sjinsky

Hi I am really interested in emigrating to NZ but want a hol there first to check if we like it etc. Not got much money though and 3 kids too so need to try and bag a bargain.

I am trying to find flights but you have to enter the date each time so have no way of checking which months etc would be cheaper without trawling through huge amounts of dates. Anyone know?

I also could do with some ideas for cheap accommodation - sorry to sound like a skinflint but don't want to splash out too much cash esp if we decide to emigrate we will need it!

Thanks
sjinsky

TeamEmbo

We did our recce at the beginning of March 2007 and got a real bargain on flights as it was end of summer here and a dull month in UK so no hike in prices from either end. We left kids (then 10 and 12) with grandparents and had a 6 day whistlestop tour of south and north islands with OH attending numerous interviews along the way and me pricing up the cost of living here and checking out accommodation and schools etc. We stayed at the Central Motor Lodge on Riccarton Road (just by Hagley Park) in Christchurch - no need to hire car as city centre/shops/interviews all within walking distance. In Bay of Plenty we stayed at Roselands motel in Tauranga. Both did us really good rates, around $100 for fully equipped units (separate bed, lounge, kitchen, bathroom). Good luck with everything.

lyndanchris

The cheapest day to fly would be on a Tuesday from the UK. Try searching flights that leave on this day compared to others in the same week.

Gordo Marshall

Hi

Virgin Atlantic have just started from the UK to Australia at least, and are pretty cheapish and good value. Planes are band new.

You could then book a Pacific Blue plane from say Brisbane to Auckland.

Also think about booking a return UK to an Asian airport, then booking online budget one, such as Jetstar (part of Qantas), or Tiger Airlines (part of Sinagpore Airlines). Pacific Blue are part of Virgin.

This may save you some money, depending upon when you fly of course?. You would have to take your bags off at each stage though.

Singapore is a major transit point to get connecting flights. Or Hong Kong maybe too?

Cheers, have fun and good luck.

MOSO

We found our local Flight Centre really helpful, they did lots of searching for us regarding times/days/specific flights and ended up cheaper than TrailFinders etc.

We ended up taking the kids out of school for a week last Feb and went for a fortnight including our half term. We flew Virgin to San Francisco then onward on Air New Zealand and back on Air New Zealand via LA. We left on the Saturday morning which was cheaper than the popular Friday night - and meant that we avoided the M25 on a Friday night.

We partly stayed with relatives and then motels which we booked online directly. It can be cheaper to stay in lodges etc in the campsites - someone else can probably advise (AA NZ website is good). We booked our car with www.holidayautos.co.uk who were great and provide proper insurance cover.

We did a sneaky and found a voucher code for 'purple parking' at Heathrow (just google it!) and ended up with half price parking.

If you do take the kids it may be worth contacting a school in the area you are planning to move to. We organised in advance for us to look round and they ended up being invited to go back the next day to try it out which was fab for them and useful for us to zoom round without them for a few hours.

Good luck, there's a lot to do and sort out, but we found the reccie invaluable.

sjinsky

Thank you for being so kind and very helpful everyone! I'm still not sure what to do though because it would be difficult for us to come for a reckie without using credit which we are really worried about. We are due a good family holiday but was thinking (financially) more of France! So couldn't really leave kids behind to save money - they would need to be part of the decision and they deserve a holiday.

I suppose the problem is that we are not sure how serious we are about moving and although a trip would help us to decide it will also break the bank - I know it would be a fab hol but one that is really out of our price range

I think I will need to do a bit more research into it first to see if we are serious before splashing our cash. Thanks for all your help. Gonna post some more questions and see if we can see ourselves living there.

MOSO

Good luck with the research. Check out houses (realestate.co.nz). Trademe.co.nz is the equivalent of ebay but also has jobs.

As regards the reccie, we too had to do it on the cheap as much as possible which wasn't as hard as here in the UK. All the motels we stayed in had kitchens as standard and most had free gas bbqs in the grounds so we only ate out once in our week of travelling from Wellington up to Auckland. We shopped in normal supermarkets so had picnic lunches and bbq dinners. We also found it much cheaper to entertain the children - mainly beaches with free parking (!), (the motels had pools too). We did pay out for a few touristy bits in Rotorua but found them much cheaper than London (but that wouldn't be hard!!!).

We're thinking of France this year (unless by a miracle our house actually sells and we get to NZ!!!!!) but I don't like the look of the Euro exchange rate at the moment!

Good luck and happy googling!