Mrsbrightside7

I have never been to Waikato, looks like I will have to check it out

TommyLuck

It'd be good to know roughly what this cost Col, for comparison and the length of the journeys; Auckland to Frankfurt and Rome to Auckland clearly arent direct and there will be stop off somewhere.

There are also gaps in the journey; Paris - Lille and London to Manchester, although I assume there is quite a time gap between arriving in London and leaving from Manchester.

Therefore aside from being a far from direct route, there will be costs to apportion to this type of travel after the booking of the travel it's self.



To that end, if you (plural not just Col) are flexible and are willing to spend 35 hours or more travelling then yes you can save decent amounts, but be wary of the additional costs of potential overnight stays and making your own way from one arrival port to another departure port.

Lastly therefore, if you are looking for the most direct routes from NZ to the UK with the main carriers; via Hong Kong, via LA, via Australia & Dubai you aren't going to find the cheapest options. Typically I find Malaysian Airlines often have the best return fares, changing at KL - the way Col has done it will save you cash, but will cost you time ...

Bo-Jangles

I suppose if we all had the luxury of fifty days leave entitlement we would take the time to go the pretty way and wend our way around the world.

Northern Henry

IF and a big IF, Malaysian come out of this horrendous saga and still in business, would imagine they will be a massive push to gain passenger support again- In such a situation you would expect to see some very competitive fares for enticement.
Personally I think its unlikely they will survive in their current format as the confidence loss will finalise an airline already in the red.

Ray3324

just arrived and wish someone told me that I need my old mobile phone to work so that I could receive the 'one time passcode' for my uk account so that I can transfer money in to nz account.
What a nightmare.

Bo-Jangles

Oh dear, it's little things like that which are easy to overlook but very difficult to resolve from afar. I hope you get it sorted soon.

It's times like this when you really do need that blankety, blank chequebook and pen.

I got into some similar strife with a UK building society account; I stuffed up the login password and they would only send out new pin number by mail to a UK rental address I obviously no longer live at. Mail was being redirected but the pin number is temporary and expires within seven days meaning impossible for me to get it in time to use it before it expires and I can't change any address details on line or nuffink. I still can't get a statement from them and they won't close the account and send me the money.

Another nightmare we had in the early days before we got to find out what our address in NZ would be we were having our mail redirected; Barclays bank unexpectedly changed their cards to chip and pin or something and sent a new debit card to that same rental address, some muppet stole it / used it spent a few hundred quids - took ages to sort that one out too.

Justcol

Why would you do this???

Honestly I simply cannot understand it.......you work for free !!

Justcol

cant remember exactly but all flights cost approx $2500.
flew aux to frankfurt via hong kong did a couple of nights in Frankfurt.
flew FF to paris. 5 nights in Paris, hired a car, drove to Normandy for a while
then up to Belgium for a few nights. got chunnel train to London, did a few nights there.
hired a car drove to Manchester to see my folks and friends, stayed for a while
then upto the lakes for a week before returning to manchester and then flying on to Rome.
Did a week in Rome, hired a car, toured Tuscanny for a while then back to Rome for flight to aux via honkers.

There are loads of flights available to lots of european citys, you can then get connections to blighty for not a lot.
All the flights were booked before we left through a uk website (cheaper than nz)
our Manchester to rome flights cost us £19 each (same flights were over £100 each if booked on NZ sites)

Bo-Jangles

Taxi fare from Auckland Airport to CBD $86

We only ever did that once (on arrival into NZ) nine years ago it was about $80 then - it's not like we have the most expensive petrol or wages in the world.

Bo-Jangles

It's obvious you don't work in an office, where there are no clocks or boundaries and no time in lieu or overtime paid . I have noticed it's more prevalent here and expected that you'll be there on parade until the job is done. Employment contracts here are not helpful either; there's no working time directive or comeback that you can refer too if being expected to work excessive hours 'for free'.

My own employment contract has some flaky weasel words that says I should ordinarily work for 40 hours but am required to be there for however many hours it takes to get the job done; the fact that it's impossible to do the volume of work in the given time is irrelevant.

My boss has worked every night this week until near midnight and will be working all this weekend to meet deadline. I feel a little bit bad about this because I could help and have done quite a bit extra this week too. However much it is against my nature I have to bite my tongue and stop myself from stepping up. They make 'jokes' about my needing to bring my sleeping bag but I give myself a deadline to leave at a reasonable time of my choosing; I'm old enough and ugly enough not to let them take my weekends. Once you start volunteering to do extra time, it becomes quite normal they expect it all the time - its a downward spiral and a really hard habit to break.

Many people are in my office long before I get there in the mornings and they are still there when I leave; there's pressure therefore if you don't conform to their world order, you're seen as a slacker, not a team player and all that other bullshit. You'll get lots of flak and snidey comments and you have to be a quite hard nosed about saying no and not playing the camping out at the office game. Others who are younger / more ambitious will of course feel the pressure to do the extra hours to look good and achieve recognition in future for being a hard worker or 'team player'.

davros1984

I echo everything that Bo-Jangles says above, that is exactly what its like.

Its the culture, in the past 2 months, all of us in the team have worked several weekends unpaid due to issues or poor planning by the client. The vast majority do, it was the same in my previous workplace. When I go out for beers with other expats, they tell me similar things. My team lead regularly sends me emails around 2am in the morning and especially on Sunday evenings (not that I read them until Monday morning).

This is partly why I am moving back, at home any overtime was always paid for me. The same firm I worked for, in the UK they always paid double-time if I worked weekends, here its for zero.

In my previous job, at Datacom - I refused to do more than my contracted hours because I came out here to enjoy life. It caused a lot of issues and that ultimately is why I left them. They wanted me to work 7 weekends in a row, be on-call 1 week in 4, then if I did work all night, I'd still have to be in the office the next morning before 10am. The overtime rate was standard hourly salary rate (if I got called), but zero allowance for actually being on-call.

Assanah

I never had to work overtime but at work there was a lot of pressure to do what my managers saw fit, no matter what. Lots of threats, favorite word was "legally", no concern for the workers as they were all expendable....We didn't get paid extra for working the weekends. I think the working atmosphere was so bad because there is not much worker's protection in NZ. So "legally" the employers can do a lot and because the management is so bad in NZ they actually do it.

MrsFychan

That moving a 5 foot marine fish tank, twice, within a time frame of a month is a real pain in the butt especially once it is moved, twice, the husband then wants it in a certain place in the new house and there a no plug sockets

Mrsbrightside7

Oh no mrs Fychan! That does sound like a nightmare! Did you get it sorted in the end?

MrsFychan

still sorting, not sure all the fish made this final trip but still setting up and their still in bags atm whilst we wait for temp to raise.

Could not of done the moves without the fantastic BE members who have become great friends.