Gill Palmer

Dear Rob

I have seen your new thread and I have seen Welsh Tony's reply. On your other thread, I have replied to WT, sending him the link for this thread.

I have no doubt that he has given you a technically accurate answer to the question you asked on the other thread, but I think Tony should see the context in which your original question was asked.

Because of the real aim here, as expressed by you on this thread, I'm not convinced that there isn't a more elegant solution than the one which has (presumably today) been suggested to you.

Also, are you sure that you understand the full implications of Condition 8503 -no further stay?

I am not criticising you in any way, my friend. Please understand that. I simply feel that it is better for you if we tell Tony the whole story, and see what he suggests once he is aware of the background context in which you have asked your new question.

I hope that he will read this old thread as well and if weare lucky, we might hear from him further on behalf of your Mum. I hope so, anyway.

If not, then perhaps JAJ can be persuaded to leave futile bickering with me aside (because, JAJ, if an airline declines to carry you unless you purchase a return ticket, then you get to stay where you don't want to be unless you comply!) and perhaps JAJ will advise us about whether your new idea is the best one for your Mum in ALL the circs for her and yourselves.

It is worth getting your new idea checked out in its proper context, instead of in isolation from it, in my view.

Sorry to be an interfering old bag, but what we want here is the BEST solution for your family, not the Kwik-Fix now which might not be the best idea in the long run. Condition 8503 has implications which you may not understand fully and so on.

All the best

Gill

JAJ

There was a case in Australia not so long ago where some people (successfully) sued an airline that refused to board them onto an Australia bound flight for this reason.

The way to manage this risk is of course to get a confirmation *in writing* from the airline that a single ticket is ok, if this is what you want to do. And if one airline refuses to do business this way, find another one that's more open to the idea.


Jeremy

Rob Morton-Jone

Thank you once again Gill as you have been so helpful.

All otions are currently being looked into although we have applied for a 676 visa initially.

Rob

Rob Morton-Jone

I would have thought that you would have to purchase a return ticket on a 3 month stay regardless if you were thinking of extending your stay or not????

Any comments on this?

Thank you (again)

Rob

Gill Palmer

Dear JAJ

I am seriously intrigued by this! Can you give me the case-reference by any chance? I'd be interested to read the case if it was reported, because if Bloggs wants Option A but the airline refuses to offer anything except Option B, how did the dispute get into the Court in the first place? Did Bloggs buy the return ticket but then sue for misrepresentation or something? Also, what gave the Australian Court jurisdiction to intervene? Was the ticket bought in Australia? Alternatively,was Quantas the airline? I guess their terms & conditions might be governed by Australian Law, but Cathay Pacific, say,wouldn't be interested in granting jurisdiction to the Australian Court, I wouldn't have thought, when it comes to jurisdiction over the purely contractual provisions (ie not the international stuff that limits the carrier's liability in the event of a crash.)

I dealt with a not dissimilar situation on Christmas Eve 2004, hence my interest in what you have said. The airline was not Quantas or Cathay. For some reason, Mum had arrived in the UK on the outbound portion of a return ticket bought in Australia. Her new tourist-visa arrived on Dec 17, and we always buy fully-flexi tickets for Mum, so that we can change her flights at short notice if need be.

The visa having arrived, she rang the airline to settle the details of her return flight to Oz. (I agree with you that this had nothing to do with DIMIA.) The airline mucked us about something wicked! The date was agreed as January 8th 2005 and all seemed well until Friday 24th December.

That morning, the airline rang Mum, asking to talk to me. I was out doing last minute Christmas shopping. Eventually, I managed to get the airline woman on the phone at 2pm. She said they could not carry Mum to Australia unless Mum bought a one-way ticket back to London from them first.

"Why not? This is not a DIMIA requirement," quoth I. The woman burbled about the conditions for ETAs. "It isn't an ETA visa." "It must be." "IT ISN'T! It is a paper visa, sealed into the passport, put there by the Australian High Commission in London. What are you on about, woman? I am telling you that Australia does NOT require this one-way ticket back to London." However, it seemed easier just to give the wretched woman what she wanted, so I bought the one way ticket over the phone and thought that would resolve this extraordinary nonsense.

She then rang me back about two hours later. "Your mother has not got a valid authority to enter Australia. We have checked on the Computer." "She HAS got a valid visa, whether or not the Computer reveals its existence." The next demand was that I had to get Mum's passport photocopied and fax it direct to their Man At The Airport. I can't remember his Job Title, but apparently he had the final say-so about whether or not to allow Mum to board their flight.

By the time the fax was sent it was 5pm, the shops were due to close at 5pm, and I still had not had time to buy all the last-minute perishables like milk, cream etc, ready for the long weekend ahead. Luckily the small local supermarket where I live stayed open for an extra 10 minutes to let me do that. By the time I got home and tried to ring the Man At The Airport, he had left for a week's Christmas holiday. An anxious week later, I managed to talk to him. He said the visa was fine, and that their main booking office in London had misunderstood the whole thing.

Quite honestly, I was so relieved that we hadn't been completely de-railed that I was not about to muddy the waters by demanding cancellation of the one-way ticket and a complete refund for it. Since it was a tourist-visa, Mum was going to return to the UK anyway when it expired, so it was pointless to bicker about the details of getting her home.

This Christmas, I tried to book a return flight for Mum with the same airline, because their cabin-service is brilliant. Their on-line computer thing said, "Not available" when I gave it a return date in August 2006. I rang them up. I was told, "An ETA is only valid for three months, so it is not possible to book a return flight more than 90 days after the outbound journey."

I could see that we were in for a repeat performance of 2004's pantomime, so I ended the call and booked Mum on Singapore Airlines instead. Their computer had no difficulty with what I wanted, and they didn't even ask about Mum's visa, plus they were only £25 more than the first lot. Money very well-spent, in my view! I don't know what would have happened if I had booked a one-way ticket, because that wasn't what we wanted this time around.

The other lot had told me categorically that Mum would not be allowed to enter Australia unless she could produce evidence of a return flight to London, and that they would be heavily-fined if they carried her to Australia without a ticket out of the place at the end of the authorised visit. They insisted that this is what Australian Law says. I was sceptical, because the funds with which to buy the ticket, plus the passenger's unblemished visa-history, are better evidence of bona fides than a paper ticket that can be redeemed for cash, in my view, but it is only a small point of Law. It is not practical or sensible for an old dear who simply wants to spend time with her beloved grandchildren to get involved with suing anybody for the sake of the principles of Contract Law, obviously.

I quite agree with you that there are plenty of airlines to choose from, and what the tourist wants is a hassle-free deal out of them. As you suggest, I chose to find the practical route out of the problem in 2005, but the other airline had had us over a barrel in 2004. I wouldn't want to see anyone else having to put up with the same sort of nonsense that we had to endure.

Gill

Gill Palmer

A return ticket is cheaper than two one-way tickets, in my experience. Please see my post to JAJ. The return ticket in 2004 was about £750 from memory. The one-way ticket was £500. An absolute rip-off, but better than Mum fretting and making herself ill. JAJ may well be right about the legalities, but they are not of huge interest to elderly Mums, I suspect!

Cheers

Gill