A Qantas lounge pass you can't actually use is the standout frustration in this week's reader letters from Traveller. One passenger arriving at Perth on an international flight had hours to fill before a Jetstar connection to Melbourne. Because Jetstar sits under the Qantas Group, the app happily let him attach his complimentary lounge pass to the Jetstar flight number. The catch: Jetstar departs from Perth's Terminal 2, which has no Qantas lounge at all. The nearest one is across the airfield in Terminal 4, a 15-minute shuttle bus away — hopeless for a transit. His point is a fair one: if the system lets you link a pass to a flight, the lounge should physically exist where that flight leaves. Worth knowing if you're piecing together a Qantas-Jetstar itinerary through Perth.
There's better news from Europe. A reader doubles down on Madrid's Prado as a highlight, with practical advice: buy timed-entry tickets directly from the museum's website and add the inexpensive staff-led guided tour in English. Photography is banned inside, which makes for a refreshingly selfie-free experience. Her bonus tip is to seek out the 'Spanish Mona Lisa', painted in Leonardo da Vinci's workshop and near-identical to the Paris original, minus the scrum.
Egypt also gets a glowing report. A solo woman traveller booked an eight-night trip through a local operator, Egypt Unlimited Tours, via Tripadvisor — and ended up with a private tour when nobody else signed up for her dates. Airport pickup before immigration, five-star hotels in Cairo, a three-night Nile cruise, and standout service when she fell ill mid-cruise: guides bought her medication, refused payment for it and refunded an optional excursion she had to skip. Money going straight to a local business was part of the appeal.
Quick hits worth filing away: in Denmark, the northern tip of Skagen offers Grenen, the sand spit where the Baltic and North Seas meet — a €6 tractor-train ride or a decent walk from town, where you can stand with a foot in each sea. In Japan, Google Lens reportedly cracked menus, signs and museum plaques accurately enough that a whole trip worked without English-language restaurants — though the writer suggests practising at home first. Sydney Airport's international arrivals now route incoming passengers through a winding duty-free gauntlet instead of the old direct corridor, which one returning traveller found maddening in the small hours.
Two Australian grumbles round things out. Security at Perth reclassified a passenger's gift jar of Vegemite as a liquid for a London flight, over the 100ml limit — a reminder that spreadable oddities can cop the same treatment as gels. And a long-time Qantas flyer who broke a hip in the UK praised the airline's medical assistance from Heathrow to Melbourne, while still fighting his own Qantas Insurance over the extra costs — a nudge to read the fine print before relying on airline-bundled cover.
The through-line for travellers: check the practical details before you commit — which terminal your lounge is in, what counts as a liquid, who underwrites your policy — and the good stuff (a crowd-free Prado, a private Nile cruise, two seas underfoot) tends to follow.
