[Pomadore]

Hi,

I am a brit who is at the end of a working holiday visa. Having worked up until the end I now want to stay for 1 more month as a tourist before returning home via asia.

I was under the impression that I could fly to Fiji for a week and return on a tourist visa but have just been told this isn't allowed and refused boarding to the flight to Nadi.

Now I need to arrange something quickly. I also thought I could apply for a 676 to stay an extra 12 months but found I need to be on a tourist visa in the first place.

My other option was applying for residency as that was my plan for later but as a skilled migrant I have to book a test with the recognised body (computing in my case) before the application.

However I need to sort something in the next 2 days. What can I do?

 

[Wanderer]

There's a rule Pomadore that Airlines have re not taking passengers to NZ if they do not have an onward flight to a destination they have entry rights to.

Ironically, what people would do in the past would be to book a refundable flight from NZ to Fiji, fly over to NZ and go online to get an ETA and then book a flight back to Australia or they could have already booked that before going.
Once they have the ETA in NZ, they would cancel the Fiji ticket and fly back to Australia.

They may have just changed things for Fiji because Fiji just last week expelled Oz and NZ High Commissioners and Oz did likewise for the Fijian HC who was leaving anyway, so a few ruffled feathers about.

The following outlines the process you would need to look at

What WHVers usually do is our version of a border run, ie. head to nearest/cheapest destination outside of Australia and then apply for an ETA - Electronic Travel Authority (ETA) - Online Applications or a tourist visa to come back in.

If NZ is selected as nearest/cheapest [not so from Perth], there is a particular process that needs to be used as entry to NZ is dependent on having a forward flight to somewhere you have a right of entry to.
And Airlines will decide not to take a passenger unless they have an onward flight booked for they are aware of the NZ regs and do not wish to be fined and then have the passenger as their responsibility.

So what people do is buy a refundable ticket from NZ to Fiji and so on landing in NZ you apply for an ETA and then cancel your flight to Fiji.

They can expect to be questioned by immigration on coming back in re their intent and means of support for immigration will be looking for signs of intent to work again [illegally] and even things like a business or restaurant cards being carried can be viewed as reason to question further and even possibly refuse entry

You may want to see if you can book a refundable flight between NZ and Fiji seeing as there are these ruffled feathers about for perhaps Fiji and NZ are not co-operating too much either.

 

[Pomadore]

Wanderer, thanks for that.

In the end I had to book my flights to the UK, but they are flexible, and then went with a different airline the next day with no problem and I'm now back in Australia after 2 minutes of checking my flight out.

So if you are going to hop to Fiji and back my experience says to get a flexible flight out booked before you go to Fiji and to avoid Pacific Blue, who gave me the rubbish about Fiji not letting me in without an onward ticket to the UK, and go with the Fiji airline Air Pacific, who were helpful and told me the truth that I would need to get a eVisitor visa while in Fiji (easy online form).