Always believe in your soulYou’ve got the power to knowYou’re indestructible, always believe in, ‘cos you are Gold(Spandau Ballet) The Virgin Group have just made me Gold Status with them. Thank you! What does this mean?Because I am also Gold with United and Platinum with Qantas it means: I fly too much Lounge access whenever i fly internationally almost anywhere in the world Lounge access at almost all domestic lounges in Australia Priority security lanes and boarding (when available) Priority for upgrades Bonus Points This does make me happy! Let me toast this with a…
What do you buy an adult plane geek for their Birthday?
In this case the geek is not me but you could buy me first class seats in an A380? ORor a ride on a Boeing 707or a Qantas Gift voucheror For my friend (and very regular blog reader) Troy, I bought a lego mini plane: Be king of the skies with the super-agile mini plane with spinning propellers! Rebuilds into an ultra-light airplane or sleek speedboat. Comes in a handy reusable storage can. Enjoy- and Happy Birthday mate!
$198 to Europe or $981.80 to Europe
This email offering fares from the US to Europe got me mildly excited for a minute with visions of Rome until i focused on the star. I love those stars that sit next to all airline pricing. As I have long complained, no fare is what it says it is. So the star* in this fare special means: that’s $198 each way- and you must buy a round trip ticket $198 of course is the cheapest possible fare and is from: NYC to Dublin, Ireland which while definitely part of the European Community is not anywhere…
First Korean Air A380 peeks out in Toulouse
Blog readers will know that I love the A380 SuperJumbo currently in service with 5 airlines: Air France Emirates (I flew their A380 in 2010 and loved it) Lufthansa (hope to fly this in July) Qantas (see the blog post about my 2010 fabulous A380 flight) Singapore Airlines (flown 2010) Photo Credit David Barrie Showing its colours at Toulouse is the Airbus A380 belonging to the sixth airline to have it, Korean Air Lines. This is a company that I have never flown because of their dubious safety record (wikipedia: Korean Air had a relatively high…
Braniff: Flying in the future
Have a look at this amazing video from the now defunct Branriff International. They revealed their image of what flying in the future would be like in the supersonic age. Its quite fun. There are some things that have happened but many that have not eg supersonic jet? electronic valet on board? What was it with people in the 1960s -they didnt want to do any walking? Did you see the onboard entertainment meant you could watch three films at once? When you have that as context you wonder how much of this contemporary video from…
Ryanair Boarding Pass Charge halted (for the moment)
So you turn up at the airport and find that you have stupidly inadvertendly deliberately left your Boarding pass at home. Assuming it is not with your passport, you usually dont have a problem! For example, in the USA, you can rock on up to a machine and get a new one printed. In other countries, a human usually has to issue you with a new one. Not so easy with Ryanair who has decided you must print your own pass at home. Forget to do so and Ryanair make you pay for a new one. Remember this is Ryanair, the…
Qantas Hola Dallas, adios SFO
Qantas has announced they will now fly direct to Dallas Fort Worth from Sydney from May, 2011 using a Boeing 747-400ER. It is intended when Qantas finally get their 787s, they will be used on this route. At 13 879 km (8,624 miles), this will be the third-longest route in the world! The flights would take about 17 hours. There are three huge pluses about this: We can avoid LAX (my most hated airport) to get to the middle of the USA. DFW is a much more user friendly airport and is well connected to the rest…
United CEO agrees with me about United’s product
I blogged about my last experience with United on the Aust-USA sector a few months ago because it was so bad. Nice to see that President and CEO of United Airlines, Jeff Smisek agrees with me in a recent article in Australian Business Traveller. “…the product on the 747 that United flies to Australia is not an acceptable level of product” “And I know that, I recognise that. But United on its own didn’t have the money to invest in that product. Now (with the United-Continental merger) it does, and we will.” “You have to invest, because the price…
Thank you to you! Assessing Wild about Travel 2010
As 2011, gets underway, I want to say thank you for three things: 1. for reading my travel blog! (almost 4000 page views!) 2. for those who have commented on it (both the 66 here and the many on Facebook) 3. to those who have encouraged me in the blog sphere and by email and by offline (you know who you are!) 4. for subscribing (hint hint!) The most popular posts for 2010: Three Airlines-one plane- comparing the A380 (10% of all readers ) — Sep 30, 2010, 7 comments Almost had $1200 stolen (dodgy travel agent) Oct 25,…
Computer Says “No”- bad customer experience
Today, I am taking the train from Brisbane to Grafton, a regional town about 250 kilometres (150 miles) away. Then I am going onto Sydney (another 600km/ 360 miles). I am using a pass called the East Coast Discovery Pass which allows you unlimited travel in one direction on multiple rail systems in three states along the Australian East Coast. This pass used to be reserved for non Australian tourists but a year ago, it was opened up to Australians too. Today, I wandered into a rail ticket office to buy my pass. Have you…
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