Top 25 Cafes in Perth City

Eat Drink Perth which is part of Perth City Council's Show Me Perth promotion has been running a survey as to what is everyone's favourite coffee shop in the Perth City. There are some odd choices such as Dim Sum Cafe which I am not so sure whether they serve coffee but anyway.. here is the list of the top 25 cafes as of just now according to the people of Perth. Agree / Disagree? Do you know of any factors that may have skewed the results? leave comments below. 

Bocelli's Espresso	Forrest Chase Murray street	1161
Castro	191 St Georges Terrace	459
Ristretto Coffee+Espresso	160 St. Georges Terrace	451
Bocelli's Espresso	Perth Train station Wellington Street	289
London Court Cafe		285
Caffissimo West End Village	73A Colin Street	237
Cabin Fever	Bon Marche Arcade Barrack Street	162
Howard Street Coffee	22 Howard Street	144
The Bucket Cafe	800 Hay Street	129
44 King Street	44 King Street	105
Cafe 54	54 Pier Street	87
CNR Cafe	44 Lake Street	59
Lowdown Espresso Bar	865 Hay Street	58
Bench Espresso	471 Hay Street	53
Epic Espresso	1297 Hay Street	35
Pony Express o		33
Louve		32
Rosso Expresso	89 St. Georges Terrace	29
Secret Garden	329 Murray Street	25
Tiger Tiger	329 Murray Street	24
Mini Espresso	50 London Court	24
Velvet Espresso	172 St. Georges Terrace	23
Voltage Espresso		23
Frisk Espresso		21
Delisio Romana Pizza Cafe	100 St. Georges Terrace	20

How to Check Which Phone Provider you are with

We recently discovered that our phone provider had disconnected us so we called up to find out why the phone line had been discontinued. They said that we had churned to another phone provider last week which we did not. Turns out that there are many unscrupulous phone representatives who pose to be you and change your phone connection to the company they represent and collect the commission for doing so. I used to work as a door knocker for a phone provider earning COMMISSION only and I saw a lot of dodgy practices that caused me to leave that job so it didn't surprise me that this would happen because for such representatives, they may will get to keep their commission even if someone churns back to their existing provider.

Anyway when you suspect something like this has happened to you, your existing (past?) provider cannot provide you details of which company you have been churned to, they can only offer to churn you back. If you are like me and usually want to get to the bottom of things, call 1800 150 436 and the person on the phone will tell you who you have been switched to. Then call that company and you should be able to find out how they got your business without you even knowing about it. Some people say to call up 133477 but that is an old number. Hope his helps and if you had a similar experience, please leave a comment.

5% off Woolworths, BIGW and Caltex Woolworths

If you have an Entertainment Book, you can get 5% anything you buy from Woolworths, Caltex Woolworths and BigW by ordering a WISH card from Everydaygiftcards.com.au. These WISH cards can be used in various places mentioned already as well as Dick Smith, Bunnings' arch rival Masters, Tandy and liquor giants BWS and Dan Murphy's. Make sure when you select your gift card that you do not select a Dick Smith Only card or a Woolworths card. When you check out, if you use the code "entertainment", you can waive the delivery fees and have 5% taken off your amount.

Some people wonder, why would you want to save just 5%? For many people, groceries and petrol make up a big part of their annual spend and with people redeeming 4c off coupons at petrol prices getting up to $1.50/L, shouldn't we ask why people save 2.7% on their petrol? 5% suddenly looks like a pretty reasonable deal.

For those that are using the American Express Platinum Edge card, you may also get 3x points for purchasing these gift cards when you buy these via RAC or the Entertainment Book.


Other related posts 

• Coles 5% off 

Annual Limits on Flexi-Bonus - Lessons Learnt about Health Insurance

So you know about flexi bonuses and how you can use these to get more money back from Medibank. You probably thought, hey maybe I can spend $500 of my bonus on the most amazing pair of glasses I've ever owned. Live a little and treat myself. Well, you better read about annual limits.


What are Annual Limits? If you get glasses from a provider, generally health provider will cover something like the first $200 of the glasses. Everyone knows this. Then, you are able to claim from your flexi bonus. Some of you may have read about that here. However, the catch is, some things that CAN be claimed from your flexi-bonus like glasses have an annual limit. Even if your flexi bonus reaches your annual limit (eg $750), glasses have an annual limit of $200 from your flexi-bonus. So the most you can get back for glasses in one year would be $200+$200 = $400.

I found this out by spending $450 on two pairs of glasses, $200 was covered by Medibank and only the next $200 was claimable from my flexi bonus, which I only realised when I put in the claim.

Cost of the lesson = $50

Other lessons learnt about Health Insurance - Stick to official providers

Stick to Official Providers - Lessons Learnt about Health Insurance

As I mentioned in the earlier post, I got into private health insurance without fully understanding what I was entitled to and I had the feeling I was not the only person in this situation. Here's another lesson I learnt over the last few years being with Medibank.

If you go to a dentist for your free scale and clean, make sure you go to a Medibank provider dentist. A person I shall not name didn't know about this. When she got the bill and tried to claim against Medibank, she was told the dentist was not a Medibank provider and so she ended up paying $140 up front but only claimed back $58.40.

Cost of the lesson = $81.60

A list of providers is available after you log into Medibank.

Lessons learnt about Health Insurance - How to use your Flexi-Bonus and their Annual Limits

Flexi-Bonus - Lessons Learnt about Health Insurance

I posted two years ago asking everyone about my Medibank Health Insurance Flexi-Bonus. I had spoken to Medibank about it but I still wasn't sure..

"I don't know about you but that has left me quite confused. I have $750 worth of PackageBonus and $175 for this calendar year to use my flexi-bonus but what can you use it for? Who can you claim from? Anyone out there able to shed some light?"

I got no replies from passers by via google but I could see a lot of traffic coming this way probably looking for answers. So here's the first lesson I learnt..

Some Medibank Health Insurance policies such as MyOptions includes extra cover under a scheme called  Flexi-Bonus and PackageBonus. This amount increases over time up to an annual limit (in my case, $750) if not used up.

When you make a claim, they will ask whether you would like to use your extras cover - this is actually referring to your flexi-bonus. That's when you should always say yes. Don't know why they ask, maybe because by asking, there is a chance you may say no and they can save some money. This was another expensive lesson I learnt through someone else.

This person went to get acupuncture and the total cost was $270. When they processed the claim, they only got back $64.90. They were actually entitled to use their extras cover or package bonus for this, which would have covered the whole amount of $270 rather than just $64.90.

Cost of the lesson = $205.10

Most recently, the person I mentioned got more acupuncture treatment but this time claimed back the full $180 that she was entitled to under the Flexi-Bonus.

Other lessons learnt about Health Insurance - Stick to official providers

Free Tip Top Bread in Perth

Tip Top is launching a new bread loaf called "The One" and you can pick up your free loaf from any of the following locations in Perth

Perth Central Station - Thurs 15th Mar, 2-7pm

WA Little Athletics (WA Athletics Stadium, Stephenson Ave, Mt Claremont) - Sat,17th Mar, 2-5pm

Mandurah Crab Fest Sunday, 18th March

Think Before You Transfer AMEX points for Etihad 20% bonus

I think this may be very obvious but just in case, some people may be tempted by Etihad Airways' offer to give a 20% bonus on any transfer of American Express Membership Rewards points to Etihad Airways points. I know many people have heard of Etihad from things like Etihad Stadium etc around Australia but it may be worth noting for Perth residents that Eithad doesn't actually fly from Perth! So before you chase this 20% bonus, you might want to think about whether you will ever get to redeem your points for a flight.