Originally Posted by
cranky1K
UA sent me an email to advise that New Zealand will require an ETA beginning 1 October and included a link to NZ immigration. Anyone gone through the process? Any hope of 1Ks getting the fee comped?
In a word, no. The NZ fees are very different to the AU fees.
The fee charges by the Australian Government for an Australia ETA, when done by a "travel agent" (ie, United) through the GDS is $0. The travel agent is allowed charge a fee to cover their time/costs, but 100% of that money goes to the TA. If you do it via the
official publicly available website, then there is a fee of A$20 (about US$14).
The NZeTA is a different story. There are two parts to the fee for that - a NZ$9/NZ$12 fee for applying (depending on whether you apply via their website or their app), plus a "International Visitor Conservation and Tourism Levy" of NZ$35 which is payable by most visitors if you're not just in transit. I don't know if travel agents have to pay the $9/$12 fee if they apply via the GDS (or if that's even possible), but they certainly would have to pay the $35 fee so the odds of them comping it are basically zero...