Globaliser

Aircraft seats differ little from route to route. If the airline says that 17 x 10 x 9 inches should fit, then it should fit regardless of the route. There's nothing special in this respect about international flights or flights to Europe - the space under the seat in front doesn't magically increase just because the aircraft's going to a different place.

As a rule of thumb, you should be able to stow any bag that fits within the "personal item" dimensions. For UA, it looks like this is 17 x 10 x 9 inches. As the website says, "These items must fit under the seat in front of you. Common things include purses, backpacks and laptop bags." The general philosophy is that if you choose to take both a wheelie and a "personal item", the wheelie is to go into the overhead bin and the "personal item" is to go under the seat in front of you.

They're very common, but many businesses set up arrangements to take debit card payments instead of (or in addition to) electronic transfers - even for business-to-business transactions. Many people (including me) prefer using a debit card because of the amount of authorised push payment fraud that exists. Debit cards give you a level of security about the destination of the funds; if you've made an electronic transfer to the wrong person, whether by accident or because of fraud, it can be very hard to recover the money.

It's not feasible because from Southampton, you'd basically drive past Heathrow and then for a further hour into London before driving half-way back to Southampton (from a time point of view). Between 9 am and 1 pm, you simply don't have the time.

London is not "along the way" from Southampton (note spelling) to Heathrow. This idea is not feasible. If you want to stop between Southampton and Heathrow, you could look at Winchester or Salisbury, or possibly even Stonehenge.

Similar considerations originally led to big supermarkets starting the "cashback" facility, in the days when many people still used cash for lots of things: if you paid for your shopping using a debit card, the supermarket would offer you the option of taking out some cash at the same time, with that amount added to the debit card charge. The supermarket was basically offering to be an ATM. The supermarket paid a flat fee to the bank for the debit card transaction, so offering cashback to the customer didn't cost it any more money than it was already going to pay. But - crucially - it got a lot of cash off the premises again in their customers' pockets, so that it reduced the supermarket's cash handling costs. For operations of that size, it was more than bank charges: the cost of secure transit for large amounts of cash was significant. Those who thought that this was an innovation designed for the benefit of the customer were no doubt buying bridges too. But those were the days when using a card to pay for anything less than £10 got you looked at like you had two heads. These days, using a card to pay for a 10p transaction is considered normal.

I have never seen this anywhere, either. It's possible that El Al does or has in the past applied such a rule, but it's the only airline I can think of that might.

Mind the gap!

Off the top of my head, I think that in economy you can always pre-allocate a seat for a fee, even if you're travelling on a Basic fare. I expect that most cruise passengers would probably find that a Basic fare isn't particularly good value because it doesn't include any checked baggage so there's a fee for that too. A Standard fare would include one checked bag, which most cruise passengers would probably need/want. There are quite a lot of BA business class fares that also don't include free pre-allocated seating (for those who don't get that via have frequent flyer status). But on these fares you can also pre-allocate for a fee, and you will be able to allocate your own seat for free when check-in opens.

For context, the TWA Hotel is a "pretty cool spot" in the sense that I have (briefly) considered flying to NYC just to stay in it. I think this is a great idea.

This is because there is no time to explore. You don't have one day in Paris. Your ship spends a day in Le Havre, which is a very long way from Paris. However you'd do it, you'd spend a very large part of your day travelling from Le Havre to Paris and then from Paris back to Le Havre. (Think of something like a port call at Baltimore and then expecting to spend a day touring New York City.)

Are you on your way home (judging by your location)? In either case, how much does it matter if you miss the onward flight from PHL to SEA? Would you be happy to take a 24-hour delay to get the next day's non-stop? Or would it see you having to get a connecting itinerary between PHL and SEA?

Calling John Bull! 😁

In many cases, I suspect it's simply because they feel compelled to do it - either by guilt when coming into contact with the poor and less fortunate who are serving them, or by a feeling of power or satisfaction engendered by having so much surplus cash that it can just be doled out to all and sundry (cf Luke 18:11-12). This is in play even in situations where tipping is necessary or expected (you only need to read a few tipping threads to see it in action), but carries over into situations in which tipping is unnecessary. (I'm not suggesting that any of this applies to Catlover54 - it's a general observation about why so many Americans in Europe carry on tipping as if they were still at home.) So all that the OP needs to remember is that in general locals here don't carry cash, and locals here don't tip in cash (because they're not carrying any). So just as there's really no need to get cash to pay for "incidentals such as a beer or coke" (because you can pay with a card for them), there's really no need to get cash for tips ashore.

I have a friend who's in a business in which (he says) "sincerity is the key. When you can fake it, you've got it made." There are plenty of street musicians here who are geared up to take contactless card payments.

Fortunately, surcharges for using a personal credit card have now been banned here. It's been another (although small) part of the cashless revolution. In parallel, there's been a clampdown on the fees that credit card companies can charge for transactions, which in turn has led to credit card freebies being drastically reduced.

The costs could, in theory, be recouped by having different pricing when in port. So this explanation would presumably have to be coupled with the cruise line not being prepared to implement the necessary systems to do this?

In that case, you're protected against a misconnect (as you know). So the question which comes to the fore is what would be the consequences of missing the long-haul flight. If you don't have any pressing need to get back to the US on time, then you have the luxury of being able to risk the misconnect - especially if you don't have to accept a downgrade in order to take the next flight because you can actually wait for longer. There are two other potential considerations: In November, it looks like the A380 is scheduled for MEL-LAX on only three days of the week; and there are 1100 departures on only four days of the week. The other aircraft type is the 787-9, and the other flights depart at 2255. So if you're thinking through the consequences of a misconnect, these may be relevant factors to you.

Your biggest constraint here is that you're on two separate tickets. However, I think that there may still be a QF concession that they will through-check bags on two separate bookings if one is a cash ticket and the other is an award ticket. It's worth checking this on the QF website or FlyerTalk. If you can through-check your bag, and if everything is running normally on SYD-MEL, you shouldn't really need more than a couple of hours to connect at MEL. For your purposes, it's basically a single-terminal airport, although it's divided into three "terminals" for descriptive reasons. You'd be transferring from T1 to T2, which are adjacent to each other, so it's a short walk inside the building. I don't know it well enough to know whether you need to clear completely to landside in T1 before entering T2 security, but from first principles my guess is that you will do (because of the different security screening requirements for international flights). FWIW, I think that the 0730 flight should actually give you 1:55 to connect at MEL, because I'm guessing that your onward flight is at 1100. However, I think that I would personally fly to MEL the previous evening: I've had too many experiences of good weather at MEL but bad weather at SYD, or vice versa, in the early mornings.

It's not a problem. But checking in the bags for the first flight, planning to collect them at the intermediate point and to check them in again for the second flight, is not a guarantee that you will see your bags at the end of the second flight.

That's exactly what those flight times show: 1245-1620 and 1420-1755 are both 2:35 with the one-hour time difference.

Bond Street Elizabeth Line station has lift access. There is an exit on Davies Street, between Weighhouse Street and St Anselm's Place, which is where I ended up following the Way Out signs from the Elizabeth Line platforms a few days ago. I don't know which other exits you might end up at, but that would seem to be about 3 minutes' walk away from the Marriott Grosvenor Square. Take care that you don't accidentally exit the station at the other end (Hanover Square). You need to leave the station at the western end of the platforms, ie nearer the back of the train as it comes from Heathrow. And really, really, please don't get hung up on luggage racks/storage. It really doesn't matter. I've even done the Elizabeth Line from Heathrow with a full-size suitcase on a Tube strike day (packed so full that nobody more could get on) and it was fine - because everyone understands that this is luggage.

Unfortunately, this is no longer the case. An Oyster costs £7, and this fee has become non-refundable for Oysters bought on or after 4 September 2022. But Oyster credit is valid indefinitely, so you can just keep the Oyster for your next visit.

You don't get off the ship in Bruges. You probably get off the ship in Zeebrugge, which is about 9 or 10 miles away from Bruges.

Why would you be sure of this? If you check your bag twice, you double many of the chances of the bag going walkabout. Bags don't only go missing when they're being transferred from one flight to another.