Originally Posted by dvs7310

I've actually yet to figure out the point of it other than a money grab. It doesn't seem to be checked by anyone. I had mine when I went in December, but my friend very spontaneously joined me on the trip, we got her ticket 36 hours before departure. Needless to say her NZeTA didn't process in time (which was odd, mine was issued within minutes), so I did some searching online and apparently it doesn't matter, you can still enter the country without anyone asking anything about it. Seems fairly common from what I found. (People did say you have to have a pending application, I don't know what would happen if you didn't apply at all)

She finally got the email that it was approved after being in the country for 4 days already.