Melbourne

Tag Archives for Melbourne.

Epic Asia Adventure: Four Countries, 16,000 Miles in June

June was a month with a lower number of flights compared to other months! Just eight flights across Australia and Asia for a total of 26,000km (16,000 miles). I spent time in Adelaide, Melbourne and Sydney in Australia; Tokyo in Japan; and Vientiane, the capital of Laos. Here’s my month… Flights City Highlights Airline Experiences Five airlines took me around this month-fewer than the ten I flew with last month (May 2024) Chasing the neworld Dream: Two of my goals for 2024 are to Where did you find yourself in June, 2024? Related Posts

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My first China Eastern flight -with baby in exit row

Flying China Eastern to China gave me some trepidation. It’s customer service rep is not good.  Overall, I was pleasantly surprised but it was a unique experience in a couple of ways… Booking: 7/10 We chose China Eastern to Shanghai because I could easily use some Delta points I had sitting spare in an account. Travel out of Australia in December is very expensive so being able to cash in 35,000 points plus taxes was a great opportunity. The points value plus taxes meant the fare cost the equivalent of around $US500 with taxes compared with the…

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2016’s Best flight: My 380th Qantas flight in A380 FIRST

MEL, Melbourne, Australia  to DXB, Dubai, UAE  QF9 Scheduled Departure: 23:25  Arrival: 06:35 14hrs 10 mins Total distance: 7252 miles / 11671 km / 6302 nautical miles For my 380th flight with Qantas, I wanted to do something special. It had to be on a Qantas Airbus 380. That narrowed routes to: Sydney or Melbourne to  Dubai and /or London Sydney or Melbourne to Los Angeles Sydney to Dallas-Fort Worth As I was going on to Bangkok and Cebu for New Year’s Eve, the US bound flights were the least logical. So I ended up doing a…

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My 380th Qantas flight will be on a 380 – of course!

I am very nerdish about numbers and number patterns. I like that this week will see the 11th day of the 11th month! I have recorded every flight I have ever been on since my first plane trip almost five decades ago. A couple of years ago, I matched the aircraft with my flights. So my 737th flight was on a Southwest 737. Then my 747th was on a Qantas 747  (pics left and below), 757 on a United 757 and so on.  Sadly the timing of the 787 roll out did not allow me to…

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Second Run for 2016 in Melbourne, Australia

My second 10km run for 2016 was along the coast of the beautiful Mornington Peninsula, outside of the city of Melbourne. The Australia Day Fun Run starts at Safety Beach and hugs the coast before going through a semi forested campsite and ending at a Village Green.  I knocked off three minutes from my last time to come in at 1 hour 2 minutes 15 seconds. Related Posts First Run for 2016 in Hobart, Australia

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Longest Flight in the World

Move over Sydney to Dallas! You have been outdone! If you want to spend 17 hours and 35 minutes in a 777-200LR, Emirates will take you from Dubai to Panama, a distance of 13,821 km (8,588 mi ) from 1st February, 2016.  The Panama (PTY) to Dubai (DXB) return trip will be a mere 15 hours 45 minutes. The aforementioned Qantas‘ Dallas service  is a touch under 17 hours. The third longest flight in the world is Johannesburg to Atlanta at 16 hours and 40 minutes. My choice would be in Emirates Business Class for this distance! The…

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Empty Malaysia planes herald “no surprise” restructure

My partner flew Malaysia Airlines two weeks ago and had the choice of four empty rows of five seats per economy passenger to stretch out in. This was how empty the plane was. A photo doing the rounds of the internet shows a starkly empty Malaysia Airlines Airbus A330 operating as flight 146. The service which departed Melbourne at 740am flying direct to Kuala Lumpur arriving at 1415 on Thursday 14 August 2014 had about 60 people on board. My next Malaysia Airlines flight is in two weeks. I called to arrange a “good seat” to find that…

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Flight 1000 utter mix up!!

I kind of hoped for more from my 1000th flight…   Check in After disembarking from a magnificent Emirates flight from Kuala Lumpur, I wheeled my small case into the Qantas lounge at Melbourne airport. The International and Qantas domestic terminals are right next door to each other making it one of the easiest airports in the world to connect! Much better than Sydney connections). I had already checked in on-line but wanted to see if I could get a bulkhead seat. After glancing at my frequent flyer card and tapping at his keyboard, the…

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380,000 points for $70

Here is a deal for you! When Mr Agius of Melbourne, Australia got a letter from the National Australia Bank (NAB) in January, offering him 100 additional points for each eligible purchase made on a NAB Qantas credit card, he went into action. He made 7000 purchases of one cent each – mostly between January 6 and January 9. Most of the purchases were used to top up his CityLink Tollway pass. For the bank had made a fatal error in that they didn’t specify how much you had to spend on each purchase to…

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Aussie Capital Captivates

What is the Capital of Australia? a) Auckland b) Melbourne c) Canberra d) Sydney An unusual aspect of the Australian constitution is that it specified a brand new capital was to be created. The result was Australia’s largest inland city: Canberra. That’s right folks: the capital of Australia is not Sydney! After searching for a site for a city, the surveyors and politicians determined that one of the coldest places in Australia was perfect for the new capital because “<;The history of the world shows that cold climates have produced the greatest geniuses..Not sure how…

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