CTland

Have followed other posts on this issue and thought I would share our experience for our June 6 2012 departure.
We are moving to the north of England from CT so the preferred route for us was from NY to Manchester and upon investigation we found that United from Newark (old Continental route-now merged) was our only option. The United website gave a link for travelling with pets but the information was not as thorough as we had hoped.
We called the reservations and were told we needed to speak to cargo- after 30 mins holding we got to speak to a service agent.
She wanted us to have a reservation on the flight before booking the dog but we insisted that we knew the dog had a place before we confirmed our booking (laptop open ready to confirm our booking while speaking to agent) The agent explained that dog and crate would be weighed at check-in and price confirmed and payment taken at that point (no cash accepted so make sure you have a cc still open!)
Our 83 Lb Lab was likely to fall in the 100-150 Lbs category and the price would be $1606 for that element. They also wanted us to be tied into a clearing/receiving agent at Manchester so we were given the details for PBS Int and advised that their fee (in addition to above) would be $298 (more if a weekend arrival or out of hours)
United sent us an email confirming the booking and asked us to call back asap with our own flight booking so the two could be cross referenced in their system. The information for documents required that came from United was not too clear. Our vet also didn't fill us with confidence regarding the required paperwork and advised us to call the State Veterinarian, who sent us the following link to the Annex II paperwork and a pdf explaining how to complete the form- very helpful.
http://www.aphis.usda.gov/regulation...n_com_pets.pdf in addition to this form we need a certificate of Health for travel from the vet to the airline and had to fill in form C5 for Customs clearing into the UK
Key things in your planning is make sure your dog is chipped and that the rabies vaccination is tied to that chip number- if not chipped there is a min wait period of 21 days from chipping/rabies vaccination to travel date. The dog must also be treated for tapeworm between 1 to 5 days before the arrival date in the UK..however, the Annex II doc (linked above) has to be stamped/sealed by the State Veterinarian at least 24hrs after the tapeworm treatment is given and prior to flying so some last minute dashing around involved here (take into account when deciding what day to travel!)
Hope this helps

Whatshername

Thank you so much for this information. We are flying back to the UK on July 27th, taking Continental from Newark. They have been very helpful so far, we have everything booked, and my husband was in Newark a few weeks ago and went to see the people who work on the desk there and had a good chat with them. Said he felt a whole lot better after speaking with them. My dog has her European chip and is going to the vets today for her rabies shot.

My vet is very good, but is not really savvy on the procedure as not many dogs in Charleston are jet setters!

Good luck with everything. Please let us know how things are when you arrive.

CTland

Thanks for the reassurance on the people at Newark- I was thinking of driving down to scout it out but your comments have put me at ease.
I had mentioned in my post above about the vet not filling me with confidence and true enough we got a call yesterday to say that the vet would be "away" on the day that the tapeworm needed to be done...somewhat galling after forking over $1,000 a couple of weeks ago for annual health check, "further testing needed" and a course of anti biotics!!
I won't miss the gouging that goes on here on that front!

Whatshername

That is aweful, this is stressful enough without the vet being "away" when there is such a short timelimit. When do you fly? I hope everything goes well for you. I really would appreciate your feedback after you arrive in England. How long have you lived in the states? How old is your dog?

We downloaded the form (thanks for that information), it looks so complicated, far more than it needs to be. I am taking it to our vet tomorrow, so he has plenty of time to study it, and get it right. I must say our vet has been very good and is trying his best as he is not terribly familiar with this procedure. Luckily we have found the people at Continental more than helpful, and my husband has one person there in particular that he emails with any questions, and he gets right back to us.

Good luck with your trip, please stay in touch, will be eager to see how you enjoy being back in the UK. We are going to Devon, I am originally from Plymouth, but we have been in the states for 33 years. We have 66 more days !!

CTland

Here are the instructions on how to fill in the Annex form- hope I can figure out the attachment!?EU Instruction certficate.pdf

Whatshername

Thank you so much, this is great. Makes it a lot easier to understand. Good luck with everything, and please stay in touch.

kronenborg

we are unexpectedly relocating back to the UK at short notice from NJ, USA, and i have received a quote for moving our 5 year old rescue weimaraner (75kg) - $4600 excluding sky kennel (an extra $280)...seems totally ridiculous, but does take care of the entire process end to end.

we have just started the ball rolling with the microchip and rabies vaccination...still not sure whether we will go with this company. while seemingly extortionate, it does take all of the hassle away from us, and since we have 4 children under 5 to be worrying about, they may well have us over a barrel!

Stelly

I just posted on the DEFRA regs post my story about sending my dog to England last week (I live in NJ but she's gone to my parents). I was not thrilled with United's promises that were not fulfilled. Visiting the desk at EWR in advance is a great idea, not sure why I didn't do that..?!

Stelly

Kronenborg, we paid $1660 for the airline (including PBS and ARC), $280.00 for vet, $37 for APHIS and $130.00 for crate. My dog was 63lbs and in a PetMate Vari Kennel XL (not the giant one). I hope that helps!

I don't know where you are in NJ but can also steer you to our vet if you like (Morris county), she should be a pro now!!

kronenborg

hi stelly - that would be an enormous help - we are in morris county too (mendham) - i do want a service that can pick up (probably from boarding kennels) in nj, do the transport, and then delivery on the UK side, but from the price you quote, it seems im paying a $3000 premium for that, which is just ridiculous!

did you do everything yourself?

Stelly

Mendham! I'm there all the time for work (I'm a relocation real estate agent). The vet is Dr. Shelia Bank at Community Animal Hospital in Morris Plains. I'm 100% sure she would know exactly what to do now since she just did my whole thing.
http://www.communityanimalhosp.com/v...tificates.html

I did do everything myself, I called pet shipping places to find out about prices but everyone either only did UK to US, or randomly seemed to only work from places like TX or SC. I just gave up and did it myself, much easier since I was only sending the dog, not my whole family. Because you don't pay for the flight until you show up, it's not such a burden worrying about missing a flight. I suppose the timeline is more stretched if you FedEx the papers to APHIS, but with it only being 90 mins I just drove down.

If you go with Dr. Bank, please tell her Josie the Boxer's owner recommended her!

Juswus

I'm just going through this nightmare now trying to figure everything out for when we leave in 3-4 months.

Virgin Atlantic seem to be the only airline that don't require a "pet agent" to be involved. BUT, they will not fly a "snub-nosed" breed and we have a Bulldog, so they are out.

From what I can tell, BA and Continental require the pet agent to deal with everything, and yes, I am seeing quotes upwards of $3000 (and that was on a thread on here from 2008)

ARGH!

I guess I am not asking any questions, just sounding this out with you lot as you will understand the nightmare.

sallysimmons

So true. We are back in the UK now and unfortunately, one of our cats has been sick (nothing to do with traveling). He needed hospitalization for 7 days and nursing care along with two different types of meds. When the vet's assistant typed up the cost estimate, she showed it to us and it said £240. We must have looked upset because she started to explain that it normally would be half that price for just staying in the hospital but because he needed constant care, it was more.

Eventually I interrupted and said "can you just tell me if that's per day?" She laughed ... "oh no, that's for the entire week." I've come out of the US vet's office with a higher bill than that for a check-up and some tests!

Whatshername

Hi, we are taking our dog to LHR end of July. We are using Continental/United, and we have to use their customs clearance agent, which costs about $600, but we do not have a "pet agent" this end, we are doing it all ourselves, with the help of our vet.

Good luck !

Stelly

This is what we did, and I have to say that even with the PBS/ARC fee it still came out $500 cheaper than Virgin Atlantic and the same as BA.

Good luck Whatshername.