I scored a bargain business-class fare, but I make a huge mistake

Dating game

I was pleased with myself for scoring a return business ticket for $1440 to Auckland when I booked last June to visit my daughter for Christmas 2025. The smile was quickly wiped off my face when I presented at the check-in counter to return home on New Year’s Eve. As I handed over a copy of the booking email, I was asked to wait while the ground staff conferred. After a few minutes, a staff member returned to say, “Madam, this booking is for January 31, not December 31.”

Shocked, I explained that I really had to get home to Sydney that night so they conferred again. They explained that for an extra $485 they could get me a business class seat on that flight. I had also booked for mobility assistance so was concerned I might miss out. I needn’t have worried. The Qantas ground staff were efficient and helpful, took me to the Qantas lounge and collected me to board the flight. After many years of travelling, this was a salutary lesson to make sure I check my flights.
Patricia Farrar, Concord, NSW

Letter of the week: Nikko of time

Jane Reddy’s “From the editors” comments (Traveller print edition, January 10) about missing “that key train connection in Tokyo”, brought back our unnerving experience in 2024. Before our Princess cruise circumnavigating Honshu, and on the recommendation of a Japanese friend, we planned a few days in his hometown of Nikko, north of Tokyo. Arriving at Narita Airport, we went down to the train station with just a few minutes to spare and seeing a train pulling in, hopped on board. After going through stations not on our planned spreadsheet, the penny dropped. We were on the wrong train. The flurry that followed had English-speaking passengers helping and the kind train inspectors speaking into a phone and then showing us the English translation of where to alight and which trains to take to get to Nikko. We cheerfully paid the extra fare for being on the wrong train and got to Nikko in good time. Nikko and Lake Chuzenji’s autumn trees were truly fabulous.
Lance Dover, Pretty Beach, NSW

Two easy pieces

One of my favourite pastimes has been sitting cheek by jowl – and other body parts – with the nonnas on Spiaggia di Fornilo, near Positano, Italy (Traveller, January 5). Conversation all day. Bikinis rule, of course. As one nonna said to me,“This is my body, my history, this is who I am.” So, I continue to wear a bikini today at 80. This is who I am.
Geraldine O’Sullivan, Hawthorn, Vic

Stop the presses

Brian Johnson’s New Year’s advice to stop printing itineraries and boarding passes was disappointing (Traveller, January 1). Not all of us can afford overseas mobile phone charges or want to brave dodgy hotel Wi-Fi to retrieve our itinerary and then inevitably wait for the person who has lost their boarding pass on the phone or their battery has run out, at the gate. The paperwork we printed for our last holiday now has a new use for office notes and shopping lists with boarding passes the perfect size for the latter. When all is used up, they go in the recycling bin.
Victoria Watts, Tarragindi, Qld

Rue Brittania

My wife and I were looking forward to a trip to the UK in May, but, as we are both dual citizens, it seems we will be unable to enter using our Australian passports with the UK new entry requirements. Europe’s now looking a much better option. Sorry UK, I doubt I’ll be visiting again.
Philip Nugent, Kambah, ACT

EDITOR’S NOTE Traveller’s columnist, Michael “The Tripologist” Gebicki, tackled this issue earlier this week.

Snail mail

Mark Latchford’s 2024 Christmas cards experience (Traveller Letters, January 10) prompts me to provide a postscript, though not quite as lengthy as the delays his greeting encountered. In March last year we decided to send a postcard, enveloped, from Norfolk Island to a friend living in an adjoining suburb to our home in Sydney. Posted on Friday, March 21, our friend sent an SMS on Monday, April 28, thanking us for the card. We had seen her in the interim, and it would have been quicker to deliver it by hand.
Allan Gibson, Cherrybrook, NSW

Bordering on nostalgia

Travelling from Paris to Austria via Strasbourg, France, it was interesting that our train stopped just over the French border from Strasbourg for 20 minutes so police could do passport, identity card and luggage checks. It reminded me of the pre-EU days.
Christina Westmore-Peyton, Kew East, Vic

Wise guys

Last month we arrived at Queenstown Airport, New Zealand, having booked two Europcar rental cars, six months in advance. We were told the cars were not available. We were then offered alternatives, which we would have to pay extra for and which were not hybrid vehicles. We then tried to pay with our Wise card, only to be told they would not be accepted, despite checking Europcar’s terms and conditions, which said otherwise. Furthermore, we were also told no other car rental company would accept our Wise card. That was the final straw – we walked six steps across to Avis and hired two hybrid vehicles, and our Wise cards were accepted.
Tania Clynch, Heathcote, NSW

Consistently inconsistent

We have recently arrived home from three weeks in Scandinavia. We had several internal flights and were amazed by the inconsistencies of airport security. All major city airports had the new baggage security systems, similar to Australia, where you leave everything in your bag. However, in some places we were asked to remove electronics and discard liquids exceeding 100 millilitres. Plus, anything under 100 millilitres needed to be placed in plastic snap-lock bags slowing the flow of passengers significantly. On transiting through Dubai, there was an additional personal screening where a security officer physically went through our carry-on looking for liquids. What happened to international standardisation?
Alison Roberts, Essendon, Vic

Love thy neighbour

Various airlines are offering neighbour-free seating on some flights for a fee, so if I pay for one of these seats surely I will have gifted the person who is sitting on the other side of the neighbour-free seat a blissful flight? I want to be that fortunate person.
Judy Hungerford, Kew, Vic

Hard to swallow

It’s hard to sympathise with your correspondent who complains that they cannot be served more than one drink at a time (Traveller Letters, January 17) while travelling in Qantas and Jetstar business class when your 192-centimetre body is folded into an economy seat and you are surrounded by wannabe David Boons “drinking for Australia”.
Mike Harris, Newtown, NSW

Friends in far places

Sue Williams’ story about travel friends (Traveller, January 20) is spot on. Travelling alone can be liberating in regards to decision-making, but can also be lonely. So many genuine and sometimes long-lasting friendships can be struck up during our travels. Don’t be overly suspicious when meeting people, but also have your senses on full alert if something does not feel right. It may be okay, just out of your norms. Then again, if not, run.
Marjie Williamson, Blaxland, NSW

Tip of the week: Journey beyond

Having recently returned from an intergenerational stay in Singapore, we can highly recommend exploring further afield. Singapore’s excellent public transport network of buses and trains is easy to navigate. We had an informative visit to the National Archives of Singapore Museum at the former Ford Factory in Bukit Timah Road. We also joined an English-speaking tour with our guide providing an excellent overview of the impact of World War II on life in Singapore leading up to, and in the aftermath of the surrender by British Forces. We also enjoyed a visit to the extensive and tranquil Chinese Gardens at Jurong East, followed by lunch at a local hawker centre.
Jenny Glare, Essendon, Vic

Plug in

It’s great to read that “electric cars are starting to dominate the car hire industry in some countries” (Traveller, January 9). However, until we see EVs having the same ease of access to chargers that petrol cars currently have to petrol pumps, the appeal of EVs will always be blunted. It’s this “build it, and they will come” mindset that is urgently needed by governments around the world, especially our own in this country of such vast distances, if EVs are ever going to really rule.
Kerrie Wehbe, Blacktown, NSW

Pillow talk

I’m sorry Ben Groundwater hasn’t found a neck pillow that works. I have. The Cabeau neck pillow attaches to most seats via velcro straps. I recently used it on Air France from Paris to Saigon with a broken right arm and a couple with a two-year-old toddler in the economy seats next to me. I managed a few hours’ sleep in an aisle seat, my head and neck supported by the Cabeau and the grace of the couple next to me (sadly, I left it attached to seat 28C). Magic.
Patricia McLoughlin, Alexandria, NSW

Mania for Albania

I have travelled to Albania with a friend twice in the past two years. On both occasions, we organised everything ourselves and caught local buses from one location to another. Among the places we’ve visited is capital Tirana, the World Heritage-listed site Berat (with a side day trip to Apollonia), Gjirokaster and Sarande, the location of the wonderful site of Butrint. Despite various friends expressing consternation at our bravery or stupidity (we are two women aged 68 and 71), the whole trip was an adventure, talking to locals, sharing crowded minibuses hailed from the side of the road, and being assisted crossing a major road by a local police chief who insisted on carrying our bags. We learnt to trust the many helpful and friendly locals who made sure we always got to where we were heading. We loved Albania and its people so much we returned last year.
Lesley Walker, Forest Lodge, NSW

Grab and go

After being ripped off by taxi touts in Indonesia at Lombok’s Praya Airport, we started using Grab, the alternative ride-hailing service to Uber in South-East Asia, and we weren’t disappointed. It was reliable, embarrassingly cheap and fun. The cheapest ride (in Malaysia) lasted only minutes ($3) and the most expensive was a three-hour trip in Vietnam ($106). We linked Grab to a card so never had to pay cash but tipped generously. An operating phone is essential, with WhatsApp access.
David Gairns, Parkville, Vic

Rise of Christianity

David Whitley’s time capsule on Cappadocia (Traveller newsletter, January 7) reminds me that one of the early travellers to this province located in central Turkey was a one-time tentmaker from Tarsus, the apostle Paul. Cappadocia is deeply intertwined with the early church, a place which became a haven for Christians escaping persecution. Paul’s interaction with the Cappadocians enabled the development of early Christianity in the first century AD. Beneath the skyline dotted with colourful hot-air balloons lies a trove of biblical sites which includes ancient churches and monasteries. These days, in the footsteps of Paul, the great epistolographer, travellers still make the pilgrimage.
Allan Gibson, Cherrybrook NSW

More happy places

Editor’s note: We recently launched a new series, My Happy Place, where Traveller’s writers reflect on the holiday destinations in Australia and around the world that they cherish the most. We also invited you to submit your happy places. Here’s a selection.

Venice out of season
To wander Venice during its February Carnevale is to be whisked into a bizarre alternative reality of ghosts and chimeras. Venture into wintry darkness away from San Marco and you soon lose your bearings in this city of illusions. Round a corner leading to a narrow calle and you’ll be brought up short by the threatening black visage of a plague doctor who escorts a bedizened noblewoman, also masked except for her glittering eyes. On a bridge arching over a narrow canal, a young Mephistopheles beckons gleefully. Would you sell your soul to this devil? Too soon the carnival is over, fog swirls along the canals, aqua alta rises, and the city empties of tourists. La Serenissima’s churches and basilicas beckon a solitary flâneur into their chilly gloom to admire glowing Titians and Bellinis. Then it’s off to a cosy bar in Cannaregio for a bracing grappa-laced caffè corretto alongside locals who call this magical place home.
Marietta McGregor, Stirling, ACT

Yearning for Yamba
When I was a student in Armidale, NSW, a group of us went a few times on a road trip to Yamba where one of our mates had grown up. We loved it! Sun, sand, shenanigans and, of course, the Pacific Hotel. Our Yamba mate, knowing the lie of the land and a hidden ledge, jumped out the window one night, only to discover the ledge had been removed. His broken leg amused us, but not so much his long-suffering parents. Years later I talked my parents into going to Yamba for a summer holiday with the rest of my siblings. They subsequently lived, and died, in Yamba. Such a happy place for them. For 13 years straight my husband and I travelled to Yamba with our four children. Long walks and early morning swims on Pippi Beach before breakfast. Yamba prawns, gooey white bread and homemade seafood sauce. Sunset drinks with friends we met up with every year. A continuous stream of young ones in and out of the unit. We once had a drink with a visiting friend sitting on our bed because the living room was full of young things. Then came first kisses, fake IDs to get into the pub for dances, tales of nudie swims, evenings playing beach cricket, beach rugby and many dinners and fun together at the Pacific Hotel. It’s still standing almost exactly as it was all those years ago with the best view in our world. And Pippi Beach at Lovers Pont received my blessed husband’s ashes two years ago – because we all decided it’s our happy place and always will be.
Susie Bennett, Mudgee, NSW

The Letter of the Week writer wins three Hardie Grant travel books. See hardiegrant.com

The Tip of the Week writer wins a set of three Lonely Planet travel books. See shop.lonelyplanet.com