Year in Australia

AussieOzzie

Have you looked at flying out on New Years Eve. Mate of mine saved about £600 by moving flights from 18DEC out 4JAN back to something like 16DEC out and 31DEC back.

Might be worth a look ?

tronski

If you're set on going for Jan, have you looked at flights on New Years Eve or Day? I think they tend to be a lot cheaper.

view

DEFINITELY take our travel insurance. Seriously, yes we have a reciprocal arrangement with the UK - however, as someone pointed out this does not cover repatriation nor stolen goods, delays etc.. etc.. For a nominal amount here, even if you have one claim you'll be just so very thankful. Touch wood it won't happen, but if you were seriously injured you would have to pay tens of thousands of pounds for special medial repatriation back to the UK not to mention if you needed family/friend to fly over to travel back with you. Just get it into your head that it's an essential requirement, rather than a nice to have.

Yup, as mentioned in my first post under your original one, very good idea to delay - at present, if you check via www.travelsupermarket.co.uk you'll see prices are about £550 for return with Emirates (best way to travel) April - May. Surely your friend won't mind for a few months when you could save £250-£400! I have travelled between Australia and the UK 14 times now and can honestly say that Emirates are far superior to long haul travel than BA or Qantas. Especially if, like me, you can miss out London and that 14 hour looooong flight to Singapore. That really is a complete drag. I fly from Glasgow to Dubai and then to Perth. It's only 8 hours to Dubai and 9.5 hrs to Perth - mcuh more manageable.

Also, if you're looking to pre-book accommodation try here www.roomratecompare.com I use them all the time and they definitely make looking for great deals a lot easier.

Have a great time!

GJ x

roses

I found this insurance company, their prices seem pretty good. They allow trips back to the UK and cover you for work:

http://www.1stoptravelinsurance.co.uk/

We cover over 50 sports and activities as standard and many more can be added with just one click. If you're going to be away for the whole year, you are probably going to need to earn some spending money while you're away. That's why our backpacker insurance comes with cover for you to do typical casual jobs, including bar work and fruit picking.

You may also find that you need to return home during your trip. 1Stop's backpacker insurance allows you to return home up to 3 times during your trip for up to 14 days at a time without voiding your policy.

loveabargain13

Hey Skully! I'm in the same situation although I'm going out to Australia in December and staying until April / May, so much to sort out I've got my working visa, but currently looking at flights, banking I've found you can apply to open an ANZ bank account before you arrive in australia, then next is travel insurance! Good Luck

trrk

Endsleigh and STA Travel also offer travel insurance for long term backpackers and seem to cover quite a bit of stuff (look at the fine print!). I'm going to be travelling for a year and am getting quotes of around £300 per person for insurance. Much less than this and you should start to look at what they actually cover. Make sure it covers things like repatriation as you wouldn't want your family to be stung with a huge bill if the worst happened (reciprocal helth insurance arrangements won't help you here).

A credit card is always usefull for online purchases eg flights, car hire etc. If you wan tto book a flight with one of Australia's budget airlines your UK debit card might not be accepted. This is less of an issue if you get an Austrlian debit card.

view

If you're going to open an ANZ or other bank account - whatever you do,

don't use the bank's international
currency transfer system!

Banks charge huge amounts for transferring international funds plus take commission on the foreign currency amount. Plus the receiving bank will charge you for accepting your money! Can be a very expensive operation if you transfer it bank to bank.

for example ANZ charge $50 (£30) per item (transfer) plus costs (which refers to the costs your bank in the UK will charge). Plus you will get charged commission.

Use Tranzfers http://www.tranzfers.com/default.html

They only charge £7 to transfer any amount over to Australia, the money is in your account within 3-4 days and their foreign currency rate always beats the banks!

I have used them for 5 years now and never had a hitch.

spottydog

Skully wrote: »

I'm already with Nationwide and do my main banking with them with their Flexaccount. I am not sure what they are doing with their 0% transactions, but they are definitely still doing free cash withdrawls overseas. Which will be handy.

Whilst Nationwide may not charge for cash withdrawals the Aussie cashpoint will. Regulations now allow banks to charge for cashpoint withdrawals and they all do if you aren't using a card from them.

The big Aussie banks (ANZ, CBA, NAB & Westpac) will all allow you to set up an account online but you will not be able to withdraw money until you have verified your ID at the branch on arrival. Banks here also don't necessarily give out debit cards but instead only give out EFTPOS crds for no charge (work like debit cards in a shop but no use for telephone/internet.

Medicare will cover emergency treatment under the reciprocal agreement. As gedebage says many Aussies have private health insurance but that isn't anything to do with the quality of service available from Medicare but the fact that the government charge you more tax if you earn over a certain amount and don't have private cover meaning the cover option works out cheaper.

HTH

gedebage

Westpac bank in Australia is an affiliate of Barclays here. I am not sure, but it may be worth trying Barclays for an introductory letter to help open an account. I know previously it has been easy to open an account there. I have been here 3 years now, so things may have changed.