Flights first or visa first?
 

Hi

I have a job offer in Palmy and really aiming to be there by mid July at the latest. We've had a few hiccups so things have taken longer than I'd planned (passport renewal and SA police clearance)

Do I wait to get my work visa issued first and then book (possibly at a higher price due to it being last minute,)or book flights and hope and pray that I get the visa in time?

Thanks

Janine:(:confused:

Re: Flights first or visa first?
 

Hi there,
I had the same problem a while back with my partners visa but we ended up just changing the flights & paying for the changes (most fares are flexible)
Ended up paying a little more than at first, check the type of fare you are buying, make sure its flexible?
If you see a really good bargain flight i'd get it now.

Ellen

Re: Flights first or visa first?
 

Not sure! Have you looked at skyscanner? its where we go to get flight prices, we can get a flight to NZ in june for 604 quid each... one way of course!

HTH????

Anna:)

Re: Flights first or visa first?
 

We booked flights and the visas arrived 3 days before we left - cutting it a bit fine! You can let immigration know that you have flights booked and they'll move your application from the slow lane to the slightly faster lane.

Re: Flights first or visa first?
 

Hi Bemused.

thanks very much.
When I spoke to them yesterday, they advised NOT to book flights, but we REALLY need to get a deadline for things to be done by and my employer also wants to know when I'm going to start.
3 days is a bit fine, but I will probably go that route. How do you go about informing Immi you have booked flights?

Re: Flights first or visa first?
 

my OH got a work visa as well as the ITA so he started immediately in September. Myself and the kids came out a couple of months later on return flights as visa had not been approved when we flew over. We came over in January and the visas were approved in February. we moved the process of getting the Blueys over to Wellington for them to stick into our passports.

Re: Flights first or visa first?
 

I think you'd be very wise to wait until you have all the paperwork sorted. They advise you to do this and it's for good reason.

Re: Flights first or visa first?
 

suppose. we just have to be patient and hope things come through quickly.
we may get visas on the Monday and have to have flights for the Weds or so!
fingers crossed.

Re: Flights first or visa first?
 

Absolutely correct, but when you have a start date for work and house contents to move and people renting your house...we had 2 months while i worked my notice and we took the view that immigration should be able to fulfil their end of the deal in that time. We gritted our teeth, booked flights and I would have had to stump up the cash if we'd needed to alter them (I think it would have been £200 per flight but c'est la vie, this adventure has already cost me an arm and a leg).

Re: Flights first or visa first?
 

Booking flights won't create any sort of deadline that NZIS will be held to. You may get individual officers who will help out but you would be better trying to accelerate NZIS on the basis of the job start date and work from there.

Re: Flights first or visa first?
 

Absolutely agree that if you lets everything just happen the timeline often won't be met but equally the risk of costs such as flight changes stay with the emigre as always...plus NZIS will always take the view that they may decline any visa and you would have to swallow the flight costs in that scenario.

Re: Flights first or visa first?
 

Thanks guys... So the moral of the story is; wait for the visa first and deal with the chaos of booking flights at short notice?

Re: Flights first or visa first?
 

Or quantify the change cost before booking and have to live with availability maybe not being ideal if you need to change at the last minute...

Re: Flights first or visa first?
 

No perfect solution although I have to say I am veering towards booking flights first so that we can choose when we go but then if our visas don't come thorough on time, we'd have to change them anyway! Arrrgggg!
We also need to tie up all our loose ends here too, giving notice on our house, selling our van, getting final leaving dates for 2 jobs and crèche etc etc. you know how it is! I cant wait til it's all done and dusted!