Lifehacker’s 2011 Australian Airport Public Transport Guide - A guide that compiles all the cheaper methods of getting to airports in your major city. OzBargain Discussion
Downunder insurance – BUT go via Starthere and get 11% back
Travelinsurance.com.au – Code for discount found here http://www.ozbargain.com.au/node/24772
Travel Insurance Direct– Regularly have discount coupons.
Columbus Direct – Great deals on pre-existing medical.
All the above sites offer competitive prices. It really pays to look at the policy for each company. For instance Zuji offers $5 Million personal liability while TID only offers $2.5 Million, their are differences between them all for hire car excess, travel delays, etc.
A further tip to consider. If 2 of you are going some times having separate policies can save money as a policy for 2 costs the same as 2 individual policies. Eg You want car rental insurance cover, buy for 1 the policy that has this included (the name you will use on the car rental contract)and buy a second policy for your partner that doesn't have this which is usually cheaper
NZ currency exchange.
Best place to get good rates on AUD to NZD is using KiwiBank found in post offices in NZ. Rates are much better than in the bigger banks and with the currency exchanges.
Rates received in May 2009 were 6c per Aussie dollar higher than with Banks (1.18 vs 1.24) Also no fees were attached to the conversion. Experience was based on dealings made in Auckland.
Some details can be found here. http://www.kiwibank.co.nz/personal-banking/international-services/foreign-exchange/fast-branches.asp
THAILAND currency exchange.
If you visit Bangkok, a shop, superrichthailand, near Central world shopping centre offers the best rate. You can check it online here: http://www.superrichthailand.com/editor/rate.html
Just be careful, there is another shop on the same street which has similar name, superrich: http://www.superrich.co.th/rate.php (actually has same AUD buy rate as at 18/03/2013)
Singapore currency exchange.
In Little India, the Mustafa shopping centre offers almost market rates with no commission.
Vietnam currency exchange.
Jewellery stores are good places to change money. Look for places where there is a cluster of jewellery stores together, such as Hang Bo street in Hanoi. Check what the current midmarket rate is first then shop around at a few stores to find the best rate.
Century 21, for example, is a fantastic place to get 50% off designer labels (and the original price is generally less than the price here in Australia anyway!) but it’s NY-only, not across the country. See http://www.c21stores.com/ and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Century_21_(department_store) - they do not participate in the Black Friday sales because everything is already deep discounted.
Macy’s shoe department (http://www.macys.com)- OMG. Seriously. Two floors of shoes in a massive store and in the Black Friday sales, it is packed packed packed with women jostling each other to find the bargains. I let my wife go playing in there for 45 minutes to do some initial scouting and then went into the fray myself to assist. Don’t expect it to be a quick process. You need to find the shoe you like in the size you want and then ask an attendant to get you the matching shoe from the same pair out of the storeroom(unlike here where you find any size and then the attendant brings you both L+R shoes in a different size). We picked up a couple of pairs, one reduced from $120USD to $30USD.
Macy’s also has an international visitor discount card so if you’re not from the USA, you can use the card and get a further 10% off throughout the store. All you need to do is collect the card from the information desk on the 3rd (or 4th???) floor - even with the sales swelling customer numbers, this only took 1-2 minutes to queue and obtain (just show your Aussie drivers licence) and saved more $$$ on each transaction. See http://www.macys.com/store/about/visitor/index.jsp for details.
Old Navy (http://www.oldnavy.com/) are basically just a department store but I found these were the kings of the Black Friday sales in terms of discounts [eg: thick wool-lined jackets for $25-$45 each, down from $60-$130]. JC Penney (http://www.jcpenney.com) were where I found the better jeans to fit me (because they had a wider range of styles) and the two stores were very similar for denim prices. Base prices for denim jeans are, of course, lower in the US anyway but typically the lower AUD means they’re about the same net price. With the dollar much higher than usual, even base prices are serious discounts.
Ross Dress For Less (http://www.rossstores.com/) are an outlet store for a lot of designer labels. They mainly have clothes, shoes & accesssories (you pay similar prices for clothes as you would in Big W/Target here, sometimes even less), but at good prices are luggage (you can get a samsonite suitcase for around 80 bucks). They also have kitchenware homewares, toys, food and other miscellaneous departments as you would find in a department store. As long as you're not hung up on getting a particular line or item, they have a great range of clothes for all ages and sizes. Each store stocks different stuff, so shop around if you have time.
More discussions here