See, here’s where you screwed up. You’ve set the bar too high, mate. Now you’ll have to outdo yourself *every *year…First anniversary Whitsundays, second anniversary Fiji, third Hawaii, fourth Europe…Where does it STOP?? 
When you have children.
Given that our honeymoon was San Francisco/Las Vegas/Los Angeles, I think the Whitsundays are a step down from that (at least in terms of extravagance).
Besides, it’s bloody expensive to holiday in Australia (as we’ve found out). It’s actually not that expensive to holiday in Fiji, and there are some sweet deals to places like Malaysia too. If they want people to “Holiday At Home” they might want to look at why it’s still cheaper to go overseas than holiday here in many cases…
I couldn’t agree more. I’ve been in Australia only 4 years now (having married an Aussie), and in that time we’ve spent nearly all our holidays either in S. Asia or S. Pacific. The only thing cheap in AU these days is the flights (thanks to Virgin and Crapstar), but even then you can fly to KL or Singapore or Fiji for next to nothing.
It’s a damn shame, because there is so much more I would love to see in AU.
Btw, what part of QLD are you in?
It cost us more to get the ferry from Hamilton Island Airport to the resort we were staying at than it cost us to fly from Brisbane (where I am) to Hamilton Island Airport.
I think it’s brilliant that Virgin Blue and JetStar have brought airfares down to the point where I can fly from Brisbane to Sydney in the morning, have lunch with a friend there, and catch the evening flight back to Brisbane, and still see change out of $100 (For our overseas friends, we’re talking about a round trip distance of 2,000kms, or about 1,200 miles) but there’s something very wrong with our Tourism Industry when you can travel thousands of kilometres for virtually nothing but you get shafted royally on the price of pretty much every other aspect of your holiday, unless you want to lie on a beach and drink cocktails (Which there’s nothing wrong with and is a lot of fun! :))
It would have cost my wife and I $2,000 to spend five nights at Ayer’s Rock, not including meals or anything like that. We could go to Brunei or Vanuatu or KL or Thailand for that sort of money (including our meals), and we’d get some Duty Free liquor on the way back as well. Ayer’s Rock is supposed to be a National Icon, but it’s just too damn expensive to visit, and that’s really sad for everyone, IMHO.
That’s insane.
I live on the GC and fly down to Sydney from Coolangatta nearly every week (our business is in Sydney). There is no way I could do that without Virgin and Crapstar. 5 years ago it would simply be too expensive.
Let’s put it this way, so it’s in correct context. I’m currently on unpaid leave. My husband is unemployed. Neither of us collect benefits and are scraping by off our savings which will run out very soon, so we’re about as broke as it’s possible to be and still pay for internet. (We are at the ‘eating 2-minute noodles’ stage, though. Shows you where our priorities are.)
And I still think it’s a fucking stupid idea to give people - including us! - ‘spending money’ when hospitals, schools, adult education and transport infrastructure are in such shitty condition. Hey, how about we fix those things first?
The same is true of Trans-Tasman flights; it used to cost an arm and a leg to fly between Brisbane and New Zealand and now it’s disturbingly reasonable and the only reason I don’t go over is because I saw quite enough of the place when I lived there and try to avoid going back unless there’s a good reason (like a Family Event or something equally important).
It just strikes me as odd that we’ve done a half-assed job of improving our tourism infrastructure, ie where you can fly anywhere from anywhere for almost nothing, but can’t afford to do much when you get there.
I go to Perth from Brisbane quite regularly. About five years ago it would cost me around $1200. Now I can get a Qantas ticket for $319.
That level of airfair is below cost and is unsustainable. The reason it’s so cheap is that it is subsidised by others paying much, much more (business travel). Comparing that sort of deal with other more regularly priced services is unfair.
The flights to Hamilton Island cost about the same as flights to Sydney, IME. It’s not unusual to see flights to Melbourne for $89, either. The more expensive flights are to places that people are less likely to visit, it seems. And, as you say, Corporate Travel pays well over the odds for airtravel- but a lot of that is due to flexibility demands (ie, we need a flight for Mr. Bloggs to Melbourne on the 23rd, but the meeting might get shifted to the 25th or the 2nd of the next month, so we need to be able to shift the flight details on short notice). That’s why you, as the Average Traveller, can get a flight BNE-MLB for $89 and a Big Company plays $500 for the same flight; you can’t change your fare once its booked and they can.
Why can’t the money be spent on rebuilding Victoria and other affected areas. Cancel the handout.
‘Fair’ doesn’t come into it; it’s called yield management and it’s how airlines have operated for years. It’s sustainable because of the fluidity of the pricing system and the management of load factors (i.e. number of seats filled) on planes.
My brother is moving to Oz on Monday (batten down the hatches!). I just hope they put the airfares up now…some family events are better without certain people.
You completely miss the point. My point is that comparing
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an ultra low fare on a service that has extremely varied pricing; to
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regular pricing on a particular ferryboat service with one-level pricing and no high-paying business traffic
is unfair.