Australia Travel: ETA vs eVisitor??

overlandrover

Hello all

I'm in the lucky position to have booked return flights to Australia for £400 through the Trailfinders' Singapore Airlines deal last month.

Trailfinders have sent through the tickets, and included a page about their Australia Electronic Travel Authority service, where they kindly charge £15 to process your application for you.

Searching online, I find other companies offering a service for only AU$16 for a similar service.

However, I found the official Australian IMMI website and they charge AU$20 per application.

How can this be? Surely going direct to the Australia government should be cheaper and quicker than using an agency? Are these other services genuine??

And then I see this:

dzug1 wrote: »

Not any more - the official site no longer charges
You need to use the eVisitor service rather than ETA for the free service

From what I can see there is no difference between the eVisitor and the ETA, which are both listed on the IMMI website!

Any advice on this matter is appreciated.

dzug1

The e-visitor is free, the ETA is $20Aus - both on the official Oz govt site. Why I don't know.

If you are eligible for e-visitor then go for that. Seems to depend on nationality.


However to answer your other query, the sites that undercut the Australian government site are genuine, or at least potentially so. Travel agents are not charged the $20 when applying for an ETA on your behalf, so anything they charge you is 'profit'. So there is/was a nice part time little earner in registering with the Australians as a travel agent (and I don't think they were that fussy) and applying for ETAs for people for a few $$.

Tierce

overlandrover wrote: »

Hello all

I'm in the lucky position to have booked return flights to Australia for £400 through the Trailfinders' Singapore Airlines deal last month.

Trailfinders have sent through the tickets, and included a page about their Australia Electronic Travel Authority service, where they kindly charge £15 to process your application for you.

Searching online, I find other companies offering a service for only AU$16 for a similar service.

However, I found the official Australian IMMI website and they charge AU$20 per application.

How can this be? Surely going direct to the Australia government should be cheaper and quicker than using an agency? Are these other services genuine??

And then I see this:


From what I can see there is no difference between the eVisitor and the ETA, which are both listed on the IMMI website!

Any advice on this matter is appreciated.

Firstly, as an Austrayyyyyyan, I'd like to congratulate you on your upcoming trip Down Under! I'm sure it'll be an enjoyable trip... not to mention frugal That IS one hell of a deal you got.

Secondly, in answer to your question, this here site:
http:// www. evisitorvisa. com /faq. html (delete the spaces) might be able to help you.

It basically explains the difference between ETA and E-vistor...which is, essentially, NOTHING, other than E-visitor being the updated method of obtaining a visa into Australia, and can be done by the traveller instead of going through travel agencies. E-visitor is also available to some countries where ETA wasn't.

The E-visitor visa is completely free and you can for your E-visitor here:
http:// www . immi. gov. au/ visitors/tourist/ evisitor/ (delete spaces again, as a new user, I might be a spam bot :eek:) Going through other websites/agencies will usually involve an unnecessary fee. <waggles finger> Bad MSE practise.

I'm no expert, however, I just had a friend from the UK come over recently and she went through some of the confusion you did.

Best wishes on your upcoming trip, may it truly be an experience of a lifetime.

Just be wary of those pesky Australians

Tierce

dzug1 wrote: »

The e-visitor is free, the ETA is $20Aus - both on the official Oz govt site. Why I don't know.

If you are eligible for e-visitor then go for that. Seems to depend on nationality.


However to answer your other query, the sites that undercut the Australian government site are genuine, or at least potentially so. Travel agents are not charged the $20 when applying for an ETA on your behalf, so anything they charge you is 'profit'. So there is/was a nice part time little earner in registering with the Australians as a travel agent (and I don't think they were that fussy) and applying for ETAs for people for a few $$.

erm..what dzug said...I slow

duncans_mum

for info.....

eVisitor Fact Sheet

[FONT=Arial,Arial][FONT=Arial,Arial]October 2008
[/FONT][/FONT][FONT=Arial,Arial][FONT=Arial,Arial]

From 27 October 2008, eVisitor will be available, free of charge, to citizen passport holders of European Union member states and European ETA eligible countries.
eVisitor is a ‘label free’ authority to visit Australia for tourism or business purposes. eVisitor holders can enter Australia multiple times over a twelve month period, staying for up to three months on each occasion.
The eVisitor application is an online service available to eligible clients. [/FONT][/FONT][FONT=Arial,Arial][FONT=Arial,Arial]See: [/FONT][/FONT][FONT=Arial,Arial][FONT=Arial,Arial]www.immi.gov.au

Most applications for eVisitor will be auto-granted. Those that require further assessment will be manually processed within two to ten working days by the Hobart eVisitor Global Processing Centre.
To be eligible to apply for an eVisitor applicants must:

1. be intending to visit Australia for tourism or business purposes,
2. hold an eVisitor eligible passport, and
3. be located outside Australia at the time of application and to be eligible for the grant of an eVisitor.

Applicants of all ages who hold a valid citizen passport from one of the following 35 countries are eligible to apply for an eVisitor.
Andorra Austria Belgium Bulgaria
Cyprus Czech Republic Denmark Estonia
Finland France Germany Greece
Hungary Iceland Ireland Italy
Latvia Liechtenstein Lithuania Luxembourg
Malta Monaco Netherlands Norway
Poland Portugal Romania San Marino
Slovakia Slovenia Spain Sweden
Switzerland United Kingdom Vatican City (Holy See)
It is a condition of holding an eVisitor that clients:

1. be in good health (and are free from tuberculosis), and
2. have no criminal convictions for which they have been sentenced for a total of 12 months or more, whether or not the sentence/s were served.

More information is available on the departmental website. [/FONT][/FONT][FONT=Arial,Arial][FONT=Arial,Arial]See: [/FONT][/FONT][FONT=Arial,Arial][FONT=Arial,Arial]http://www.immi.gov.au/visitors/tourist/whats-new.htm
[/FONT][/FONT]

sampt

Cool- Ive just applied= thanks all- you saved me some money I applied for the E-visitor for free- just waiting for the email to confim approved (Hopefully) !

Nina123_2

@sampt.. have you attached any documents to your application? I just applied for an eVisitors visa but I haven't attached any documents with it. I'm leaving in 12 days.. Now I'm afraid that they will not accept it. What about the health insurance?

Is it still possible to add any documents after finishing the application?

pleaseeeeeeeeee helppp