SAGE-AU membership
Yay I'm a SAGE-AU member.
My goodness Lee is fast. I don't think she had the fax for more than 5 minutes before I got my (provisional) welcome to SAGE-AU email. 10 minutes later my membership was confirmed.
I'm very impressed.
Airplane tickets
For some reason I always get the job of organising plane flights should Paul or I need to fly somewhere. If I don't organise them then chances are they'll be booked the week before.
Today I was organising flights to the SAGE-AU conference to be held in sunny Brisbane in August. Paul's going up a few days ahead of me so he can be there for the tutorials. I looked around at prices (one way for him, $125 from Virgin Blue, $169 Jetstar (if he wanted to land at the Gold Coast), $175 Quantas. Not much of a challenge there. Booked the ticket (noticed that VB have added a $2 credit card payment surcharge - no big deal). Invoice comes in my email and looks fine.
Next a ticket for me, as I'll be heading up just in time for the triva night. Virgin Blue $175, Qantas $145, Jetstar? nothing that suited my schedule. Yay, Qantas, I'll get lunch on my flight. How exciting (to be honest with the variety of vegetarian meals I've had over the years, I prefer to eat on the ground). Buy my ticket and get back to work...
Some hours pass and I notice a lack of email from Qantas. I double check the address I had it sent to... yup, the right one. I ask Paul if he got it nope. Neither of us have received it. I ring Qantas to tell them I'm vegetarian and to ask about the invoice. The person I speak to sends me a duplicate copy and notes my dietary preferences.
Should all be good.
No. Paul's telling me it's not a tax invoice. Tax invoices have to have the words "Tax invoice" on them. Tax invoices have to specify the amount of GST charged. The usual stuff. I keep expecting Qantas to be able to get this kind of thing right though... surely they get lots of business custom?
So I call up. Wait on hold. Speak to a lovely lady (Angela). I explain that I don't have a tax invoice. I mention that the previous lady I spoke to said that I should have received two emails from Qantas. I mention that that lady only sent me one. I ask if the other one contains the tax invoice. Angela says no. Drat.
She's probably wrong. Usually Qantas sends out a PDF copy of the intinery, by email with the usual text stuff too. The last one of these I got was for an overseas flight but was so close to being a tax invoice that I expect their domestic flights would just fill in the missing bits. But she said no.
I explained that I need a tax invoice. That a tax invoice must have the words "tax invoice" and specify how much GST was charged. It's easy stuff really.
Angela puts me on hold forever. After lots of time she asks if she can call me back. Less than 10 minutes after that she calls me back and tells me that their system can't generate tax invoices and she'll have to take it to the front counter and get them to handle it. I ask whether this was usual policy and whether I will have to go through all of this every time I book flights... Angela says yes. !!!
It's more than 30 minutes since Angela called me back. In another 10 Paul's going to call them up and complain.
I think we'll be sticking with Virgin Blue from now on....
Airports
All of this thinking about airline tickets and bookings has me reviewing the airports I know about. Melbourne Airport targets itself as a place to shop. There are many food outlets, clothes shops, souvineer shops, chemists, book shops and many more things. There's even a food court. There are probably 100 shops (most outside the security checkins).
Sydney airport on the other hand is small and boring. There are 2 book shops, one or two fast food outlets and a place or two to buy sandwiches. There's probably a general souvineer shop and a chemist, but thats it.
I haven't fully explored Brisbane airport, but it does have a funky garden in the middle of a bunch of lounges. The food options are better than Sydney, but other than that it's about the same.
Many regional airports are small so I don't expect them to be all that interesting, but why is Melbourne so shopping focussed. Even to the point where there are advertisements recommending some "retail therapy" if you've just waved off some loved ones...
I guess it's just Melbourne.
Qantas update
Hooray we have a tax invoice. Maybe we should just keep calling their number until we hit the jackpot of getting someone on the phone who actually knows what their doing. ;)
Within a few minutes of Paul calling Qantas he got a tax invoice. He didn't even have to be mean or angry. He'll probably write more about this in his journal.
Yay we have a tax invoice. We'll probably book our flights back to be with Virgin Blue just to be on the safe side though. :(
