKG, and possibly access to QF Dom J lounge at SYD. But QF is even more expensive than VA so decided against it.

I even booked a day room at Pullman Brisbane Airport to kill time as I really don't know if much of Brisbane opens on 26th Dec to make Brisbane sightseeing worth while.

Lessons learnt, better book all components of flights early if possible to secure awards.

 

[Must...Fly!]

Booked 4 * J CX Savers BNE-HKG in early Feb this year (as part of the QF seat release) for travel on 27 Dec (departing 00:40). Somehow, I never booked domestic SYD-BNE awards to get to BNE when there was plenty of availability, at least on AA miles with free cancellation. At that time, we were not sure if the trip was happening or not.

Now that we confirm we are going, tickets for SYD-BNE on QF/VA are very expensive. After pondering Rex/JQ, I ended up paying ~$975 for 4 of us for SYD-BNE on VA Y departing 9am on 26 Dec, to ensure that we make the CX flight in time and not miss connection to HK. Whilst there were awards available on 25 Dec, we could not fly on that day.

I even thought of booking QF so that I could get luggage checked through to HKG, and possibly access to QF Dom J lounge at SYD. But QF is even more expensive than VA so decided against it.

I even booked a day room at Pullman Brisbane Airport to kill time as I really don't know if much of Brisbane opens on 26th Dec to make Brisbane sightseeing worth while.

Lessons learnt, better book all components of flights early if possible to secure awards.

Good advice. My lack of action in booking a MEL-SIN flight (was in no rush, there was plenty of QF availability...) to connect to a long-booked SIN-LHR reservation nearly ended in having to pay ~$1,000. Luckily SQ still had seats available in Y and at spontaneous escape rates, too.

 

[Ade]

1. Booking International Sale fare on QF … meaning not eligible for points upgrade

2. Booking last minute MH flights, because other QF flights are super expensive and MH was a fraction of the price …

 

[CMA222]

Booking and travelling with QF international yesterday and with low expectations was pleasantly surprised by the on-board service MEL-AKL. However, I attended the QF F lounge in MEL and the meal was the standard of a take away corner shop. The lamb shoulder was overcooked and as dry as the Sahara. The accompanying potatoes were inedible and resembled brown rocks. They had obviously been sitting around for hours in a dry heat. Neil Perry would be proud and he certainly doesn't earn whatever huge payment he receives because the food was worse than One(Jet)Star standard. The calamari was OK which I had after I rejected the rest. So many reasons to give up on QF.

 

[JessicaTam]

UL cancelled a flight on me this week, which was reinstated a couple of days later.

Silly me forgot to check if the FF # was still in the booking. Off to claim 140 missing Tier Points. *sigh*

 

[wandering_fred]

UL cancelled a flight on me this week, which was reinstated a couple of days later.

Silly me forgot to check if the FF # was still in the booking. Off to claim 140 missing Tier Points. *sigh*

UL bid for upgrade success can also "lose" the frequent flyer data
Found out that while wandering
Fred

 

[Flashback]

UL cancelled a flight on me this week, which was reinstated a couple of days later.

Silly me forgot to check if the FF # was still in the booking. Off to claim 140 missing Tier Points. *sigh*

You really shouldn't need to check something like that though, should you - it's not like the PNR changed?

 

[I love to travel]

Not being able to find hotel booking for Christchurch AFF dinner in March. I could have sworn I booked it...

 

[andye]

1. Booking International Sale fare on QF … meaning not eligible for points upgrade

2. Booking last minute MH flights, because other QF flights are super expensive and MH was a fraction of the price …

View attachment 353744

I saw cheap MH fares recently to London too but luckily was looking on Amex Travel which showed fare-class and I double checked with wheretocredit

 

[JessicaTam]

So if you miscalculate your date of arrival, and your connecting flight is not in 2 hours, but in fact 26 hours, you have to get a last minute airport hotel for the night, right?

Asking for a friend.

 

[Flashback]

So if you miscalculate your date of arrival, and your connecting flight is not in 2 hours, but in fact 26 hours, you have to get a last minute airport hotel for the night, right?

Asking for a friend.

Bit chilly? Is it cheaper to just fly down here for the night?

 

[JessicaTam]

Bit chilly? Is it cheaper to just fly down here for the night?

I thought about that but it turned out to be in the too-hard basket.

 

[Rich]

Assuming I would avoid international conversion fees paying Ubers and Lyft by PayPal linked to my 0% international conversion fee debit card.
No, PayPal converted all transactions to AUD first.
So fees paid and 0 points earned.

 

[SYD]

Assuming I would avoid international conversion fees paying Ubers and Lyft by PayPal linked to my 0% international conversion fee debit card.
No, PayPal converted all transactions to AUD first.
So fees paid and 0 points earned.

I have both QF earn card and my 28° MC linked to Uber for local and OS travel - select in app. Just need to remember to switch default back and fourth!

 

[jamesatfish]

I went against my better judgement and didn't push the point when a colleague suggested we book on Jetstar to get a team of 4 (including myself) back from BNE to CBR this afternoon.

Went about as well as can be expected from Jetstar:

• Discover that Jetstar bag drop is on the opposite end of the BNE domestic terminal from the Qantas lounge, requiring long trudge to get ourselves to the lounge once through security.

• Earn wrath of lounge dragon because team member's new Qantas Club membership card hadn't arrived, his Qantas app wasn't logged in, and as the JQ boarding pass isn't scanned at the lounge they couldn't determine his eligibility to enter the hallowed lounge precinct.

• Receive passive-aggressive text from JQ advising that boarding has commenced, requiring us to leave the Qantas lounge we'd just arrived in to scarper to the gate which is also at the opposite end of the terminal.

• Discover boarding hadn't actually commenced which was, in retrospect, not at all surprising.

• Get in argument with carry-on luggage minion because one team member's overnight bag was 8kg not 7.

• Make subsequent weight savings by reducing bank account balance by $65 for the privilege of carrying said bag onto the aircraft.

• Walk a half-marathon in sweltering Brisbane heat to get to the aircraft which had parked "at the gate" in the same way that people with Dodge Ram trucks park "in the lines" at Bunnings.

• Witness the interrogation and subsequent removal of an 11yr old boy from the flight because he was travelling with his 14yr old sister but no adult guardian, which is apparently not permitted by JQ. This oversight seemed not to have been detected at booking. Or at check-in. Or at bag drop. Or at the boarding gate where their parents bid them farewell and left the airport in the knowledge they had scanned their boarding passes and were on their way to sit safely on the plane in the care of JQ staff.

• Lament that my Apple AirPod Pro noice cancellation is not sufficient to cancel out the mechanical screeching noise made when the landing gear hydraulic system fails on approach and the gear doesn't lower as is typically useful when landing.

• Enjoy the mental picture of the pilot and first-officer doing the "she's stuffed - just try it again - still stuffed - try it again - still stuffed" routine which was accompanied by the screeching of metal going down, and up, and down, and up, and down.

• Enjoy a scenic flight doing loops over Canberra with the reassuringly soothing vibrations of having the landing gear dropped at 250kts.

• Wave at the fire trucks lining the runway like a guard of honour when we landed. Make sure that at least one of the brakes grab harshly during deceleration in such a way that the really stressed passengers believe that the gear has broken off and we're going to hit those big metal kangaroos alongside the runway.

• As the icing on the cake, enjoy the schadenfreude of seeing 200 pax for the return flight to BNE sitting patiently at the gate despite JQ knowing full well that they're not flying a plane with a hydraulic failure back to BNE full of passengers. Subscribe to the return flight on Flighty to watch those pax sit through several further delays until eventually the flight is cancelled at 2140, well after any other flights out of CBR that evening have left.


To be fair though, credit where it is due, so to balance my report:

• The pilot clearly did an excellent job getting the aircraft down without further incident or need for the fire trucks, and that's probably the primary indicator of success for any flight.

• For some reason my fare allowed me to choose between plain or sour cream Pringles as my in-flight snack without needing to pay any extra, which was nice.