Qantas flights: Sydney direct to Dallas

14 09 2011

I have to keep looking this up, so figured I’d add it to my blog so I knew where the answer was!

I’m investigating flights from Australia to Memphis and a viable option is the Sydney to Dallas non-stop flight (QF7). However, the flight only leaves four times a week and I keep forgetting which days, so here they are:

  • Monday
  • Wednesday
  • Friday
  • Saturday

All flights leave SYD at 15:40 (3:40 pm) Sydney time and arrive at DFW at 13:50 (1:50 pm) on the same day. The flight is about 15 hours, which saves at least an hour or so because you don’t have to stop in Los Angeles, go through Customs and Immigration, wait for a couple of hours and possibly go to another terminal, then go through another security check before getting on the 3+ hour flight to DFW.

Coming back, the flight (QF8) is from DFW non-stop to Brisbane NOT Sydney. It leaves at 22:00 (10 pm) on the Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday and arrives TWO days later at 05:15 (5:15 am), with a total flight time of around 16 hours. You then connect from Brisbane to whichever Australian city you’re going to.

(Details from the Qantas website site and accurate on the date of this blog post)


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Categories : Travel

What’s up with Australia Post?

5 09 2011

I’m getting more and more disillusioned with Australia Post. In the past few weeks, I’ve been expecting several packages to arrive, but to date, only three have turned up.

  • Package 1 from my client in Perth — sent at the end of July/early August to my PO Box near Bunbury, some 90 mins from Perth. Has never arrived.
  • Package 2 from a supplier on eBay based in Sydney — arrived in about a week.
  • Package 3 from a supplier in Virginia, USA who I’ve purchased from several times before — two packages sent 3 August, one (clearly labelled ‘Pack 2 of 2’) turned up 5 September; the other is still to arrive… arrived sometime between 6 and 8 September.
  • Package 4 from another eBay supplier in Sydney — sent 19 August via Australia Post. Not yet arrived. Supplier sent replacement package (at no cost to me) on 8/9 September — that arrived sometime between 13 and 16 September.
  • Package 5 from my client in Perth — replaced Package 1 that never turned up; sent from Perth by ‘overnight’ Australian Air Express on 1 September. Arrived at post office 6 September. It takes 5 days to travel 90 mins??? Sure, two of those were weekend days, but ‘overnight’ is meant to mean overnight!

I’ve spent several hours via email, phone calls, and hanging at the PO counter trying to find out where these other packages are.

And back in April, I ordered a package from Sydney. It was sent on April 13, but it didn’t arrive until late June! Meantime, I’d contacted the people and got a refund after they determined that the package was signed for at my PO on 21 April, but NOT BY ME. I had to scan my signature from my drivers license and they had to find the signature in Australia Post’s system to confirm that I hadn’t signed for it. A lot of phone calls and running around on our respective ends.

Not good enough, Australia Post. Parcels are your biggest business these days. I’ll start using other (private) services if you continue to stuff up.

Update: Package 6 from my client in Perth — sent 13 September, arrived on or before 16 September. How this one even got to me is surprising. The person who sent it to the client’s mail room for posting stuck a Post-It note on it with my address. The mail room didn’t remove it, tape it down or replace it with a more substantial label. The parcel arrived with the Post-It note still attached — it was the only identification on the parcel. Amazing.


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Categories : Life stuff