Made any travel mistakes lately?

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A random thought - should one of the parties go into the election with a policy promise to ban influencers?
 
Have had a few interesting things happen on this China trip -

Landed at PVG and was in the Didi on the way to the hotel when I decided to look on google maps to see what food options etc were around the hotel I would staying at - and was rather horrified to see that there seemed to be no restaurants, convenience stores etc at all within walking distance of the hotel. As we got very close to the hotel I discovered that there were lots of options - including a shopping mall and an Aldi - it was about then that I remember that google maps in China was about as useless as an ashtray on a motorbike.

Second oops was when I tried to buy what I thought was roll-on deodorant - only to discover when I got back to the hotel that it was roll-on insect repellent...

Third oops involved the previously mentioned Aldi - went there to again try to get some roll-on deodorant (no luck) so went to look in the bakery etc section to see what they had and found something called "strawberry milk cake" - I picked it up to investigate further and discovered that it was actually a trifle with strawberries on top. Not having had trifle for years I had to get it, and then went looking for a spoon to buy to eat it with. Couldn't find one so asked the staff - who didn't speak English, and so pointed to the trifle and made a motion of digging into it and spooning it into my mouth. A staff member indicated that he understood and went and got something very similar to the packet that you get your cutlery in when flying in Y on Qantas and many other airlines. Gave the lad a thumbs up and said Shi Shi and left. Sat down outside on a beautiful evening to eat the trifle, ripped open the cutlery packet to discover that it only contained chopsticks! 😂 Laughed out loud and proceeded to try to eat trifle with chopsticks...
 
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For the first time in years I've broken my number one rule which is always book direct and now in the last 3 weeks I've booked a total of 11 flights (all seperate bookings - all yet to come) on a mixture of Commbank Hopper (taking advantage of the 10% cashback/no card fees), Webjet (and the recent $150 off afterpay promo) and booking.com with some cheap Jetstar trans Tasman flights (JQ wanted $200 and the OTA had it for $130).

On one flight this messing around above gave me a nervous 48 hour wait (how long the Commbank Hopper ticketing took) as I booked a VA flex fare thinking I could call after booking and upgrade using a platinum upgrade. With only one J reward seat left I've been constantly checking the VA website to see if it hadn't disappeared. Luckily this morning it ticketed and the reward seat remained so the upgrade is now mine but lesson learnt, if wanting to make immediate changes to booking best to just go direct.
 
Third oops involved the previously mentioned Aldi - went there to again try to get some roll-on deodorant (no luck) so went to look in the bakery etc section to see what they had and found something called "strawberry milk cake" - I picked it up to investigate further and discovered that it was actually a trifle with strawberries on top. Not having had trifle for years I had to get it, and then went looking for a spoon to buy to eat it with. Couldn't find one so asked the staff - who didn't speak English, and so pointed to the trifle and made a motion of digging into it and spooning it into my mouth. A staff member indicated that he understood and went and got something very similar to the packet that you get your cutlery in when flying in Y on Qantas and many other airlines. Gave the lad a thumbs up and said Shi Shi and left. Sat down outside on a beautiful evening to eat the trifle, ripped open the cutlery packet to discover that it only contained chopsticks! 😂 Laughed out loud and proceeded to try to eat trifle with chopsticks...
BTW I can extremely highly recommend the trifle (labelled as "milk cake") from Aldi in China - so much so that I will be selecting my hotels in China based on their distance from the nearest Aldi :D
 
I was preparing esta for the US Trip I'm taking my parents on, somehow I've autofilled part of the application and messed up mums birthday. This actually proved to be the biggest hassle, wasn't able to create a new application because the passport number was listed as approved. Called up and had the typical Ameican border control customer service experience, they would only proceed with my mum on the phone but she lived in another state and they needed her to be physically present

Ended up calling another agent and did it speaker to speaker (so scuffed)

Had to fill it out again and blow another $45, what a horrendous experience
 
Since I use my points for travel, I count this as a travel mistake.

I had two concurrent four week Flybuys offers at Coles.

Me 4 x $60 for 10k points
Miss H 4 x $50 for 10k points.

My 10k points didn’t post and upon checking I discovered that in week 3 I swiped MissH’s card for the $60 spend and mine for the $50 spend.
:mad:

Win some, lose some.
 
BTW I can extremely highly recommend the trifle (labelled as "milk cake") from Aldi in China - so much so that I will be selecting my hotels in China based on their distance from the nearest Aldi :D
Sadly it turns out that Aldi has about 40 stores in Shanghai - and none anywhere else in China!
 

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