Jettzy’s unfair fee on cancellation flight ticket

Law

In September of last year, I booked a flight to Egypt for Easter through Jettzy, an unknown agent. The flights were on Qantas and Jordanian Airlines. However, two months later, in November, Jordanian cancelled my flight from Bangkok to Amman, forcing me to cancel my booking altogether. When I sent the request, Jettzy insisted on charging me a service charge of $80 and a credit card fee. I find it ridiculous that I am being charged for a service that was not delivered.

In the first response to my query, the service representative sent me a message in Chinese that was completely irrelevant to my concerns. When I sent my queries again, I received a reply from the same person in broken English, stating that it was company policy to charge me the fee. I escalated the issue to their manager, but they just repeated the company policy again. Frustrated with the lack of assistance, I decided to take legal action. This initiated a long battle between myself and the unknown agent.

I chose NCAT to file a consumer dispute because of their quick and satisfactory service in my previous experience.

When I was gathering the necessary documents for my NCAT application, I came across more informnation about this agent Jettzy. This agent was based in New Zealand and did not have a presence in Australia. Upon further investigation, I discovered that the business was founded by foreign investors and relied on unprofessional staff who did not speak English well. To my surprise, the person who responded to my NCAT application did not have a good understanding of Australian legislation.

During the first hearing, Jettzy was absent as they claimed they did not receive the correspondence from NCAT. Later, they confirmed that they had indeed received the letter and would participate in the second hearing. The second hearing was conducted via a conference call last month and the outcome was satisfactory. The order mandated Jettzy to refund me the service charge as well as the credit card fee.

Purchasing tickets from agents is sometimes unavoidable. Although agents may have company policies allowing them to charge different fees, they must abide by Australian legislation. If you encounter any unfair charges, the best course of action is to take legal action and reclaim your money. Some businesses are attempting to scam customers out of their money. Although it may be time-consuming and exhausting, you should not give them the chance to make a dishonest profit.

One-Day Adventure in Mexico City 

Travel

I previously went to Cancún in Mexico. However, when I told other people I’ve been to Cancún, they don’t think that’s real Mexico. I have to go to the centre of Mexico.

My flight from Sydney to Dallas was delayed, so I had to stay one night in Dallas. On the second day, I finally made it to Mexico City.

My day began at the Palacio de Bellas Artes, an architectural masterpiece that left me spellbound. Its Art Nouveau and Art Deco fusion adorned the heart of city. As I stood outside, looking at its intricate façade, I couldn’t help but feel like I was part of a living canvas. The guards, oddly strict about photography, allowed only mobile phones. But honestly, the exterior stole the show.

Lunchtime called for street tacos—the soul of Mexico City. I followed my nose to a bustling corner, where a taquero skillfully assembled my al pastor taco. Each bite was a celebration of street food culture.

In the afternoon, at the Palacio Nacional, I stepped into Diego Rivera’s world. His murals depicted Mexico’s tumultuous history—the struggle, resilience, and triumphs. The vivid colors and larger-than-life scenes transported me through time. Rivera’s brushstrokes whispered secrets of revolution and identity.

I didn’t stay that long in Mexico City but my day here was full of sights, tastes and emotions. It’s a much better experience than Cancún. Now I can tell other people I’ve been to Mexico.

Northern Route

Travel

I came to Europe via Finnair this year as usual. This year’s transit was in Seoul. I worked late the night before – replying to all emails, finalising jobs as much as I could and posting my timesheet, so i slept so well in the flight to Seoul and also the first half of my flight to Helsinki. When I woke up, I was very surpruised to see this flying route

What on earth happened? The plane was heading to Alaska first, crossed the North Pole then headed down to Helsinki – this was an interesting route.

From Helsinki to Asia was once a shortcut – for some reason it’s a lot quicker than other cities, so I know some Germans even travel to Helsinki first rather than taking direct flight. Due to the war, Finnair couldn’t take the Russian route, so the travelling time was a lot longer . Last time when I travelled with Finnair early this year, it took a strange route below Ukraine, not a direct line just to avoid the war zone. But this time it took a step further to North Pole!

Many years ago, when I was travelling with Air China from Beijing to New York, it also took the North Pole route. Not for Russian reason, and I think it crossed Russia. So I guess it was not the first time I went to the North Pole.

In the end I received a certificate from Finnair showing I took the North Route – no name on it of course. It doesn’t even mention the other side of the city, so I guess it can be issued for all Helsinki to Asian flights!

Bangkok

Travel

I was on the way to Israel via Bangkok. The original idea was to stay in Bangkok for half a day and see a friend.

So I arrived on Wednesday and then saw Nick, had dinner. Then I went back to the airport. To my surprise, I couldn’t find my flight. I checked again and again, in the end I asked the airport people and realised that my flight was on the second day. So I booked a flight with a transit of 30 hours. This never happened to me. I didn’t plan to do anything and I felt I wasted a day. Also why did the airline allow me to have a stop over of 30 hours? I felt embarrased to be told my the airport staff.

Anyway, if I knew I had a day in Bangkok, I would book a tour to the floating market but I lost the opportunity on the day before, so it’s going to be on my list for the next time if I take a transit in Bangkok.

Bobbo first attempt

Sentiment

Bobbo is the Bobbin Head cycle route. Our firm organised a team for it and I signed up for the 58km ride.

I didn’t practise much for the ride. The full ride is 107k, and I was not crazy enough to do that, so my option was good.

From my place in Sydenham, I need to take the train to the start line at Karuah Park, it’s around 1-hour train ride. I got up at 4:30am, had some food and rode to Sydenham Station. On the way, I realised I didn’t bring the sunglasses, so I had to come back. When I went to the Station again, I was still on time. When I was on the train, I found something big: I forgot to bring the helmet, so I had to come back again to bring the helmet. When I was on the train again, I was 20 minutes late.

It’s probably not the best start to a ride but when started the ride, I was the last one in my group. In the beginning, the road was pretty flat, but then we turned to a mountain, it was first downhill to Bobbi Head, and then the mountain challenge started. Honestly, I didn’t find the challenge that difficult. Then it was a good ride along at some nice suburbs. The houses were so big, definitely better than my little house, and then we turned into Terrey Hills. There were some additional small hills but they are so sharp, then there was one before the second drink station, I had to dismount the bike and walk. The best moment for me was to see the 10k sign, so I could finally enjoy my ride.

My watch told me I finished this ride at 3 hours 19 minutes but I only did 56.84km, not 58km, so I might have cut some big corners.

It was a good experience. If the firm organises the same event next year, I will do that again.

PLT Second week

Sentiment

I received my completion letter in 2023. This is pretty annoying as my last unit’s result was delayed by two months. The unit was lectured by a British barrister, who doesn’t follow the University rule that much. At the result day last year, the unit co-ordinator said they will try to get the results before Christmas in 2022, but the result was not available until late January.

With some further delay in getting the PLT approved by the firm partners, I finally enrolled PLT in March. The College of Law’s new office in Town Hall was pretty cool with nice designs and a small terrace. Although I went to the terrace on the worst day when it’s super hot.

The first week was fun. I was going to do that in part time and the group was pretty small like 14 people. The workshops were relatively easy but I spent quite a bit of time on the cross-examination preparation. It is also a pretty strange feeling to see all the future lawyers, which are quite different from accountants.

On Thursday, I submitted the first online assessment. It was not bad but in a strange way of video. I don’t mind oral assessment but the strange part is the recording and the short time limit. I did a few attempts before submitting the final.

Who is right? Australia or Facebook?

Law

When facebook removed all news in Australia, the media has a one sided voice to blame Facebook, they even invited someone who cried in a video and said facebook removed the info they needed, but is it a fair comment?

Let’s look at the timeline first:

First there were traditional media, then there was facebook. Facebook did not have any content, it’s just info shared by everyone. Facebook was popular so the traditional media wanted to use this platform to expand their influence. Those media needed facebook so they prepared the paperwork to become registered accounts. Once they were on this popular platform, they received the traffic from facebook and caught the young people’s attention.

What happened next, the traditional media were not satisfied with just the traffic, they wanted facebook to pay them. They lobbied the government to legislate to do so. The government passed the legislation, so facebook had to delete all news in Australia.

A few things should be clarified to see the full picture:

Are the traditional media victims of facebook? Facebook never invited them to join facebook. The media joined and used facebook. if the media groups are not happy with facebook, they can choose to quit. Get out, that’s it! They can’t enjoy the traffic and demand more money from facebook. What is more ridiculous?

Are they facebook posts biased? Yes, very, but so as the mdia. Which news goes to the front page, which one is called breaking news are all biased, so the subjectivity is an ongoing issue and not a facebook problem. The media should be blamed for it first, not facebook.

Who is resonsible for this issue? The government legislated first, so if facebook keeps allowing those content posted in facebook, it will take the risk to breach the Australian law. Has facebook done anything wrong? No, it’s simply a very resposible company that does not want to be in trouble.

Why everyone seems blaming facebook? It’s because most media resources are on the opposite side of facebook, they are struggling to survive at the age of the internet, so they won’t miss a chance to say all bad things of facebook. Most media hide that fact the real reason facebook removed all news is the Australian government has legislated to ask facebook to do so.

Should the government do that? Abosolutely not! The government should be impartial among different economic groups. However, the two parties of this issue are Australian based traditional media that gives the government lots of money and US based social media company that does not give Australian government a damn, so the Australian government chose to support the Australian media group. Is there anything wrong? Probably not as it’s politics.

Why did Google changed the mind and paid the media? Google has its news subscription service whereas facebook doesn’t. They have different strategies.

What will change? Nothing for me. I just won’t read news anymore, there is no news in Australia anyway. People like me who never buy a paper will not buy a peper because of the change of the law, but I do miss some well written internationl news from BBC but unfortunately it’s not availble for me to read on facebook.

Completed the accounts for two listed companies

Accounting

30 September is the last day to submit the audited accounts to ASX, so I managed to get them both done before the deadline. Phew.

What have I learned? Technically, firstly, I prepared the finance lease asset and liability for the first time according to the new accounting standard. When I was in uni, they talked about the change of removing all off-balance sheet leases. That day is finally coming. I was pretty good at calculating finance leases, now although the lease has a different name, I managed it well. Secondly, I learned how to value options using Black Scholes model. I knew option valuation when I was preparing CFA level 2 exam a few years ago. I understoond fixed income and options were really hard but I never understoon why people wanted to value those options. I hope it’s not too late but I understand the reason now as an accountant. This small issue also reminded me about my passion of finance, so I will pick CFA up one day.

Something not technical? Well, I once worked with auditors in the same office and heard they complaining about the clients all the time, so I know how important to co-ordinate with the auditors to meet their timeline. Given it’s the first year for me to prepare the job, rather than creating my own shedule, it’s much easier to follow their instruction. It’s strange that some people just treat auditors like a supplier, I found the auditors were quite helpful. For this job, they gave me some helpful guidance on option valuation and cash flow reconcilatio, so I can’t really say bad things about them.

I can finally add listed company year end accounts to my resume now.

Uber Drivers in Honolulu

Travel

I had a short holiday in Honolulu over the Australia Day long weekend. I stayed in Waikiki island which was full of tourists and close to everything. I took Uber three times to go to the supermarket and restaurants and I met three Uber drivers.

The first one was a very nice lady. Her car was right next to me when I made the order, so I could not even tell the direction on the map. This lady was from New Jersey and moved to the island five years ago when she retired from a job in Newark Airport. She bought one bedroom flat in Waikiki and worked as a Uber driver. She said she took it easy, started late and finished early, so she would not see those drunkies but all nice tourists. She said people in the island were quite different from the big city, so early today she took an old couple from NY and in order to make some conversation, the gentleman asked her some simple questions, then his wife said: why did not ask those questions if you already knew the answer? Typical New Yorker, the lady driver said, and they made awkward conversations not even behind you, like all old and young people who always do the wrong thing. I laughed hard with her and I thought she had a wonderful retirement.

The second guy was an angry man. He didn’t allow me to touch the boot as someone broke it, then he yelled at the red light as it was too long. Anyway, he was from CA, moved to the island when he was 12. He was running a limo company for tourists but it didn’t not run well at the moment so he had a bit of time to do Uber. He had a bad experience in hiring someone to drive his limo as the employee would not treat the car and the passenger in the way as he did. Despite his busy life, he would go golfing in an hour after dropping me. What a nice island life, I said. Yeah, he laughed.

The third guy was a military guy. I was a bit surprised military people are allowed to have a second job but he said it was common. He moved from Atlanta to the island with the job and then settled here. He would retire in 4 years and he was planning his own charted boat fishing business. Currently he was in the process of getting the captain licence and also studying part time with the support from the government. Everything went so well. He was the first person asking me about the bushfires in Australia and I couldn’t believe someone in the island would care about what happened around the world.

The Uber drivers I see in other cities are mostly Indians who can’t get another job but in this island, all Uber drivers have their stories and they like to share with other people. For me, it’s a great experience to know the island a little bit more.