I flew home from Perth today. 3,000 miles- cost $199.
Taxi from the airport to home 10 miles - $60.
I got free beer on the flight.
Yeah, we’re coming up against similar cost comparisons with our move to Tassie. We’re driving the car across from SA, meaning we’re up for:
Fuel from Adelaide to Hobart ($$$)
Freeway pass for Melbourne ($?)
Ferry costs for car ($65)
and overnight accommodation for 2 during 9-hr ferry ride (approx $200-300 x 2 people)
vs
$49 on Tiger Airways for 2-hour direct aeroplane flight. (x2)
$900 to get car transported by Grace Removals (would take 7 days)
Seems to me it’s not going to be a whole lot of difference, cost-wise, whether it takes us 2 days or 2 hours. If only we didn’t need the car in less than 7 days! (Of course, we’re going to be arriving ahead of our possessions by about 3-4 days, so that’ll be extra costs in that we’ll have to buy an inflatable bed to tide us over until the real one gets there. Still, for maybe $300 difference you have to admit, the 2-hour option is by far the more tempting.)
If you come in from Adelaide on Ballarat Rd (Western Highway), onto the Western Ring Rd, then the Westgate Freeway, over the bridge and get off at Port Melbourne, you are on free roads all the way.
If you use the Tullamarine Freeway (now CityLink) or through the two tunnels (Burnley or Domain) you’re up for a fee.
Could you hire a car in Tassie?
Thank you! 
Coming from actually-not-Adelaide (about an hour out, in the semi-rural), we’re intimidated enough by having to drive to the Big Smoke at all.
Cicero, I guess we could hire a car in Tassie, but we did that when we were down looking at houses and got shafted like you wouldn’t believe by Europcar, which has turned us both off the idea.
The Story Of How Europcar Stung Us For $250 Worth Of Nearly Invisible Damage:
When we returned the car, in pristine condition (we’d even cleaned it - to the great irritation of my husband, who thought it was a waste of money to do so… but my mother raised me to be respectful of other people’s property), and they said there was damage.
When I asked to see it, they took me out to the carpark and said ‘there’s dents on the bonnet’. I wandered around the nearest side - which was the driver’s side - and then to the front of the car and couldn’t see any dents, at which point they said, “No, you have to stand here…” and led me 'round to the passenger-side door, where you had to (and I swear I am not making this up) bend down and peer directly along over the top of the side mirror to see the faintest of indentations. This was the only angle you could view them from, even given a perfectly clean car in bright sunlight.
“What could have caused that?”, I asked?
“Maybe you leaned on the car”, they said.
:dubious:
Then they pointed out that I was supposed to check for damage before I took the car out of the lot, so if it was pre-existing it was my fault for not noticing. I personally take the point of view that damage which is only visible from one angle only, and then only in bright sunlight (and it was *raining *when we arrived), is not actually ‘damage’. Certainly it is not $250 worth of damage.
Not that I’m bitter or anything.
So yeah, we’re going to just avoid all that this time and drive the car.
Mcdonald’s 4pc nuggets= $1.29
Mcdonald’s 6pc nuggets= $3.09
To make this even more dubious, I always tell the cashier that I’ll have two 4pc nuggets but you’re free to cram them all in one 6pc box. I’ve been told on more than one occasion “We can’t do that” Which I really don’t give a damn I was trying to save them the cost of using an extra box.
Grocery stores do that crap with paper towels and toilet paper too! It makes me do math in my head instead of just assuming that the more the cheaper GRRRR
I get the same thing, even when using the same form of transportation. I’ll be flying (return trip) to LA soon for 530 Euros while flying to Ljubljana would cost me 480 Euros. Ljubljana is 1300 km away while just clearing the Atlantic is more than that.
ps I’m flying from Amsterdam
Most likely inventory control. They don’t count by food, they count by boxes and cups. If the manager saw during cashout that there were two 4 piece orders but one 6 piece box was missing, there’d be all kinds of hell to pay for the cashier. (This is based on my one job in food service 10 years ago. I could be wrong.)
I’ve noticed the weirdness with the chicken nugget pricing, too. I have no idea what’s up with it.
I think it’s an attempt to compete with Wendy’s. For a long time, Wendy’s has had a 5 nuggets for 99¢ on their value menu. Hmm. 20¢ each at Wendy’s or 51¢ each at McDonalds.
So they are trying to draw in the value menu crowd, while hoping that at least some people will continue to order their standard 6-piece box.
Oh, that reminds me - when we were in the US, we thought we might head over to New York (from Seattle) or Quebec (we weren’t particularly fussed where we went - it was all an adventure!) and discovered something interesting:
It would have been cheaper to fly from Seattle to NORWAY than it was to travel to New York or Quebec.
We were tempted…
Doesn’t quite fit the OP, but somewhat related. When I was in college in the suburbs north of Chicago:
Time taken to get to Midway (incl. non-express train, walking to transfer, waiting for transfer, etc.): 1 hour 30 minutes
Time taken to fly home to Kansas City (gate-to-gate): 1 hour 10 minutes
And more in line with the OP, if I decided to screw it and take a cab:
Cab from suburbs to Midway: $45
Flight (Southwest airlines internet fare circa 2001) MDW-MCI: $30
I worked in a convenience store/deli/liquor store, and I worked at a movie theater. Yes, it’s inventory control. In both places, we counted cups and containers. In the convenience store, we were allowed to fill our own drinking containers from the soda fountain at no cost. We were also allowed to eat popcorn from our own container, again at no cost. In the movie theater, we had to pay full price for sodas and popcorn. Or at least we were supposed to. Everyone would sneak in cups and paper bags, and eat and drink a lot. Most of the non-management staff were teens, and teenage boys in particular can work up a ferocious appetite just by breathing.
Ah, but imagine how much cheaper that taxi ride would be if 200+ other people were sharing that fare with you!
Your hospital bills from being crushed into a taxi with 200 other people might be a little more expensive, though.