Melbourne

Fixated with constructing the best points itinerary beheld by all of mankind, I forgot common sense in making my booking from Melbourne to Wellington. I elected to use Avios to fly business on Qantas. The fare should've been 40,000 points and a nominal amount in tax. Instead after hours arguing with terrible British Airways customer service, I ended up paying $260 which included improper fuel surcharges.

How do you measure the value of Avios? Most will assign a dollar value of 1.5 cents. From Sydney to Darwin, I flew business for 20k Avios and took advantage of the never-ending shiraz.

You have a few options from Melbourne Airport. The popular one is the SkyBus which costs $19.50AUD.

Melbourne is the capital of food. A worthy representative of this moniker is Supernormal which is located on the famous Flinders Lane.

Once again, I waited until the last minute to plan an integral part of my itinerary. Originally, I was supposed to go straight from Darwin to Yarra Valley for wine tasting.

The US dollar is too strong to justify paying in points in Australia (see Too Cheap for Points, Too Much for Cash: DoubleTree Darwin). My bank account is too weak to pay $120 a night for Holiday Inns.

Perhaps you have a great bottle of wine you were supposed to bring home for a special occasion. Perhaps you have the thirsties and do not like to wait. Perhaps you are slightly hungry. If so, and it happens to be a Wednesday, go to Trattoria Emilia.

If first you don't succeed...blame the terrible pho chefs in Darwin. After that horrendous pho experience, I was beginning to wonder if I knew what pho was.

Are you a fan of tennis? I am not. I've tried but the most fun I've had playing tennis is on Nintendo.

My fascination with Hungry Jack's began w‎hen I visited Sydney in 2013 (see The $77,000 Trip Heard Round the World).