JamesBigglesworth

This bears repeating because people don't seem to understand: there is ALWAYS 24/7/365 a NZ Immigration officer available that the airlines can call for direct approvals for odd situations such as data not synced. At certain departure points around the world (it varies where) there may even be a local INZ officer available for the airlines to contact for approvals. If the airline says they can't then they are choosing not to.

The idea that Immigration NZ Operations only work M-F 9-5 is ridiculous. They're not Fiji or India.

yyzprincess

Thank you for your advise.
The ETA was approved yesterday with the following clause: his NZeTA authorises you to travel to or transit New Zealand. You must have a valid Australian Permanent Residence Visa and Resident Return Visa, in your current passport, when you travel. When you travel to New Zealand, you must check in with the passport listed here.
I am not Australian resident. I accidentally clicked " Yes".
There is 24 hour number to call however it is for ID. They gave me the contact details to NZ immigration dept that handles NZeTA ;That dept hours: MON-FRI 9-5PM NZ time.
I will give them a call this afternoon YYZ time.

yyzprincess

Took your advise. This morning NZ time; NZ immigration dept that handles NZeTA. Spoke to the officer. Because it was just 1 question that I answered incorrectly, the officer could not do the change. I had to re-apply. I will go ahead & re-apply later this week.
Thanks again for your advise

progapanda

Do folks have information on whether I am able to stay in NZ past the expiry date of my NZ eTA? I'm planning a return trip, ideally using my existing eTA, and I understand that I may enter NZ prior to eTA expiry but that the permissible length of my stay will determined by the visa granted to me upon entry (e.g., 90 days for a U.S. citizen). So if my NZ eTA expires during my stay but after my entry, then that is alright as long as I leave within 90 days of entry. I've not been able to see this spelled out clearly on immigration.govt.nz and I am just trying to confirm whether I need to re-apply for an NZ eTA to have it specifically be valid for the entire duration of my stay?

I'll try contacting the NZ authorities directly too, if necessary, but wanted to ask here in case anyone had been in a similar situation and had had a clearer answer from them already.

tauphi

The expiry date on the eTA only applies to your entry. Once you're in NZ it becomes irrelevant and you must leave within 90 days of that particular entry.

ElevatorEnthusiast

Datapoint: I was approved for a NZeTA within less than a minute. I completed the steps in the iOS app, paid 52 NZD, received the pending email, and 30 seconds later, received the issued email. Refreshing the status in the app shows the same. US citizen holding US passport.

Merrula

Same here; applied thru the NZeTA & rec'd approval within a couple of minutes. I then added my travel partner & his took a bit longer, but still under an hour.

tauphi

My most recent experience was that one went through instantly on a weekend as a non-Australian resident, while the other application as an Australian permanent resident required manual attention and was approved in the morning on the following Monday.

Buster

We were checking in at LAX for our flight in January and it seemed that half of our flight was standing in the concourse frantically applying for their eTas. I don’t think anyone ultimately missed the flight.

crazyhorse

I applied about a month in advance of our recent week long trip to NZ. However at no time was I ever asked about it - not at the check-in counter at MSP where we checked in bags and picked up our boarding passes, not at the gate at LAX where we boarded the actual flight to AKL nor at AKL. It was as if this wasn't even a requirement.

Is the validation done at the backend and no one said anything because everything was in order or did I just waste about $100 for 3 people?

Nayef

I’ve heard similar stories about the UK ETA lately from those flying out of Saudi where some said the airlines asked to see proof of it at check-in and some said they didn’t say anything, and none of the people I’ve asked said anyone brought it up in the UK though they presume officers just saw they have a valid ETA while checking their passport info during passport control but didn’t mention anything.

I don’t know if you went though egates at AKL or regular manned passport control booths but it could be the case that the officers there saw you have a valid eTA on their system or that the egates also detected a valid eTA and no one needed to ask for it.

Merrula

The NZeTA is electronically linked to your passport number, so airlines & NZ immigration don’t need to ask for it.

docbert

All of the "electronic" authorities/visas are automatically checked at check-in. That's not to say that you might not have a rogue check-in agent ask to see one, but there should be no need, and the whole process should be completely transparent. This is the case for NZ, Australia, the US, the UK, Canada and numerous others.

Whilst obviously not NZ, as an example, I recently flew to Canada. As a US Permanent Resident I don't need a Canadian eTA, but UA's online check-in system hasn't been updated to handle that exception (which was only added last year) so I got half-way through the online check-in process in their app and it rejected me because I didn't have an eTA. Given they are only a few dollars I went over and went through the eTA process, was approved, and then immediately just back to the UA app and tried to check-in - which this time was successful. At no point did I give United any additional/different info on that second time through - they simply re-checked with the CA government systems, who approved my check-in due to the approved eTA.

Explore

Not sure exactly what information they ask for in the ETA application, but if they ask for a return flight/date, what if I change that after arrival, because of a points opportunity or for some other reason? Thanks....

docbert

The NZeTA is good for 2 years, and only needs to be valid at the time of entry. Your exit date doesn't matter (nor does your entry date, as long as it's within 2 years!)