The top 5 ways to waste your money at the Qantas

On top of its day-to-day operations as Australia's flag-carrier airline, Qantas also runs an online shop selling an assortment of travel goods, accessories and even memorabilia

But regardless of what you think about how well Qantas runs its airline business, a browse through the  what Qantas is selling shows a strategy that would make Aussie retail king Gerry Harvey laugh and cry at the same time.

Here are the five best ways to waste your hard-earned money at the Qantas store:

Yes, you're reading that right. That's three thousand, five hundred and twenty dollars for a bunch of Qantas posters. The individual posters sell for over $400 each. We can think of a famous line from The Castle that applies here...

You might think Qantas would pay you to advertise its destinations in your home. But no, the deal here is that you pay them – to the tune of $850. Perhaps the reason for this stratospheric price tag is the 'eco-friendly, water-based, solvent-free ink' used to print this that costs extra here (as opposed to the thousands of litres of non-eco-friendly, non-water-based jetfuel that Qantas burns through every day...)

These could be the world's most expensive earplugs. Of course, you do get them in this exclusive shade of Qantas baby blue.

If your coffee at the airport isn't expensive enough already, how about a $16.95 reusable rubber coffee mug?

The Qantas bag tag has to rate a mention. It's an incredibly expensive piece of plastic with a very cheap wireless chip inside.

Given they're being sold on eBay cheaply and they're free to silver and above Frequent Flyer members anyway, the $50 price tag seems designed to appeal to the sort of gullible people who'd also part with thousands of dollars for a set of 10 Qantas retro poster prints.

Ah, so maybe Qantas does have a strategy in mind after all...

danwarne