I purchased my flight ticket using my BA Avios points on the Qatar Airways website. I was able to find almost any Virgin Australia flight there. However, finding Qantas flights on the British Airways website was incredibly difficult.

Melbourne Airport has four terminals. Terminal 1 is for the Qantas group (Qantas, Qantaslink), Terminal 2 is for international flights, Terminal 3 is for Virgin Australia and Rex, and Terminal 4 is for Jetstar and other airlines. Uber dropped me off right in front of Terminal 3.

Terminal 3

I remembered everything was self-service, so I went to the kiosk, found my booking, printed my boarding pass and luggage tag, attached the tag, and took my luggage to the belt. It was easy. I only noticed a few counters with real people (not just machines) for business passengers when I went to domestic security.



While waiting in the lounge and watching planes on FR24, I realised that I hadn't booked a Qantaslink flight. I looked up their flights from Sydney and chose to go to Canberra. Even though I could have done B2B in Canberra, I decided against it and booked a different return flight with a different aircraft.

T3

Departure hall

Lego store

The scheduled departure time for my VA1297 flight was 16:20 (4:20 pm). I received a notification from Tripit that my flight would be delayed by 30 minutes. Since I wasn't familiar with the boarding procedure for VA, I left the lounge 30 minutes before the scheduled departure time at the time indicated on my boarding pass for boarding.


The first boarding announcement for the pre-boards was at 16:15 (4:15 pm). To my surprise, nobody stood up and went to the gate. Five minutes later, all business class and frequent fliers were invited to board.


Compared to European airlines, VA has proper business class seats on domestic flights. This Boeing 737-800 had two rows of business class seats with two seats on each side. However, there was no divider between the business and economy cabins. I sat in my seat 2A and waited for all the passengers to board.




Shortly after, the cabin crew brought the pre-departure beverages - sparkling wine and water. The captain introduced the flight crew and explained the reason for the delay. We were missing one crew member who was on a delayed flight to MEL, but they were expected to join us soon.


Safety card

Once the missing crew member arrived, the door was closed, and we were ready for takeoff. As predicted by Tripit, we were airborne just 30 minutes after our scheduled departure time. Interestingly, the seatbelt sign was turned off less than 2 minutes after takeoff.

It turned out that the delayed cabin crew member was actually the in-flight leader (IFL). He welcomed everyone, apologised for the delay, and took our food and drink (one red and one white wine) orders. We were offered two options: creamy chicken or pasta with cheese. I couldn't recall if I forgot to select a special meal or if there was no option for a non-lactose meal (NLML). I chose the pasta, hoping it was a cheese I could eat.


Luckily, it was something I could eat. And as a bonus, I got cheddar cheese as a starter. I was glad that the dessert wasn't a cheesecake.

The crew provided exceptional service, displaying attentiveness, friendliness, and approachability throughout the flight. The lack of a curtain between cabins led to economy passengers forming long queues for the restroom.

Access to free WiFi was granted to business class passengers and Platinum members, while others could purchase it for a starting price of 9.75 AUD. Although no seat monitors were available, passengers could enjoy complimentary entertainment by connecting to the WiFi.




Arriving at CNS at 20:00 (8 pm), we disembarked and made our way to the domestic terminal, which, surprisingly, was accompanied by an international terminal. A brief stroll led us to the luggage belt, and I immediately noticed the stark contrast in weather compared to Melbourne. The humidity was quite overwhelming for my liking.


Info about taxi snd bus price

After retrieving my luggage, I called an Uber. I followed the Uber signs to the designated area for Uber drivers that was right in front of the terminal building.