Every trip overseas leaks money in places most Australians never look — the data plan, the foreign transaction fee, the points you bought at the wrong time. I travel about 150 days a year, and over the years I’ve worked out where the leaks are and how to plug them. This is where I keep all of it.
The biggest one is data. Telstra and Optus will happily charge you $10 a day to roam, which adds up fast on a three-week trip. I load an Airalo eSIM before I leave home instead, and the only hard part is guessing how much data to buy — so I built a calculator that does the guessing for you. There’s also the SMS problem nobody warns you about: switch to an eSIM and your bank’s verification codes can stop arriving at the worst possible moment.
Then there’s the money itself. Most Australian cards quietly skim 3% off every overseas transaction — I’ve been stung by it, which is why I built the FX Rip-off Calculator to show exactly what that fee costs you. Pairing the right travel debit and credit cards is half the battle won before you’ve even packed.
The other half is points. Whether it’s buying Qantas points when a bonus lands, buying hotel points for a stay, or moving points around the family with Qantas Family Transfer and Velocity Family Pooling, the maths matters — and it’s easy to get wrong. I show my working every time.
Everything below is the running list: the eSIM tricks, the card hacks, the points plays, and the lounge access that makes the hours between flights bearable. All of it tested on actual trips, not in theory.
Having last visited Vietnam 5 years ago in a painkiller enhanced fog I vaguely thought I could pick up a visa for Vietnam when I landed at the airport. Well that’s partly true. Having booked with Qantas which included a…
Taking your Australian phone overseas used to be so prohibitively expensive that I would get a local SIM card with data in places like Singapore, the US and the UK where I would be visiting for more than a few…
Bonvoy, the frequent guest program of Marriott hotels, offers an undocumented Platinum and Gold status challenge for faster access to the benefits of elite status. There are two versions of the challenge: Platinum Elite after 16 paid nights within 3…
Typically the best deals for Business and First Class seats are through redeeming frequent flyer points. But there are situations where a paid Business Class fare is good value. Here is where FlyerTalk and its 755,000 members come in to…
Sometimes it’s better to pay for flights to a major airline hub and then use Qantas points to get into first class for the long haul. One of my favourite starting hubs is Hong Kong. While we all accept there…
I have to admit I was a slow adopter of Twitter. Expressing oneself in 140 characters seemed unnecessarily limiting. When I finally signed up in August 2013 it was used as a single feed for news and travel stories. Since…
Since the demise of US Airways, the free stopover on a points ticket has all but disappeared. However, there are still a few hacks that you can do. When travelling on a premium ticket there is nothing as wasteful as…
Major hotel chains offer a Best Rate Guarantee to entice customers to book directly, rather than via price comparison sites like Trivago, as every booking through an online travel agent equals a commission paid. They promise that you won’t find…
The first thing we do when booking a trip is to sort out the flights. Paid and done! We then move on to planning the rest of the trip, from accommodation to activities and sometimes highlight meals. Most people take…
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