And they made the transit safely and even found the lounge.

They didn't try at SIN - I thought life was too short to try and explain it

They were however almost refused entry to New Zealand. They're doing a bit of a complicated thing, going EDI-LHR-SYD-AKL on one ticket, then AKL-SYD on second ticket, before cruising to BKK and returning on their first ticket BKK-LHR-EDI. However, they had not bought their ticket for the AKL-SYD leg, since they'll be in NZ a month, they were going to pick it up while they were out there. And as a result, almost fell foul of the no return ticket requirement (seems harsh to me as they had evidence of travel onwards after departing NZ since they have their boat tickets and onward flight from BKK, just not the NZ-SYD section of me, but then I don't know the actual NZ rules and they were let in after a bit of a scare and after getting a family member to vouch for them!).