runtothesun

Hi all
Thought i would try this site for some info. We have sold our house, visa in place and looking to move to Melbourne from Devon late September. Has anyone packed a shipping container themselves? I cant decide between a 20ft or 40ft and what is the best way to clear customs the other end. So far everything else has gone ok but things are starting to get a bit stressed. Will keep smiling
Any info would be gratefully recieived.
PS also any shipping companies. cheers

spalen

There are many threads on this if you search for DIY Shipping or 68mevy or my id - I cant see the thread immediately but there was a long post about these things.

Sujy

Hi

We are moving to Melbourne early October. We have our visa and have sold our house.

We are only bringing personal possessions with us, so we think we are going to use Anglo Pacific for our needs.

Did you know that if you fly via America on a migrant fare (Air New Zealand) you have double the baggage allowance? Via Amercia each person can have 2 suitcases each holding 32kg. Flying via the middle east you can still get double baggage allowance on a migrant fare, but the allowance is only 2 suitcases of 20kg.

Therefore if you are a family of four like us, you can get 96kg extra to the same place.

Don't know whether that helps.

Shame we don't live closer we could have shared the costs of the container!!!!

Hope things go well.............what' s stress anyway??? Just a state of mind!!!! You wouldn't want to see the state of my mind at the moment.

Take Care

Su J
Manchester

spalen

Self Shipping a container you can get quotes from looking in www.yell.co.uk and searching for freight-forwarders , or you can ring the big companies like OOCL / Maersk but im not sure they deal with jo public.

A 20ft container across sea from your house door to Brisbane Harbour for example is about 1500 pounds.

Customs clearance / management and delivery to your door this end is about 800 pounds.

So its a heck of a lot cheaper than any other company but.
- You have to pack the container yourself, which is not hard. Its just like moving out of your house easy. You can get packing materials from removal companies. Sofa bags for example to protect sofa's which are big open-jiffy bags to allow air to circulate.

- You have to insure it yourself , probably only for total loss rather than breakages.

- You need a management company here in Aus to unload the container from ship, take it through AQIS inspection, customs, and then deliver it to your door in aus. ~There are many of these - again these are freight forwarders in the whitepages.com.au

Lots of people have done this without a problem as you'll see in the other threads. AQIS website is very helpful on what to pack and what not to pack.

kevingallen

Lots of people have done this without a problem as you'll see in the other threads. AQIS website is very helpful on what to pack and what not to pack.[/QUOTE]

And lots of people have done this with many problems. A friend of mine, did and this was his story. Firstly shipping line charged him big unexpected fee cos he took longer than 3 hours to load his container (never highlighted this restriction), secondly they bounced his container continually from one ship to another, busy time and he was a very small fish, so goods still in Uk 6 weeks after he had packed it (oh and they charged him for the additional rental!). Final insult was a lot of damage (probably could happen with removalist), but of course insurance only covered loss. He estimated with his effects losses being nearly 10k out of pocket than if he had paid for a removalist to do it properly. I guess its down to the individual, I am not scared of doing some labour, but I have decided that somethings are just worth paying for.

Pommy babe

No wait. There was a post on here a while back actually ages ago and there were loads of expats all saying how much trouble they had, had with Anglo Pacific, I think they all nicknamed it ***** ******** because so many people's possesions were ruined, by damp or heavy damage ie. being knocked about. Really I would look in the search under Anglo Pacific - some of the stories were really bad!

Pommy Babe

Pommy babe

Here I found it:

http://britishexpats.com/forum/showthread.php?t=252499

I hope this will help

Pommy Babe,

spalen

And lots of people have done this with many problems. A friend of mine, did and this was his story. Firstly shipping line charged him big unexpected fee cos he took longer than 3 hours to load his container (never highlighted this restriction), secondly they bounced his container continually from one ship to another, busy time and he was a very small fish, so goods still in Uk 6 weeks after he had packed it (oh and they charged him for the additional rental!). Final insult was a lot of damage (probably could happen with removalist), but of course insurance only covered loss. He estimated with his effects losses being nearly 10k out of pocket than if he had paid for a removalist to do it properly. I guess its down to the individual, I am not scared of doing some labour, but I have decided that somethings are just worth paying for.[/QUOTE]

Interesting insight. But nobody on here that Ive seen has ever posted a bad experience diy from about 6/7 people Ive seen saying they did it. so thats what I based my comments on.

Pollyana

And many others to go with it! Most companies have a couple of bad stories on here, but almost without exception the ***** ******** ones are horror stories. I coined the name because that was the only word I could find to describe their customer service - pathetic!

cybie

How do you search for migrant fares? I can only ever find standard fares that only allow you 1 suitcase each

OOOIwannagosoon

I see this ***** ******** crew advertsie on this website. How come this is allowed?

Sujy

With regards to migrant fares I contacted Travel Bag who spoke to me about what we needed and then she designed the package. They let the airline know you are emigrating and this doubles the baggage allowance.

I normally use the internet rather than the phone to contact people - but that conversation really paid off.

Sujy

Thanks Pommebabe for the info. I was just about to ring and order the boxes from them. I will need to do some further research quick to find an alternative shipping company.

Thanks again .... you may have just stopped me making a very expensive mistake.

Sujy