pruncie

Hello all,

Our visas were approved on Thursday, our shipping is being collected on Tuesday and we begin our journey across the world on Monday 20th! (I am due to start work on the 28th, hence the need for speed).

As we are doing it very last minute, and last minute flights to NZ are apparently not very cheap, we are using a friends staff discount to get as far as Sydney (Etihad don't fly to NZ yet) and then we will need to get an onward flight to Auckland to settle in to our new place in the Takapuna area.

I have a quick question, as we are flying standby we cannot comfortably book our onward flight from Sydney as we don't know exactly when we will arrive (assuming we may have to wait and take the next flight on one leg). Does anyone know what the deal is with that in Australia (I am English and my partner is Spanish)? If we can, we will try and book our flights before we leave Abu Dhabi so we arrive with onward flights but there is a chance that we won't have time to do that.

Thank you for any help you can provide, and we will be seeing your side of the world very soon!

Peter and Maribel

Purrball

Let me get this straight:

You're both on standby tickets from the UK to Sydney at some point on or after the 20th, yet you start work in New Zealand on the 28th, without giving yourself much time to adjust to the timezone difference. You could be hanging around in the terminal in the UK, waiting for seats for an indeterminate period and you don't have onward flights booked from Sydney to New Zealand, but are hoping to book enroute while in transit at Abu Dhabi. If that doesn't happen, you're going to hope to sort this out in Sydney.

Couple of points to perhaps consider:

1) Airlines tend to overbook these days, so you might find there are others bumped off flights ahead of you. On many flights, seats become more expensive the closer to departure you get.

2) Security checks and procedure may mean that just turning up, hoping to get a ticket could make that notion problematic. There's also the possibility that Australian immigration/border control would raise an eyebrow at people rocking up without forward or return tickets. Essentially, you'd be turning up in Australia with a one-way ticket and perhaps without visitor's visas... and your luggage wouldn't have an onward destination, so you'd have to collect it while airside.

Saying that, the Emirates plane I last flew on from Gatwick to Auckland in Jan/Feb was half empty after stopping in Sydney and turning the plane around — cleaning, restocking, refueling — in a couple of hours, during which time we all were chucked off to kick our heels in a transit lounge. There were tons of seats free crossing the Tasman. Just guessing, but you may have better luck with an airline that has longhaul transit flights to Auckland that have to stop in Sydney like Emirates or British Airways for instance, rather than Air New Zealand or Qantas.

Personally, I'd hate to be in your position, because I don't like uncertainty when I'm travelling, but if I were in your shoes, I'd make it a priority to sort things out in Abu Dhabi and keep your expectations low in terms of being able to save a great deal of money. Before setting out, I'd check on kayak.com to see whether there were any flexifare deals between Sydney and Auckland before leaving home which might give some leeway with the security of knowing you have a ticket. I'd also double-check with Australian border control/immigration and your airline from the UK, to make sure whether these arrangements could be problematic. I'd also ensure that I had a visa or was ok to enter Australia, in case I had to leave airside or even the terminal in Sydney. And I'd make sure that I had plenty of creature comforts and changes of clothes in my hand luggage, in case I had to sit around in a transit lounge for 24-72 hours. Oh, and I'd do what I could to make sure my phone and laptop/tablet would work in Sydney, in case I could only find cheap seats online or by phone, instead of hoping to find a deal at the equivalent of hotel rack rate at an airline desk in the terminal.

And don't forget Last Minute.com if you get to Sydney without flights to Auckland. Before you leave, bookmark or make a list of airline/travel phone numbers and websites to hit once you get there, if you can't sort things out in Abu Dhabi.

Good luck.

MrsFychan

as Purrball says are you actually going to be allowed to do just turn up to Sydney with no onward flight?

personally I would not take the chance and think it potentially would cost more in the long run. book all you flights now before you leave and lessen the stress.

cappuccino

If you think flights from the UK are expensive, you'll be shocked at the cost of flying NZ to the UK!!!

As the others have said, it all sounds far too stressful just to save a few quid!!

Bo-Jangles

From a 20 second search on Expedia clearly Ethihad have seats on the plane on Monday 20th from Heathrow as do Cathay Pacific and others for fifteen hundred quids. I guess you're best placed to determine whether the saving from using friends discount is worth all the addititional hassle, stress and uncertainty. Just pay the money and be done with it.

Purrball

Cheapest one-way fare I've just found now on www.kayak.co.uk/flights, for only £901 from ebookers, saving £600, leaving London on the 20th and flying via Johannesburg>Sydney>Auckland on British Airways and Qantas. Bit of a long way round, 38 hours in total, touching down in Auckland on the 22nd... but only 900 quid and on decent airlines, too.

I'd take that any day over the uncertainty of crossing fingers, hanging around in terminals waiting for god knows how long for the slim chance of standby seats. Don't even think the concept of standby exists anymore for international flights in the same way it used to for domestic flights.

Love an adventure, but not sure I'd be doing it this way if I could avoid it.

jmh

Just wanted to recommend Grab a Seat - I've had some good deals in the past flying between AKL and SYD.

http://grabaseat.co.nz/

MrsFychan

my other concern would be the amount of luggage awarded for any onward flight, any possible saving initially might be eaten up with excess baggage cost of the short flight from Sydney to Auckland.

I know when we booked the first two flights had one allowance but then the third to Wellington was less so we just packed the smaller allowance for the whole journey, might not be a problem if there is no internal flight but something to take a note of as a possible problem

Persephone

Good point! It's usually ok if you book all the flights as 'one', the higher allowance is often honoured.
I wish Pruncie all the luck in the world, it may be fine. Personally I wouldn't risk it especially if you have a job start date looming.