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 This month's Mastercard bill was so huge that they had to use a full-size envelope.


AUS/NZ discourage cash even more than we do - it was common to see signs that cash would not be accepted, hard stop. On the other hand, as I mentioned, they apply a surcharge to credit cards, which, IMO, is absolutely the correct thing and we should do it too.

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Anyway, we're back home. We finally found sustained heat in Fiji; actually, it was quite cloudy, but, that was a good thing because it was so incredibly hot in the full sun; the clouds brought it down to a very pleasant level. If you're looking for a sun-resort do-nothing escape, I would 100% recommend Mexico over Fiji as it's closer and cheaper. But as a stopover from down under, Fiji was awesome.

The day prior to our NZ-Fiji flight, there was a cyclone that caused all flights to be cancelled. Ours was delayed 4 hours, but with that minor exception - no flight issues at all and actually return flight was quite pleasant - we both slept almost all the way (left at 10 PM and arrived at 2PM of the same day). TBH the words "Fiji Airways" do not inspire all that much confidence, but, they were lovely. The only minor quibble is that Nadi airport was absolutely chaotic.

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Fun fact: we had a stopover in Auckland which is the MOST EXPENSIVE AIRPORT IN THE WORLD in terms of the cost to process a single passenger (and/or subsidies absorbed by NZ). This is buried into the ticket price, of course, so you don't see it per se.

London LHR is #2 but poised to move up due to the insane cost ($50B) of putting in a new runway, if they ever actually do it (has been at various stages of approval for going on 30 years).

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