Seventy nine days

Things are looking very much up!

I was planning on booking my flight this week. Quotes have actually been going down over the past two weeks; the same flight that was $2504 thru Qantas two weeks ago is now $2397. It still sounds a bit expensive, but it's cause I'm goign Perth > Vancouver then Honolulu > Sydney > Perth. If it was a straight return it would be less. Bestflights have return to LA or SF for $1769, which is great, but then I have to get up to Canada somehow. It ends up being much the same.

There's a travel expo on in a couple weeks though; 23 and 24 of February that is promising "great deals" though. So I take the chance and wait til then on the possibility they will have a better deal. And fi they don't, I may end up paying more then than I would if I were to book it now.

And Commonwealth do a "pre-paid foreign currency card". I might wait til the dollar is back up above 90c, then get one. It sounds pretty cool:

[from their website] "With a pre-paid Foreign Currency Card, you'll enjoy the security of traveller's cheques with simplicity of a debit card. Our Traveller's Cash card lets you withdraw cash from over one million Cirrus ATM's worldwide, it's PIN secured, and being pre-paid, you will lock-in the exchange rate on the purchase date so you can avoid rate hikes and always know how much money you have to spend. You can order a Traveller's Cash card in four popular currencies online now [Adam: six now, but two of those are only availably at specific branches; oh, and one of the currencies is AUD :P], for delivery to your door. "

Better than travellers cheques, which I hate, and more reliable than sticking with my keycard as the rate is constant.