Adelaide

Misticles

Anyone here in Adelaide?

Just saw USITS offer on going here! free WHV for a year.

whats the jobs prospects?
Living costs?

hussey

Misticles wrote: »

Anyone here in Adelaide?

Just saw USITS offer on going here! free WHV for a year.

whats the jobs prospects?
Living costs?

Mod do a search please on the forum, and how can you possibly tell you what jobs prospects are like when you haven't given us any info at all.

woolymammoth

Just saw USITS offer on going here! free WHV for a year.

eh?

i don't get it. USIT are giving away a free WHV (worth what, ~200+ euro?) but only if you go to adelaide? :rolleyes: sure just go to adelaide, then move on somewhere else.. Adelaide's not a bad place, but it's not the center of excitement either! A small CBD in a city otherwise the size and population of Dublin (roughly!), just with 1/8th the craic. less, even! Living costs are marginally less than the rest of australia, so still high enough.

Mellor

woolymammoth wrote: »

eh?

i don't get it. USIT are giving away a free WHV (worth what, ~200+ euro?) but only if you go to adelaide? :rolleyes: sure just go to adelaide, then move on somewhere else.. Adelaide's not a bad place, but it's not the center of excitement either! A small CBD in a city otherwise the size and population of Dublin (roughly!), just with 1/8th the craic. less, even! Living costs are marginally less than the rest of australia, so still high enough.

It's my no means free. Seeing as you obviously have to book it with USIT, they'll defo make the cost back with overcharging for flights or something.

Just because Usit charge 200 or 300 euro for the visa doesn't mean thats what its worth.
FYI it costs $235.
I'd be pretty condifant that going to Adelaide with the "free" visa then moving to somewhere else would cost you more than just paying for the visa and goign to the other city directly. Even if i was going to adelaide, I doubt I'd give USIT a penny

Lu Tze

Link to Free Visa

Free*

On condition you book flights with them - I have friends who went to Canada with their visa package, flights were around €1800 return, and i got mine for €600.

They dont give a price there but you can bank on it being ridiculous. WHV was around €165 when i got it last year doing it myself.

mickoneill30

04072511 wrote: »

They never mentioned once that they were supposed to book the flights for us, nor was it mentioned on the website,

It's mentioned on this website.

http://www.usit.ie/work-abroad/usa/j1-visa/how-to-apply

"You must book your flights with USIT at time of booking."

Usit have no control over your J1 though. They can remove you from their lists and you can apply yourself.

Edit: sorry, didnt realise it was in 2006. No idea what the site was like 5 years ago.

Are USIT really that bad of a travel agent?
Myself and 2 friends were quoted around €1600 each for return flights to Perth departing September 30th and a WHV package.
We went to Abbey Travel also and we were quoted pretty much the same.

mickoneill30

Deleted User wrote: »

Are USIT really that bad of a travel agent?
Myself and 2 friends were quoted around €1600 each for return flights to Perth departing September 30th and a WHV package.
We went to Abbey Travel also and we were quoted pretty much the same.

I've found them alright. If you give them enough notice and are flexible you'll get good prices from them. But that's the way with any travel agent. For my last couple of big trips I've used Usit & Trailfinders. The travel agents in Dublin seem to be able to get prices pretty similar to the prices you get from some of the sites people talk about on here.

Saying my trip was €1000 while somebody got one for €600 is a useless argument unless both trips were for roughly the same dates. I'm always flexible when booking holidays and always do it a fair few months in advance and get quotes from everybody, sometimes you can save a couple of hundred quid by going a couple of days earlier or later.

What got me on to travel agents was that I got married in 2006. So I wanted a holiday that was a bit special. Before that I would have had the view that online is always cheaper. I priced the places in Dublin and compared the prices with the ones online. At the time I couldn't beat the Usit price and there were some extras in it. So now I always compare the bricks and mortar with the online sites every year when I'm going away. The online sites can be very cheap if you're super flexible. Normally myself and my wife aren't or will pay an extra €50 if it means not sitting in an airport for 6 hours. Look it's up to yourself. In my opinion if I was spending more than a grand or two on a holiday I'd want to compare prices with a lot of vendors. Normally it takes half an hour to talk to somebody in a travel agent. If that's not worth it to you that's up to you.

Pisco Sour

I cant understand why people need to go through a travel agent to book a WHV. How hard is it to tick a few boxes, fill out your name and details. Literally anybody can do it. The process is completely painless and takes 20 minutes max.

If you are going straight from Ireland to Oz then just book the visa yourself and go onto Kayak and find the best deals for flights.

If you are travelling before Oz, like I was, then a travel agency are a good bet (Trailfinders, not USIT!). But even in this scenario, book your bleedin WHV yourself. Are people really that lazy!

Mellor

Deleted User wrote: »

Are USIT really that bad of a travel agent?
Myself and 2 friends were quoted around €1600 each for return flights to Perth departing September 30th and a WHV package.
We went to Abbey Travel also and we were quoted pretty much the same.

I think you missed the point. Other travel agents aren't much better, they are all out to take money from you.

But it this way, you aren't savvy enough to organise you own visa/flights to oz then you probably shouldn't be flying halfway around the world on your own. I imagine the same applies to the US. Anyone can do it, most are just not arse or unaware

mickoneill30

Mellor wrote: »

But it this way, you aren't savvy enough to organise you own visa/flights to oz then you probably shouldn't be flying halfway around the world on your own. I imagine the same applies to the US. Anyone can do it, most are just not arse or unaware

I don't agree with you there. I went to Australia 10 years ago. I could have easily arranged it myself but with the travel agent I arranged stop overs, trains, boats etc. It was an hour out of my time and at the time I was happy with the prices. We had a problem half way through the trip with a hotel that we were able to get the travel agent to fix which saved us hassle.
These guys do this every day so they know where there can be hassle or where they'd recommend you stay longer or shorter.
Yes I could have done it myself but I can also fix my car myself. I just prefer to get somebody to do it who has a bit more experience than me.
Yes if you want to, do it all yourself. I'm not saying don't but the internet doesn't always mean it's cheaper.

The caveats are

1: You need a decent travel agent. There are some woeful ones out there that don't have a clue. Using one of those is no better than just going to skyscanner with no clue etc.
2: You do need to be a bit smart. My analogy with the mechanic above is if you don't have a clue some will try and tell you the flux capacitor needs replacing.

I do (and don't) agree with you about the visa bit. Yes most people can arrange the visas themselves and I arranged mine myself with no hassle but there are a hell of a lot who you'd think would be smart enough who can have problems with this stuff. Where I work I support average intelligence people for their day - day (well paid) jobs. Some people are awfully incompetent with simple stuff. For those I'd recommend they use a third party to help them with their forms. If you mess visa applications up you get refused. One guy that sits near me has problems with his Gas bill, phone bill, bank balances, internet service, TV service every couple of months. If you listen to him tell it to you you'd think these were the worst companies in the world. If you listen to him on the phone he hasn't a clue and what's in his brain is not the services they're providing so he always has problems with them. It's depressing to see how much money he makes. If he told me tomorrow he was getting a Visa to Australia, I'd charge him myself and do it for him.

But like you say if you can't do that, maybe you shouldn't be travelling. I don't know how some of my users get in to work in the morning.

But it this way, you aren't savvy enough to organise you own visa/flights to oz then you probably shouldn't be flying halfway around the world on your own. I imagine the same applies to the US. Anyone can do it, most are just not arse or unaware

We could obviously do them ourselves but like Mick said I'd rather someone else do it so it's less hassle for us, also the package includes travel insurance, a bank account and a tax file number, again all things we could do ourselves but this saves us the the hassle of it, which I much prefer.