grij

Hi,

We finally completed on our house this week and went into our local Travelbag in Solihull to book the flights. We are flying from Birmingham and so our only option is Emirates.

As I am emigrating I asked for the 40kgs baggage allowance and they faxed details of my passport off to the airline. They refused to grant the extra baggage allowance as my visa was a spouse visa, and not a migration one. She also stated that I had already used the visa as I had been out on my validation visit. I argued this politely but the stroppy cow refused to budge

When I got home I phoned the airline and spoke to a helpful lady called Stella. She admitted that she was not sure of the rules and promised to investigate, which was fair enough. I e-mailed her a copy of the passport and visa and also a copy of my e-mail confirmation from the Australian High Commission

She then called back the next day to advise that they were not aware of the rules relating to spouse visas and have granted the extra baggage allowance, and that the ticket can be re-printed, as the 40kgs must appear on the ticket.

So we are off to Brisbane next Sunday night (24th June) !!!

We are having a farewell meal with our friends next week, the day before we go, which I am not looking forward to, but they demanded it.

Anyway, I hope that the above info will be useful for anyone else in the same position.

Cheers
Ian

JAJ

If you have a child and have been together more then two years, then your spouse visa should be a migration visa (subclass 100). Is this not the case?

grij

Hi JAJ,

Well that's what I thought too - but the woman at Emirates (Lindsay) obviously did'nt think so - but Stella from Customer Services did admit (when she called to confirm that everything had been sorted out) that they did not come across spouse visas that often and so were not fully aware of all of the visa regulations, and even thanked me for bringing it to their attention.

Just thought I would post my experience to help anyone else in a similar position.

Cheers
Ian

moneypenny20

Yup you should be entitled to it but obviously only you in the family. On the other hand because you have already validated you are not entitled to it so I guess because they apologised for not having a clue they decided to miss that point.