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Thanks so much for the great advice! It is much appreciated.

That's great, thanks so much for the very useful information! I'll definitely be looking into all of your suggestions.

Wow, thanks all for very prompt responses, and great suggestions for Australian and UK online shopping site! I wasn't aware that so many UK ones actually shipped to Australia. That's also a brilliant idea about parents and grandparents putting money in your UK bank accounts for gifts, as well as enabling you to keep your accounts open, snifter and vickyplum. Oh yes, Skani, I'd forgotten about Book Depository, thanks for reminding me.

My family live in the UK and send us Christmas gifts each year by post, which saddens me a lot as it has become very expensive. I mostly use Amazon in the UK to buy their gifts and therefore save a fortune on postage from here, as well as avoid the ridiculous Customs fees. I thought that Amazon were opening up in Australia and told my family to use them when buying gifts for us. I now see that they are only planning to operate from Australia in 2018. I was wondering if there are any other online sites in Australia that my family could use from the UK.

Mystery surrounds 'Paul Lachlan' - including his real name

I too have just been caught out and my daughter got a card from Royal Mail saying there is a Customs fee of 16pounds+! I didn't know about the limit on gifts and have often sent and received gifts above that amount without any fees. I told my daughter to forget it as she can buy the pyjamas and make up that I sent for about 16 quid in the UK. I will order her something online and my family and I have agreed to no more overseas postage in future, and will shop online instead. I spent over $100 on postage just for a few gifts, and when I went to post Christmas cards, AusPost have done away with the $1.60 'card only' option and are charging $2.60, so it'll be Moonpig cards from now on too.

I am pretty sure that if they wanted to move states, they would have to restart the process, as my OH originally applied for regional state sponsored in one state, then changed his mind, realising it was too remote an area in South Australia, and had to start from scratch in the state he preferred in Queensland. Best of luck to you all.

I was with Vodafone for the past three and a half years, and constantly had no signal. We recently went from the Sunshine Coast to the Great Barrier Reef, and virtually from leaving Maroochydore I barely had a signal for the whole trip. My husband had nagged me for ages to go with Telstra, which I have now done and although it costs $30 a month, a $1 more than I paid for Vodafone, I've never lost the signal. Before the cut off point at the end of the 30 days, I use up my airtime and phone one of my relatives in the UK.

I used Emirates in November 2010 travelling to Manchester and back and was extremely satisfied. I would have used them when I went again in July last year but the return journey would have meant waiting a ridiculous number of hours for a connecting flight from Dubai. I found better connections with Etihad so booked with them. I did find that Emirates had the edge over Etihad slightly, but would use whichever gets you there in the least time. One thing I found with Etihad was that when I asked for white wine with my meal, I was served a small glass, whereas Emirates give you one of the small bottles. When I asked for another, I didn't get it, so I went up myself and asked again, and was then brought a glass of red! With both I had booked my seats online, and when I was on board because I was travelling alone I was asked if I would move. I refused with Emirates as I would have been put in the middle of people whereas I had an aisle seat. With Etihad I accepted as I was given another aisle seat.

Ooooh, what did I do? I convinced myself that my missing parcel from my son must have been badly addressed and delivered to someone else in our street. I came up with a 'brainwave' and put flyers in all our neighbours' mailboxes giving our details and asking them to pop the parcel in our mailbox if they receive it by mistake. (We don't know any of them!) More logically, I then emailed Australia Post and received an automated response saying they would look into the matter and respond within 24 hours. Late afternoon, I heard a man shout, 'parcel delivery', and saw a white van driving away. It was my son's parcel and he'd actually sent it on the 30th November, paid nearly eleven pounds postage, and it was clearly addressed. The only thing he hadn't done was to put his address on the back, so I don't know whether that had caused a delay. Anyway, I hope Sherbetdip23's gift, sent about the same time, has also reached its destination.

Wow, I am shocked to find that you are back in the UK! I've read many of your posts and you have been, and are still being so helpful to me and many others on this forum. I am so pleased about your husband and that he is having a good time. It's cheered me up no end!

Thanks for that sound advice. I will also tell my family not to go to the trouble of posting gifts to us again. I feel quite stressed as I will have to tell my son that his gifts haven't arrived. He went shopping for them with my daughter after working a night shift. The post offices in Australia and UK must have made a fortune out of us PomsinOz!

Hopefully our gifts are on their way and will arrive before the weekend.

I was also shocked at how much it cost to send a calendar. I thought printed matter was cheaper to send, but obviously not. Well, post has been and still no sign of my missing present. That's the first time it's happened to us. Everything we've sent or that has been sent to us has always got to its destination.

For the past three years we've been in Australia, I sent parcels from here to family in the UK, and was shocked when I added the postage up. This year, I've mostly got my gifts from Amazon in the UK with free delivery. I feel sick though as my son sent my husband and I a parcel from the UK on 1st December and so far it hasn't arrived, and I know from my daughter there's about 80 pounds worth of gifts in it. My daughter sent two parcels on the 30 November, the day before, and they arrived separately early last week. I sent my son a PS3 game from Amazon and it also worked out cheaper than if I would have bought it in Australia and then would have had to pay postage on top.