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Yep, got the 2k for $50 or 3k for $90 for 2 weeks. They miss me, because I used Doordash for Aldi recently (40% off promo if you've not used their grocery delivery before, which is effectively about 20% off in-store prices) and Woolies before that.

You've added Alaska Atmos. Why not add American AAdvantage? That's much bigger and generally better value than Atmos. Also it can combine multiple OW carriers in a booking, while Atmos is still a mess in that regard.

It is possible to fly to/through more expensive places than Australia, but it's hard. Simple example: Last time I went through MUC, I bought 1L Bombay Sapphire at 18 EUR (~$31.90). Current MEL duty free price is $58.99.

You have this backwards! When the banks controlled it, there were no surcharges. It's the Reserve Bank that forced banks to allow surcharging. All the blame for this is on every Treasurer for the last 20+ years.

I bet the real reason is that our duty free shops have bribed our politicians so that they can make unreasonable profits. If these pointless searches weren't being done, we'd all buy duty free overseas at much lower prices.

My selection criteria is basically: Which airlines do I actively look forward to flying, especially in business class. This is mostly a combination of comfort, service and good food (esp. whether garlic bread is hot and crispy). It also includes good lounges. (e.g. SQ and UA having sleeping...

Perth duty free is pretty good value if you book in advance online. 10% discount, a free bag, and no credit card surcharges. However, their method of processing an incoming pickup is a confusing mess. I made my online order and received a brief confirmation immediately and a more detailed...

I don't like that idea at all. Cabin air is already very dry, so blowing it on you will make you dry out even more. The only pleasant solution overall is to get them to cool the cabin properly. (ANA too. The Japanese airlines seem to compete to see how sweaty and uncomfortable they can make us.)

My whole point is there is no such thing as "better value in AC or AA" in every case. Best value differs on different routes and even day by day on a route. Sometimes SQ is the best value or simply has availability when nobody else has. But SQ's expiry makes it impossible to choose purely on the...

I think you are being very generous to SQ, by using a very limited concept of "affected". I'd say a very large number (the majority) of people are affected by hard expiry. If one set of points has a hard expiry, then you are inevitably forced to use them at a non-optimal time, at least...

I'd like to see gift cards removed altogether. They are always going to be terrible value and nobody in their right mind redeems that way. If they are the constant worst outlier, they are just preventing the real lowest redemption option from being culled. An issue that was mentioned is that...

A year or two ago my Qantas flight out of MNL was delayed by about 1.5 hrs. The (contract) lounge stayed open for us and seemed quite happy to do so. They started cleaning up, but they told us not to worry, we wouldn't have to leave until we could board the plane.

Yes, it's taken 22 years for the RBA to admit that this utter stupidity that they inflicted upon us is a mess. Note that they originally claimed that market forces would mean that businesses would not rip us off with excessive surcharges, totally ignoring the fact that some businesses are...

My best buy price for LM was 1.10 US cents and for Aeroplan was 1.14 US cents, so I consider them equivalent.

Does it matter? Some US machines that want to do AVS with a zip code accept "00000" for overseas cards. It would be worthwhile to find out if the back end is actually doing anything with that field for non-US cards.

I wouldn't recommend Lifemiles any more as a new plan to join, but I still find it has occasional value. LM used to be great for piecing together awards, but now you have to rely on the web site, which doesn't search as deeply as others. Generally, Aeroplan is better than Lifemiles, but there...

It's fine. Not spectacular. Reverse herringbone seats like many other carriers. Worst thing out of Melbourne is the timings. MEL-SGN-CDG means getting up early at the start and then having over 6 hours in transit in SGN. The lounge is quite decent, but there's absolutely nothing else to do...

It's the last decent value I could find for Delta awards, so I drained my account using these to various parts of Europe, connecting on Air France. (MEL-SGN-CDG-xx_) Funny thing is that just MEL-SGN is 70k in business class, so the 90k to Europe is outstanding.

I just wish there was a button to convert marketing wanker-ese ("earn rate" and "spend cap") into English ("earning rate" and "spending cap"). I also wonder why "Points-Earning Caps" isn't "Points-Earn Caps" for consistency.

I'll be flying Finnair soon because it was the best value airline to fly in business class from UK to Asia on points. Assuming it is a good experience, they might get more business from me in future. For domestic flights, I have started flying Virgin. I've given up making any effort to collect...