$45 for a beer??? Are you kidding me???
We finally managed to get our upgrade to the club lounge at the intercontinental hotel in Sydney. It was an uphill struggle involving an email or two of epic snottiness to the parent company and rewards scheme but we got there in the end. So on Friday night we went for the free nibbles and drinks, and invited a colleague to join us. We knew we would likely have to pay for his drinks (we don’t In Wellington) but we were absolutely gobsmaked to be presented with a bill for a single bottle of beer which they expected $45!!! Ffs!
We flew off the handle a bit at this point. I don’t think the guy serving us knew what hit him. The lamentable excuse for this rampant scam is that this is what it costs to bring a guest up to the lounge for “twilight drinks”. We pointed out that our guest had a single bottle of beer -they hadn’t even brought him the pretentious and rather pointless tasting plate that passes for the nibbles! And to make matters worse the tasting plate only consisted of two mouthfuls of ridiculous food instead of the usual 4.
We made it quite clear that we were highly offended by all this and they could charge us for the single beer – and if they didn’t like it they could take it up with the managers office (who by this point possibly had us on speed dial). It was still a whopping $10.
We have had so many problems with this hotel. The cleaners keep removing our half drunk bottles of Pump water which we refill to use in the gym, so the hotel has to keep going out and buying us replacements. They also for some bizarre reason took our goggles from the room, and while they have found one pair they now have to stump up for the second pair.
What makes this worse is that everyone in that lounge bar us is paying about $180 MORE for access to the club lounge than we are and seem happy that a guest would cost them even more. The lounge is nice with nice views but it is not a relaxing place to be and it is just too stuck up for words.
Also on the high cost of living in Aussie- gold class cinmea tickets cost a silly $38 ($10 more than on a weekday). It’s $30 in Wellington whenever you go. And don’t think you will get an endless supply of free popcorn and soft drinks cos you won’t!
It’s a good job we are heading back to New Zealand tomorrow because I don’t think we can afford much more of Sydney.
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Do I just have a friendly face or something?
This post isn’t really about migrants, finances or even Sydney – just something happened today that made me smile.
Actually its been happening for a few days, and it happened just after I moved to Wellington a few years ago.
People keep coming up to me and asking for directions, help or information.
Yesterday, two people at bus stops asked me where to catch buses from to get them where they wanted to go, and another 3 asked me today. And a lady in Pitt St Mall asked me how to get to one of the shopping centres. Either I look like I know where I’m going – or do I just look less threatening than everyone else???
Sunrise from our Hotel
I can say that I was in a good mood. The sun is shining; its warm (apparently its freezing and chucking it down in Wellington), and we finally got club access at the hotel. And I don’t know whether it helped, but I finally managed to spend some of my hard-saved-up sanity allowance. One pair of shoes from Nine West; a pair of earrings, and three books. Not exactly going to cripple a credit card – but I still have some spending money left. And there’s a huge Apple store here in Sydney – where a very nice and helpful gut called Matt helped be sort out my iPod Nano and saved me having to spend $200 on a new one!
So it was a rough start to the week in Sydney – but it got better – and it looks as though I am no longer walking around scowling because I’m being fleeced every 5 minutes. I now seem to be smiling and look like I know what I’m doing. Yay for the free bus and smiling.
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Emigrate to New Zealand: The Importance of getting the right Visa.
We already know of one immigration “advisor” who has made a stack of money getting someone a work visa when they were able to get a residency visa. As these people are intending to stay permanently, they now have to go through the process all over again and pay out more money. Worse – the advisor is still telling them to just renew the work visa. This is frankly Idiotic.
Well, if you want to see why it’s a damn good idea, especially now, to get Residency if you can and not mess about with work visas; you need to look at this thread on Expat Exposed.
This guy has been on a work visa and doing the job for 2 years, and is now being told he cannot have a renewed visa. So he has to go home – at huge expense and upheaval and a great deal of stress.
Be very clear on this – with “recession” and “economic crisis” on everyone’s mind (whether or not it is legitimate) it means that getting Work Visas is going to be harder. And even worse, if you do get one and pack up all your worldly goods and make a permanent move to New Zealand – you may not get your visa renewed. In fact there seems to be a very high chance of not getting it renewed. You need to remember that only a Permanent Residence visa is actually permanent. Work Visas are temporary and you can be asked to leave New Zealand at the end of the term. If you have not converted to a residency permit – you have no automatic right to stay in New Zealand.
It pays to understand the difference and to know from the outset whether you intend this to be a Permanent move or just something you want to do for a few years. Bear in mind it can cost thousands of £££ to move your life over here, and then thousands more to have to move back if you were intending to stay forever, but only had work visas and they do not get renewed.
Be careful. If you don’t get a residency Visa then you cannot stay in New Zealand permanently.
PS: Expat Exposed is known to be one of the more negative New Zealand Migrant forums. I think this just acts as a balance for the ones where you are only allowed to say nice things – but do bear it in mind if you take a look, and please do not have a go at the posters. On the Bell Curve of migrants, there are always going to be people who have a hellish time from start to finish in their new life. They are no more making it up, or whinging, than the people for whom all is roses round the door and bluebirds twittering are making it up and living in cloud cookoo land.
The vast majority of us live on the normal bit of the curve – and just have a good time with a few bad days. You will never know what life in New Zealand will be like for you until you try it.
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Sydney is getting a bit better.
Now on our fourth day on the West Island, I think we may be getting the hang of Sydney, and learning how not to get ripped off every five minutes.
Tip 1. Always read the small print at the bottom of the Menu before you go into the restaurant.
Most restaurants have menus outside so you can check it before going in. At the bottom you will find a list of all the surcharges and when they apply. In addition to waterfront and weekend surcharges – I’ve seen a lot of places have an Amex surcharge as well.
Tip 2. Grab the free CBD bus (Bus 555).
This takes a circle route from Circular Quay at the harbour end of the CBD, all the way up Elizabeth St, over the top of the Chinese Friendship Garden and down George St., which actually covers all the main shopping areas. It travels both clockwise and anti-clockwise.
Funnily enough, the staff at the Intercontinental failed to mention this useful piece of info, despite the fact that it stops two seconds away from the front door. Apparently they tell you if you ask about it and seem awfully confused by the concept that you cannot ask about something you don’t know exists.
Tip 3. If you want to eat in the harbour area – head for the Right Hand Side of Circular Quay.
Circular Quay and the Rocks is the area where the Harbour Bridge and Opera house are, and where the ferries run from. It’s kind of a big “U” shape, with the ferry wharves at the bottom of the “U”. The opera house is at the end of the Right Hand arm, and the Harbour Bridge sits at the end of the Left hand arm, and this area turns into “The Rocks” region of Sydney.
Our experience shows that on the left hand side – you get a snotty attitude and can expect to pay £35-50 for a main course. On the Right hand side you can get a friendly attitude and pay $20-40 for a main course. The only difference really is that from the left you get a view of the Bridge, Luna Park Fairground and the Opera House, and on the right you can’t see the opera house. Best eat so far is the Chinese restaurant East.
Tip 4 – Carry Cash – not everywhere takes credit cards.
Maybe this is why New Zealand Banks think they are so advanced in that Eftpos is available almost everywhere in New Zealand. People seem shocked that you can use cards so much in the UK. Maybe it is because they are comparing with Australia, which does seem a bit behind.
Tip 5 – Make sure you know just how much your New Zealand Bank is going to screw you for in charges.
At $5 every time you take cash out (and that is on top of the “overseas margin” which is in turn on top of the margin on the exchange rate) you need to plan how you are going to spend money. Bear in mind you will also get charged a crap exchange rate and the “overseas margin” on any credit card purchases. Basically be prepared to get screwed.
This is one of those times when planning well in advance and having an overseas credit card that does not charge extortionate rates on foreign purchases is a bloody good move.
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The most amazing Dom Post letter I have ever seen.
I’m a huge fan of the Dom Post – Wellington’s local newspaper. Most of the articles are badly written drivel – but it is entertaining none the less. And best of all – I found that you could get a really interesting picture of what New Zealand people think by reading the letters page. A some of the letters are actually pretty offensive in my opinion, but to be honest I don’t think it hurts to see the mix of opinion that Kiwis hold – whether you agree with them or not.
A huge problem for a lot of migrants is the overriding belief in the phases “You never see … in New Zealand” or “Kiwis never…” or “Kiwis always…”. It can be very tempting to want to place our new home in a bubble where bad things don’t happen and everyone thinks and acts the same. It’s just never going to happen.
I think this letter in yesterdays Dom Post is the best explanation I have EVER seen. If more people were as wise as these school kids then there would be fewer arguments in life just because someone thinks differently or holds a different point of view. Particularly on the immigration forums. The letter refers to a Motel Owner in Palmerston North who has banned everyone from Wainuiomata on the basis that they are all thugs.
Wainui pupils explain
We write in response to recent media attention given to our community.
This is who we really are: We are the children of teachers, engineers, accountants, sales representatives, matai, volunteers, artists, musicians, retailers and the unemployed. We are Maori, Samoan, New Zealand European, Asian, Spanish, Niuean, Australian, Scottish and Greek. We are petrolheads, emos, sport stars, skaters, bikers, metalheads, geeks and gangsters.
For some of us, life is great. For others, it is not. For some of us, our families make enough to support us. For others, it’s a struggle. Most of us do well at school. A few of us struggle. Some of us have two parents; some of us don’t.
We like to party, dance, go to church, drive, play sport, sleep, go for long walks on the beach, drink, shop, read, write and chill out. We don’t like bad reps, being judged, Supreme Motor Lodge, racists, sexists, Miley Cyrus, wannabes, liars and doing homework.
We are who we are. We are not perfect. We are Wainuiomata. We are real. We are a community and we have a future. We are no different from anyone else.
YEAR 11 ENGLISH CLASS
Wainuiomata High School
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No sign of recession in Sydney.
Our second day in Sydney was another one of eye-watering prices and being ripped off. I think I know where the term “whinging pom” comes from – I object to being fleeced at every opportunity!
The term “rip off Britain” has been very popular over the past few years – but I do wonder if that is fair – or if every country has suffered the same thing. Bear in mind that many Kiwi’s happen to think that New Zealand has a tendency to rip them off – and I think that perhaps the UK got a bit of an unfair deal in this area.
What I can tell you is that in Sydney yesterday – there was a 10% surcharge at every restaurant on the waterfront and in Darling Harbour. This was not because it’s Mothers day over here (BTW – Happy Mother’s Day Mum – hope you are having a nice goodbye trip back home). No – it was because it was the weekend!!!
How about that for being robbed blind? To make matters worse – during the week you can usually get a 2 for one voucher – which means that at the weekend you are paying about 220% of the price you would pay during the week. And guess what – they were heaving! People were literally queuing up for the opportunity to be fleeced – so I have to say there’s no sign of any belt tightening going on. It didn’t help that once again we met this insistence that we had to pay extra to swap veggies for potatoes – which apart from any other stupidity means that they are also trying to charge you for food you don’t eat!
One saving grace on the food front – City Express on Circular Quay. A 24 hour café that will serve anything on the menu at any time of day or night. Because I wanted Bacon and Eggs without the bread –0 they charged me for 2 bits of bacon and 2 eggs as separate items – which saved me $1.80. And refills on coffee are free. And they are on the waterfront with no surcharge. You do get a surcharge between midnight and 6am – but to be honest if I wanted food at that time – I think paying a bit extra for the convenience and for staff prepared to work at that time is actually fair.
I was nearly in tears at the price of a cinema ticket – $28 each ($33NZD) – which is more than you would pay for a Gold Class seat back home – but then this was in the IMAX cinema, and the Star Trek film we watched was so good that in the end I thought it was well worth any money they wanted to charge.
There’s no getting away from the fact though that Sydney is a very expensive place to visit – and if restaurants thought they could charge extra for allowing you to sneeze – they would probably try it.
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Why would anyone want to move to Australia???
Filed under: Cost of living, General Budgeting, Life in New Zealand
Since IBM finally sorted out the flights (with a last minute attempt to change their mind of course) we are now in Sydney for 8 days. Already I want to go back to the peace, quiet and decent customer service that makes New Zealand such a cool place to live.
I guess having to get up a 4am to catch the 6am flight possible put me on a slightly disgruntled footing to start with. And even though we travelled on our swanky New Zealand Passports we were held up at immigration by the slowest customs officer you have ever seen in your life. But it was a glorious sunny and warm morning by the time we arrived – which meant I honestly was in a good mood.
Didn’t last long when we got to the hotel to find that our automatic upgrade at the Intercontinental wasn’t that flash. (We stay at the Wellington Intercontinental an awful lot, both with hubby’s work, and our property business – so we have the priority club points to get an awful lot of freebies). While we did get an “upgrade” it was to a harbour view room, but with 2 pokey beds instead of one big bed, so we either have to be rather “cosy” or sleep separately. Not exactly what we were after. And no club lounge access – which is a real kicker (great for the budget conscious as long as you don’t have to pay extra for the privilege as you get free breakfast, sometimes lunch and evening nibbles). In fact the only thing we are actually getting is free Internet access. The staff here are quite stuck up and snobby and it makes a huge difference when compared to the friendliness of the Wellington staff.
Not a great start.
The rest of the day went ok, as we hit the shops. New Zealand is honestly not that great for shopping – so it makes a nice change to be able to get something a bit different. My patience with this lasted about half an hour before the novelty wore off – I am not one of natures “shopaholics” at the best of times.
Then on to dinner, and this is where the day descended into a bit of a nightmare and I wanted to get back on Kiwi soil fast. We headed to a restaurant called Wolfies on the Rocks. We had been there before on our last brief trip here. It didn’t start well when the waitress refused to leave the jug of water on the table (I think we caused offence by not wanting to buy an overpriced bottle). We both ordered steaks: hold the chips and could we have veggies instead? The waitress decided she needed to check with the head chef – who it appears got all uppity and told us we couldn’t (or we could – but we had to pay an extra $8(AUD) for the privilege of NOT eating the bloody chips and having healthy veggies instead. Given that this meal was costing $45 (an eye watering $57 NZD) each PLUS a $3.50 surcharge each “just because we can” – I lost the plot. I was so upset at the arrogance of the tosser. The waitress didn’t help by saying “its not my fault”, and the manager – who was by this point bringing two diet cokes to our table and wondering why we were leaving was shocked and said that of course we could swap out the potatoes. I told him it was too late and that his head chef was an idiot – and we left.
To the next door restaurant (funnily enough owned by the same company) who said they could do whatever we needed to, brought us a free glass of wine each to help cheer us up, and did indeed swap out the bit of the meal I couldn’t eat. We spent significantly more money that we would have done – because they were so nice to us – and we will be going back there later this week. (Waterfront restaurant by the way).
This does raise and interesting point for migrants though: many people choose to move to Australia because the wages are generally higher than in New Zealand. But bloody hell it can be expensive here. We paid $101 AUD for 2 main courses, a glass of wine and some sparkling water. That’s about $130 NZD – which is what we would expect to pay for at least two courses at Logan Browns in Wellington (generally regarded as the best of the flash restaurants). If you ever want to eat out again – you may want to consider New Zealand over Australia. And you don’t get the snotty attitude with it!
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We are getting upgraded planes on the Masterton to Auckland run :)
OK, so I lied – but you gotta admit – it is just so “New Zealand” to have a pokey little town play host to a recreation Lancaster Bomber – and what’s more – to have the thing sitting at our tiny little one-shed airport.
To put this into UK perspective – it would be like my old hometown of Hereford having a major movie set installed on the outskirts. Somehow I just can’t imagine it. Masterton is playing host the bomber because Peter Jackson is filming a remake of Dambusters, and I’m figuring we can expect it to be pretty good.
Unfortunately you can’t get close to the plane to have a good look. There are even security guards at the back entrances to the aerodrome at the moment – highly unusual.
If you happen to have a thing for old planes (I don’t) it is worth knowing that every 2 years you can see Wings Over Wairarapa at Masterton – a 2 day spectacular of dogfights and showing off with old planes. Even I have to admit it is pretty stunning. On the other hand – we get to see all the practice runs from our house anyway, not hugely unlike watching the RAF dogfights over the Malverns (just with Bi-Planes instead of harriers).
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Westpac says I’m not a person.
Filed under: Banks, Interest Rates, Credit Cards & Mortgages in NZ, Life in New Zealand, Property & General Investing
One of my Rental property mortgages is with Westpac bank, and I’ve had the mortgage for about 18 months now. I have had nothing but problems and agro with it – despite the fact that the only thing it needs to do is take a single payment each month from my ASB business account to pay the mortgage with. You would not think that was too tricky would you – especially for the “most advanced banking system in the world” (allegedly).
You would be so woefully wrong.
For a start – Westpac (and ANZ it turns out – so it’s a NZ wide problem) cannot – simply cannot – take a direct debit from another bank to pay the mortgage. Instead – I have to have a second account with them from which they can take the payment. Personally I think this is simply a scam so that they can claim they have 2 new accounts instead of one! The first problem with this – is that I have to make sure I deposit enough money into the fake “second account” so that Westpac will always have the funds to pay the mortgage with. (Because it would also be too easy to work out the interest payable for a year – and divide by 12, so each month they charge a different amount of interest on an interest-only mortgage).
The second problem this causes – is that over a few months – money builds up in the fake Westpac account – and is neither usable (because it is not my working business account), nor do they even have the courtesy to pay interest on it. So every few months – I have to log into the Internet banking system and manually transfer the extra back to my real business account at ASB.
Only Westpac won’t hold my user ID and password for more than a few weeks. Which means every time I need to do this I have to go through a farce to get MY money out of THEIR account. The reason? I’m not a person!
If I want to be able to speak to customer services – I have to open a THIRD account in my personal name( for which of course I have to pay!) Then they will talk to me! Because my accounts are in a Business name – they cannot and will not deal with me. I was told for the first time last week that the way round this if for my manager to provide me with a pin number which allows customer service to determine that I am in fact real.(Seriously – I am NOT making this up). My new manager was going to provide me with said Pin – but funnily enough it hasn’t materialised yet. A letter introducing the new manager to me has however come through – inviting me to a financial review to that they can “better understand my financial goals”.
With westpac – I have one goal – to get access to my bloody account and not have to go though all this stupidity.
Until then – I have to
a/ find out who my manager is (it keeps changing without notice,)
b/ try and get hold of them (bearing in mind that Customer Service cannot tell me who they are because Im not a person)
c/ get them to renew my user Id and Password
d/ go into the internet banking and then re-change the password because the one the manager gave me will only let me in to do that – it doesn’t actually give me access to the damn account.
E/ Pay the money back to my real account.
Guess what the excuse for this? Security. What a load of old tosh. It is pure incompetence and laziness and idiocy.
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There are 735 jobs in New Zealand right now paying over $100k.
Well-paid jobs are supposed to be rare as hens teeth here – with many people swearing blind that you cannot get high wages. So I found a bit interesting today when I got a Jobs Newsletter from Trade Me saying that there 700 jobs listed with salaries over $100k.
If you actually look at trade me – there are 735 “six figure salary” jobs – out of 5200 listed. That means that 14% of the jobs listed have salaries of over 100k. Not bad really – and in an “economic crisis”!
Now – you can also easily see that most of the vacancies at this level are in IT roles – not unsurprising. The next best bet is engineering.
And also – out of 208 IT jobs in New Zealand – 84 of them are in Wellington. Which means that even though Auckland has three times the population of Wellington – Wellington has 40% of the high paid IT jobs.
Still wanna go to Auckland???
This is a newspaper cutting of salaries from last year – IT does well as usual but it also shows once again that Wellington pays better than Auckland. And the houses are cheaper (though at the moment you can probabaly get some really good deals on houses in Auckland).
A slight word of caution though – we do know of IT companies offering jobs at considerably less than the advertised rate once they have gone through the whole interview process. The usual excuse is of course the flippin’ recession – and it seems it is not considered false advertising when it is your job we are talking about!
You can set up your trade me account to email you a list of jobs in the categories you are looking at. You can set the email for daily or weekly, just be aware that the email that comes through does not include all the jobs available that week – you will need to go onto the Trade me site and get the full list.
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