Anyone who flies inside what I’ve come to refer to as “mechanically–challenged, winged space parrots” – even semi-regularly – knows that the entire process of getting from “Point A” to “Point B” usually includes several points in-between and continues to devolve into a painfully demanding & hebetudinous operation. Whether getting to the airport only to experience the blitzkrieg of hundreds of hostile travelers trying to reach their destinations before anyone else; to the poorly designed automatic check-in kiosks; to worrying whether or not your regulation size bag will be squeezable into an undersized compartment above your head or forced below the plane because there simply are too many knuckleheads and not enough room. Worrying about whether or not you can bring a dollop of soap in a baggy, for fear that you'll be forcefully held at gunpoint by security guards and trained attack wolves, makes the overall trip a consistently wearisome panic attack waiting to happen.

Thankfully, much like an Advil, cheerfully delivered by an enchanting Koala bear, Qantas Airlines is showing the obscenely wealthy that those headaches are over.

While on layover in Sydney or Melbourne, you me and the rest of the weariest travelers can merely dream of relaxing in luxury, nestled within the new Marc Newson-designed Qantas First Class Lounges. Designed like the futuristic lair of The Jetsons or James Bond, these fantastically designed chill-out spaces sport individual marble-lined shower suites, Payot cosmetics and Kevin Murphy hair products, as well as a library stocked with best selling books, magazines, newspapers and board games – all free for the price of a first class ticket. There's also an "˜entertainment zone' with plasma TVs and Sony play stations. A trip from Melbourne to Budapest will knock you back a little more than $14,000. Once again, great design becomes limited to only the people who can afford it.

But, for even that price, they are quite breathtaking, and give the “filthiest of the rich” an experience they are, I'm quite certain, already very used to: facials, internet, marble showers and plausibly, off-duty attack wolves that apply and lick perfectly posh and pedicured feet with all of the skin moisturizer and lotions airport security confiscated from my suitcase at the security check.