Guide 1: Preparing to Travel
1. Preparing to Travel to Australia For many your forthcoming trip to Australia may be your first travel by air or first overseas travel. Like everything else you experience for the very the first time, you will be excited, anxious and nervous for this journey into an unknown land where, you will be hoping, all your present problems, if any, will be gone for ever.
Once you have got your visa you will be thinking about your travel every day, if not every hour. At the same time you will also be thinking about your family, friends, colleagues and other dear ones whom you will be leaving behind. If you are married and have children, what about them? They were surrounded by loving grandparents, aunts and uncles with whom they could spend endless happy times and whom you will be leaving behind. You do not know when you will see them again. When you are in such a mental state it is very difficult to always think logically and make the best decisions. It would be helpful if someone guided and assisted you at this stage and prepared you for your new life in a far away land
We hope that this guide will aid you in this to some extent. This guide discusses only about how to prepare for your travel to Australia before you have go on the palne and started your journey to Australia.
1.1 How to travel to Australia – the route to choose
First of all you should know that at the time of writing this guide there are no direct flights from Dhaka or any other city in Bangladesh to any destination in Australia. People normally fly from Dhaka to Australian cities by the following routes.
1. via Bangkok by Thai Airways
2. via Singapore by Singapore Airlines
3. via KL by Malaysian Airlines.
4. via Hong Kong by Dragon Air and Cathay Pacific
5. via KL by Air Asia
The actual total travel times by the above routes from Dhaka to Sydney and Melbourne are about 12 hours. It will take longer to fly to Brisbane and less time to fly to Adelaide and some hours less to fly to Perth or Darwin.
It is possible to travel from Bangladesh to Australia by more indirect routes like via Mumbai by Qantas Airlines or via Dubai by Emirates or via Bahrain by Gulf Air. Sometimes these airlines may offer very attractive fares. But choosing such routes will add six to ten hours of additional flying time because of going in the opposite direction to your destination in the first leg of your journey and possibly some transit times as well In some cases you may have to get a visa even though you are not planning to go out of the airport.
1.2 Which airline to choose:When you are choosing the airline by which to travel to Australia you may take into consideration some or all of the following factors.
1. Total cost of tickets for the entire family. For children over 3 and under 18, some airlines may charge half the cost of an adult fare and others may charge two third of an adult fare. Fares for infants (child under 3) may also vary..
2. Total luggage allowance that an airline will provide for the entire family. Some may give special baggage allowance to new migrants. This may be as much as 50kgs per passenger even to economy class passengers against the normal allowance of 20 kgs. Some airlines may give some luggage allowance for infants (under 3) also.
3. Total travel time from Dhaka to your destination city in Australia including stopover time in the airline’s home country Travelling by any means is strenuous and that includes travelling by air. More so, when you are travelling with young children when you would like to reach your destination as quickly as possible.
4. Your airline will first take you from Bangladesh to a city in the airline’s home country like Bangkok, Singapore, KL or Hong Kong. From there you will have to board another plane, which will take you to your destination city. Some airlines may have an immediate connection, while others may require you to wait for some hours at the airport before you take your next flight. When the stopover is more than 6 hours, some airlines may provide you stopover accommodation and/or meals either inside the airport or outside, Others may not. You may include this to the total cost of tickets for the entire family, if you have a long stopover.
5. Time of departure of the flight from Dhaka (Zia International Airport). If the flight leaves at night it may not be convenient to those who are going to take you to the airport and see you off or if you are leaving far away from the airport.
6. Day of the week and time of arrival at your destination. If you are expecting someone to receive you at the airport in Australia, it would be convenient for your hosts in Australia if you arrived on a weekend - Saturday or Sunday, or another public holiday. If you are reaching your destination on any other day, it would be convenient for your hosts if you reached their city a couple of hours after office closing time – i.e, after 7 pm. On the other hand if you are going to manage on your own, it is always better to arrive in a new city during the day, morning if possible.
1.3 Where to buy your tickets
You should know that there are many types of fares and fare discounts that airlines offer to passengers, either directly as promotional fares or through their travel agents.
Promotional fares are normally published in the newspapers or in an airline’s website. They are generally offered during non-busy travel periods when seat occupancy is low or when an airline starts flying to a new destination for the first time. In promotional fares an airline may offer special low fares, or free stopovers for a few days, in their mother city etc.
If you are not using a promotional fare, then you should first of all know that if you go to the airline direct, you are likley to pay more. They will most probably quote you the published fare, which is higher than what people normally pay. So you should get the contact details of a few well known and reliable travel agents from your friends and/or relatives. You may do some price comparison of the fares of different airlines of your choice. Once you have decided by which airline you will fly, you should check with different travel agents (a) the cost per ticket and (b) the total cost for the entire family. A travel agent in Dhaka will give you a ticket price as follows:
(a) Ticket cost in US dollars. Exchange rate from US $ to BDT to arrive at the value of a ticket in Bangaldesh taka - % discount
(b) Various Taxes in Bangladesh Taka
While (b) should and possibly will be quoted same by all agents, you will see some variations in (a). I have received quotes from two different agents for the same ticket, where the price difference per ticket for a round trip to Melbourne from Dhaka by the same airline was as much as Tk 10,000!
Some agents will use higher US$ to Taka exchange rates and some will not give you any discounts. You may note that I have received agent dicsounts of upto 5%. The agents offer this dicount from their own commission they receive from the airlines. If you get more than 5% discount, of course, you are better off. But when an agent says that they do not give any discounts because they deal with many corporate clients, you just ignore them and go to some other agent.
Before purchasing your tickets you should also ask your agent about the following:
(a) whether you can change your flights and whether there is likely to be any charge for changing the flight date, if needed,
(b) the ticket cancellation policy
Due to some emergengy at home, it is quite possible you may have to either change your flight date or cancel a ticket altogether. Then you do not want to lose all or most of your ticket money.
1.4 StopoversIn the first four routes mentioned above you will have to change planes at the airline’s home airport, i.e, Bangkok, Singapore, KL or Hong Kong respectively. The stopover time may vary from 1 hour to a full day. All the four airlines have more or less daily flights from their home city to Melbourne and Sydney, sometimes more than one on many days of the week. So if you do not want to stop on the way to take a break from flying or to meet relatives or friends, you may request your travel agent to book your flights so that you have the minimum stopover and an immediate connection.
On the other hand, if you want to go to the city in any of these places for sightseeing, shopping or visiting friends or relatives, if you hold a Bangladeshi passport, you will have to obtain a visa from the relevant embassy/High Commission in Dhaka beforehand,.
If you halt en-route for more than six hours, the airline is supposed to provide you with hotel accommodation and meals. You should ask your travel agent if you are entitled to this or not. Some travel agents may either not know or not mention this to you. Others may say that the airline does not provide hotel for discount ticket holders like the one you may be purchasing. You may like to ring the airline office in Dhaka to find out if that is really the case or not. There are several codes and fares for Economy class tickets. Ask your agent about ticket class code and when enquiring about stopover accommodation mention that to the airline.
If you are flying to a city other than Melbourne or Sydney, you are more likely to have a long stopover as there may not be daily flights to these places from Bangkok, Singapore, KL or Hongkong. In such cases, for example, if you are going to, say, Adelaide or Brisbane you may ask your travel agent to ask the airline to fly you to another city in Australia first, like Melbourne (for Adelaide passengers) or Sydney (for Brisbane passengers) from where they may arrange to fly you to your destination city by a domestic flight on the same day.
Well established and more reputable travel agents, who have developed good relationship with an airline are more likely to be able to arrange free stopover accommodation by the airline.
Arranging your own stopover accommodation:If the airline you are flying with does not provide stopover accommodation, and you have a long transit time somewhere on the way, and you are travelling with family and wish to have some place to rest you may do the following:
1.4.1 Bangkok:Day Room inside the terminal building:
You can ask your travel agent to book you in a “day room”, if available, at the Bangkok airport terminal. Day rooms are hotel type but short term accommodation for transit passengers inside the terminal building. You may book it for different blocks of time like four hours or six hours. You pay the same for single or double occupancy. But again, some travel agents may quote you per person. Thus, if you are two persons, you will have to pay double. Ask your travel agent what is the current system. You have to prepay for your accommodation if you book a day room at Bangkok airport through your travel agent. They will give you a voucher which you will have to give at the hotel reception counter on arrival.
For Bangkok airport it will cost you less if you book the day room along with your ticket through your travel agent and/or airline. At the airport you will be quoted a higher rate.
Hotel outside the terminal building:
If you have a visa for Thailand, you may also book a room in a hotel, which is near the airport or in the city or elsewhere in the city depending on your needs and convenience You are likely to get good discounts if you book via the Internet or via your travel agent. If you book through the Internet you will have to pay by a credit card. If you book through your travel agent, you can pay in local currency. Before selecting such accommodation, check if the hotel provides transfers to and from the airport and if breakfast is included with the room rate. If not, then you will have to add these costs to your hotel room costs. If you book through your travel agent, you may be well advised to check on the Internet (a) the daily room rate, (b) the star rating and (c) if available, reviews by previous travellers. I have had experience where I saw that my travel agent (a) booked me in a place with very bad reviews by previous travellers and (b) if I booked the same place on my own I would pay much less. I chose another hotel with higher star rating with better reviews and paid less.
Accommodation in the same hotel will cost you more if you book through your travel agent/airline. The airline normally quotes you per passenger. When you book through the Internet you will be normally quoted a price per room type (single, double, triple etc.). There may or may not be some small charges for additional beds for other adults or children, beyond two, occupying the same room. On the Internet you will get special rates at off-peak seasons.
If you book a hotel on the Internet, you should always read the reviiews by previous travellers who used the hotel. They will give you a very good idea of what yuo can or not expect.
You should remember that if you go into Bangkok city, a departure tax is payable when you leave Bangkok. You can pay this in advnce when you purchase your ticket. If you have made any last minute changes after buying your tickets then you have to pay the departure tax in Thai Baht before going for immigration.
Economy Class Lounge:
If you do not want to use the Day Rooms in the terminal builiding or the hotels outside the terminal building you may try out the free Economy
Class Lounges available in the terminal building . They have
comfortable lie back lounge chairs which you can use for resting. Sometimes during busy periods you may have to wait
for some time before you will get an empty lounge chair to lie on.
1.4.2 Singapore:Day Room in the terminal building:
You may book a day room at the Singapore airport via phone or the Internet. If a room is available on your requested date and time, you will be given a confirmation number. You make no payment at the time of your booking. There is no cancellation or no-turn up fee. They always have sufficient takers for pre booked, unused rooms. You pay when you check in after arrival. You have to take up your booked room within 30 minutes of the arrival of your flight after which it may be offered to someone who may be waiting for a day room at the time. There are separate rates for single and double rooms.
Hotels outside the terminal building:If you have a visa for Singapore then if you like you may book a hotel in the city. Hotel prices vary considerably and the way you book. For the same hotel you will get one rate from the Internet, one rate at the airport hotel counter and still another from the taxi driver. Room tariffs for Singapore are more than in other places in the region.
You can pay your departure tax in Dhaka when you pay for your tickets.
Economy Class Lounge:
If you do not want to use the Day Rooms in the terminal builiding or
the hotels outside the terminal building you may try out the free
Economy
Class Lounges available in the terminal building . They have
comfortable lie back lounge chairs which you can use for resting
including sleeping. Sometimes during busy periods you may have to wait
for some time before you get an empty lounge chair to lie on.
1.4.3 KL & Hong Kong:At the time of writing this guide we did not know of the availability of day rooms at KL and Hong Kong airports. If anyone knows about them in these two cities, please let us know.
1.5 Travelling documents:
Passports:Each adult travelling must have a valid passport. Minor children may either have their own passports or their names may be endorsed in the passports of their parents.
You should check that all passports have at least 1 year’s validity. If not, you should get the validity of your passports extended before travelling.
Make copies of all passports and keep them separately, which you can retrieve, in the unlikely event of losing your passports. You should make copies of the personal pages and the visa pages.
VisasIn case of migration visa, all applicants, primary and secondary, which may be spouse and children, generally travel together. All passports must have the relevant Australian visa stamped on their passports. This is termed "visa evidencing". You should also carry your visa grant letter with you, if needed, anywhere. Make a copy of your visa grant letter and keep it safe with copies of your passport pages.
If you are planning to break your journey en-route, make sure that you have the necessary visas for that country.
Tickets:Check the following:
1. that the name on the ticket is correct and matches that on the passport
2. that there are separate tickets for each person
3. that on each ticket there are as many vouchers as the number of sectors you will be travelling. For example, if you are travelling to Melbourne via Bangkok, you should have one voucher for Dhaka to Bangkok, which is the first sector and another one for the second sector Bangkok to Melbourne.
Hotel and Meals vouchers;If applicable, you should also check your horel and/or meals vouchers.
Make copies of tickets and vouchers and keep them with passport photocopies.
1.6 FundsYou should carry sufficient money to pay for all your expenses for accommodation and meals while on transit, if applicable. You should also carry enoigh money to get you through the initial settlement period after arrival in Australia. This should cater for the following:
1. Taxi or bus fare to your accommodation, if applicable
2. Expenses for accommodation, food and transport for moving around, at least for a couple of months until you get a job and start earning
3. Rental deposit (one month’s rent) plus monthly rent
4. Furnishing your home. Accommodation in Australia are generally rented empty with no furniture or equipment other than having heating and
cooling facility, running hot water system, a stove and an oven. Sometimes you may get a dish washer.
Things you will have to purchase to settle are:
1. Beds and bedding materials
2. Dining table and chairs, refrigerator
3. TV plus other entertainment units
4. Kitchen and dining equipment – crockery, cutlery, dishes and microwave
5. Laundry facility – ironing board, electric iron, clothes dryer (optional) , washing machine
1.7 Booking seats on the planes.You may be able to make your long journey by air on cattle class (economy) a little more comfortable if you choose the right seat that suits you and your family members, if any.
You may take the following into consideration when telling your travel agent to select your seat(s) when booking your flight.
Aisle, window or middle seat:Some people love to sit by the window to enjoy the clouds of various shapes, colours, sizes and density through which a plane flies as well as gazing at the picturesque mountains and waterways and meandering rivers and lands of different colours that the plane flies over. I have known some people to go into another world doing this and composing poems or writing stories.
But by sitting by the window as well as in any of the middle seats you will have the following problems. When you wish to go to the toilets, you will have to pass by your neighboring passengers. You will have to draw their attention because there is simply not enough space for you to make such a move without your neighbour’s cooperation. They have to make way for you to move either by getting up or folding up their legs. You may not find this very exciting particularly when it will involve waking up your sleeping neighbor(s). This problem may be alleviated if you are traveling together with other family members. Some planes have two or three seats on the sides and three seats or four seats in the middle. You may choose seats according to the plane’s configuration and your family size. Ask your travel agent/airline what type of seating arrangement your plane will have and choose your seats accordingly.
The opposite is also applicable. If you are flying alone and sitting on an aisle seat either at the sides or in the middle, you can be expected to make way when your neighbour wants to go out.
Choosing seats with children:
Depending on the type of aircraft, there may be different numbers of seats in a row and also more seats towards the front swollen body of the aircraft than in the narrow tail end. Seat configurations in a row may be as follows:
At the two sides there may be two or three seats. In the middle there may be three or four seats or even five seats. Depending on family size, assuming that you want to all sit together, you may choose the appropriate seats – side or middle. Sometimes you may have to make some compromises like dividing your family in two consecutive rows etc.
Seats for infants:If you have infants traveling with you, you may request for the front seats in a cabin. These have more leg room and are normally allocated to passengers with infants and small children, the elderly and people with disability. Infants (under 3 years) do not get a separate seat, but at this location you will get a baby cot which is hung on the wall in front of you. It can help the parents a lot.
2 What to take to Australia and howAs a new migrant you are permitted to bring into Australia all household and personal items without paying any import duty or tax.
Thus, if you want and find it convenient, you may take to Australia everything that you had been using in Bangladesh provided they meet the Australian quarantine regulations and standards. All mechanical (cars) electrical equipment (telephone handsets included) will have to meet strict Australian standards. Otherwise, you may have to incur heavy cost for converting them to Australian standards on arrival.
You should find out from the Australian website what items you are not allowed to take into Australia. Alternatively, you may take with you a few clothing and some other very essential items which you may take with you by air. What you do will all depend on what types of possessions you have, how costly they are, how attached you are to them, whether you can easily replace them in Australia, whether you have a place to leave your valuable things with somebody in Bangladesh, if you are not giving them away or selling them.. If they are of great sentimental value to you and your family and you are prepared to take them to Australia, as long as they are not banned items you can take them by one or more of the following means. You may consider taking all your good quality teak and cane furniture both old (inherited from your parents and grand parents) and not so new, as well as more recently purchased leather sofa sets. Good wooden furniture, cane and leather sofa sets will cost you a lot in Australia.
2.1 Luggage allowance and taking addional bagagge or household goods to Australia..
You should find out from your travel agent exactly how much weight each person, both adults and children, will be allowed to carry and how many hand baggage each person can have and of what type, weight and size. Instead of being embarassed at the
airport at the check-in time you should be prepared beforehand and
organise your baggage well.
Normally, each passenger will be allowed to carry one piece of hand baggage weighing not more than 7 Kgs. In addition, certain items like a lady's handbag, a child's push chair, books, cameras, computer notebooks, that you may read on the way etc can be carried free.
None of your checked in bags should weigh more than 25kgs .Such bags will be easy to move from your trolley to conveyor belts etc. While packing if you find tha any suitcase weighs more than 25 kgs then take an additional bag and re-distribute your things in all the bags. .
If your luggage weighs more than your total luggage allowance, you may be asked to pay for the excess baggage if you want to take them along. Normally, - for each kg of excess baggage you will be charged at the rate of 1% of First class fare, which may be quite a lot of money.
You should buy bags with wheels, both which you will be checking in and those you will be carrying with you inside the cabin. This will help you everywhere as you will not get porters and will have to carry your luggage by yourself.
2.2 Sending Unaccompanied luggage by air
If you want to take some personal belongings to Australia over and above what you will be able to take along with you as accompanying baggage, you may arrange to send them separately as unaccompanied air baggage. They will arrive a few days after you reach Australia. When they reach Australia and you are contacted at the address you had given, you will have to either go to the airport's cargo section on your own to clear them or use a clearing agent by paying a fee. The cost of sending goods as unaccompanied air baggage is significantly less than excess accompanying baggage and worth considering.
2.3 Sea freighting your household and personal effects.All items which you will not need immediately upon arrival in Australia, you may send them by sea freigt, if you want to take them to Australia. They may include all your household goods, including furniture ( teak. leather and cane),silver, brass and other decoration pieces, carpets, wall hangings like embroidered quilts and paintings, framed family photos, books, musical instruments, photographic equipments and albums, refrigerator, television, computer, entertainment equipment, bicycle, motorcycle, exercise equipment and even a used motor car (subject to meeting Australian standards) , kitchen utensils, crockery and cutlery and of course all your clothes and children’s valuable collection of toys. Your freight agent will physically inspect the things you want to ship and tell you that they will be x cubic metres in volume and they will cost you y amount of money ( so many Takas). for a door to door service.
If you are planning to sea freight your household and personal items you may like to know the following:
All your things will be carried in sea containers. There are 20 feet and 40 feet containers. If you book an entire 20 feet container, you will get the best deal. If you do not book a full container, but have goods which will only partially fill a container, say 1/4th , you will pay much more than the cost of 1/4th of the full container. It may even be close to the cost of the full container. If you cannot fill a full container on your own you should consider sharing a full container with another person going to the same city in Australia. You will both save a lot of money. At the same time you will be able to take your much loved items along with you.
2.4 Sending items by post You can also send items like books and old clothes in 20 kg lots by post. All you have to do is to pack them in waterproof pilllow like bags or packing cartons. Label them and take them to the G P O. Get more advice from the GPO. My clients have used this method and found the service satisfactory. Their goods reached them in Australia pretty fast.
2. 5 Australian QuarnatineAustralia has strict quarantine rules. You should visit the following site to learn what you may not bring into Australia. There are severe penalities if you break the quatantine regulations.
Quarnatine information for Travllers to Australia 2.6 Insuring all your items sent as unaccompanied bagageYou should insure all your valuable items that you are sending to Australia by any of the above mentioned methods.. Don’t give the current market value of an item but give the actual cost you will incur if you have to replace a particular item if it is broken, damaged or lost in transit. Make sure that the insurance company is represented in Australia and you can claim, if necessary, in Australia. You will also have to make a list of all items packed inside each box so that you can help the Customs Department in Australia to inspect any specific item in your baggage. Declare all items and let the customs department decide what is permitted and what is not rather than incurring a heavy fine by not declaring a banned item.
© Amin Rahman MARN 0322761