Finding Travel Insurance | Tuesday Travels

Travel insurance is an annoying little bugger. It's one of those things that you don't always think about but is necessary. If you're going to Europe it's not such a problem as you can get a EHIC card and you're covered. Easy. So if you're going to Europe, and live in Europe grab yourself one as it's the cheapest travel insurance you'll ever get. However, if you're going elsewhere you need to get yourself some proper insurance. You may be thinking, nah nothing will happen to me. But even if you're the safest, most sensible person in the world you could still need insurance.

Travel insurance doesn't just cover you for medical and health purposes, it also covers your baggage, passport, if you have to come home early anything. A lot of these things you have no control over. If your baggage gets lost on the plane there's nothing you can do about so travel insurance will be handy as many offer a certain amount of money to cover your baggage and belongings.

There are a lot of policies out there though and finding the one for you can be difficult. So like with choosing flights, with travel insurance you need to do your research and you need to shop around before you commit to anything.

You need to make sure your policy is going to cover what you want it to. A lot only cover for a certain amount of days at a time so if your going for four, five, six months check the policy will cover you for that long. The best thing to do in those circumstances is to have a look on a website like gocompare. They will show you every policy that covers your dates and the price. Obviously some will be madly expensive and others will be slightly cheaper. When I first looked mine ranged from £120 - £300 but that's because I'm going for a long time. If you're on a budget then obviously look at the cheaper ones but make sure the medical covers you for at least £2 million, that sounds extravagant but America and Australia will charge the earth just to call an ambulance out and you don't want to get stuck with a whopping bill because you're insurance doesn't cover it.

Also check the excess. You don't want to make a claim and then find you've got pay £500 out of it when you know you won't have that money. Be realistic about it.

Once you've got an idea of what you think you need and want from your insurance start shopping around. The post office and your bank or building societies are great places to look. The post office are great for travelling requirements generally but I didn't find they were the cheapest. Different banks and building societies may offer deals depending on the type of account you hold with them and how long you've been banking so it's worth asking. But don't expect it, my building society offered me no discount and I've banked with them all my life.

There are tonnes of companies who don't put themselves on comparison websites so it's important to just have a google and see what you get. I googled 'working holiday insurance' 'australian insurance' 'young person working holiday insurance' and lot's of other things and found a great website which is perfectly suited to the type of  holiday I'm going on. Google will forever be your best friend when planning a trip so don't be scared to google ridiculous things to find what you want. You may find a gem.

So there's a few little tips and tricks and places to look if like me you're putting off getting you're insurance. The longer you put it off the more expensive it's going to get so dive it and get it sorted. It will be super exciting when you do - one step closer and £120 lighter.

Ticket Choices, So Many Choices | Tuesday Travels

You may remember a couple of weeks ago on Tuesday Travels I spoke about my tickets arriving. In the post I spoke briefly about how I went about choosing my tickets and booking them. It was quite a drawn out experience, mainly because I left getting my visa quite late (you can also read my top tips for getting your visa if you're a bit confused about the whole process) and I looked into every option. I realise not everyone will have the time to do that so I thought I'd give you my top tips to getting the tickets you really want, and more to the point need.

1) Know Where You Want To Land
Not every airline flies to every major airport in Australia. Some fly to Sydney and Perth, some to Brisbane and Sydney some only to Sydney, among other combinations. If you want to land in Sydney for whatever reason, there's no point looking at flights with airlines that only fly to Perth. Check that first otherwise you could spend some time looking at flight options that aren't even available to you.
For me this was quite complicated, originally I was going to fly to Perth and then fly back from Sydney. However, due to constraints on Jack's return flight this wasn't possible so I'm now flying to and from Brisbane. Every time I decided to fly to a different city, the airline I was looking at flying with changed. It's not the simplest of places to fly to as it's so vast you want to be certain that were you're flying too is where you're happy to spend a fair amount of time initially.

2) Shop Around
This probably should have been number one because I can't stress enough how important this is. I booked who I booked through because it was the same travel agent Jack used and it was therefore, simpler for the return situation. However, I did look elsewhere first.
I initially went to my local high street travel agents, this was mainly to get some ideas. I wasn't going with any intention to book but I'm so glad I went. The quote I got for the flights I wanted was £300 more than the quote I got from anywhere else. This is why you should shop around. Don't worry about having to wait a week longer, if you're saving sums of money such as £300 it doesn't matter.
I ended up book with Trailfinders over the phone, but they do have stores across the country. It was really simple and the people I spoke to where brilliant. I'd definitely recommend them. I felt very confident that they knew what they were talking about, and I've contacted them a couple of times since booking and they've been able to find my reference in seconds and sorted my question just as quickly.
STA, however, are also another company I looked at booking with. They offered me exactly the same quote as Trailfinders did and they were just as helpful. They again have stores across the country and are available over the phone and by e-mail. I would recommend, them I just felt more confident booking with Trailfinders mainly due to personal reasons. I also felt the contact I had with them was better than I got with STA.

3) Expedia
If you're not sure which airlines fly to Australia, or which airlines fly to the city of your choice check out Expedia. Great for two reasons. You get all options available to you on one page. Every airline that flies to that city will be there. They're also listed from lowest to highest price so you can find airlines that suit your budget really easily. I wouldn't recommend booking with them as I feel when it's such a long flight and so far away having contact with your travel agent is a must for various reasons. Expedia will also give you details of any stops you will have to make on your journey, so if you want to do a night stop over or just a few hours you'll be able to easily find which airlines offer which.

So they're my three top tips for choosing your tickets. At the end of the day it is personal choice and personal circumstances come into it a lot. However, these tips should cover all bases especially if, like me, this is your first time booking flights for yourself or even if it's just your first time heading off to Australia. It is daunting, let's be honest, it's the other side of the world. But finding the right travel agent and the right airline is really comforting.

I hope these help any of you confused souls out, I was certainly confused when I set out to book my tickets. There are so many choices it's very easy to get lost, but I think these tips should help a little. So, happy ticket buying.

Choosing a Visa OR Learn From My Stressful Experience | Tuesday Travels

There are many things in life that tend to stress me out - trivial pursuit with my Dad, my Nan critcising people's driving whilst in the wrong lane on a roundabout, my bank balance. But as of recently, I can now add 'choosing a visa and acquiring said visa' to the list of things that stress me out.  So being the helpful, considerate human being that I am here is my list of things to do to ensure that your visa acquiring experience is less stressful that mine, and even possibly enjoyable (but I'm not a miracle worker so don't hold me to that.)

1) Look Into Every Visa Thoroughly

The website to use for getting your Australian visa is the Australian Visa Bureau. It includes a lot of information about all the visa's that are on offer to you, and there are a fair few. You'll be able to rule out some straight away, for instance I could rule out a 'Skilled Migration Visa' because I am no planning on immigrating and I'm not skilled, therefore quite simply ruled out. However, I was stuck between the Working Holiday Visa and bog standard,  simple Tourist Visa. (For those who want to know I opted for the Working Holiday Visa). The website does give a lot of information about both visa's, however I still had a few questions so I emailed them. This is something you shouldn't be scared to do at any point of planning your trip, you don't want to agree to something then find out later that's it not really what you wanted. If you feel you need more information to make a fully informed choice than make sure you get it whether that be emailing or even phoning someone to find out that information.

2) Visa First, Flights Second

Don't book any flights until you've secured your visa. Mine only took a few days to come through so I didn't have to wait long to book my flights. That's not saying yours will be as quick, but either way still don't book flights. Flights to Australia are super expensive, I thought I was going to have to ask my parents to re-mortgage the house when I got my first quote, so you don't want to spend £800 (Oh how I wish mine had been that cheap) on flights then get your visa rejected and have to cancel flights or something silly.

3) Make Sure You Meet All the Requirements

It sounds ridiculous, but read over the visa requirements several times, make sure you could tick off every one of them. Again, you don't want your visa to be rejected because you haven't read the requirements for the visa thoroughly. Some of the requirements will come into play closer to when you leave for Australia, well at border control, such as making sure you have a return ticket or the funds to purchase one. The Australian government like to know your coming home, and if you can't prove you can leave the country at some point they quite simply won't let you in. Don't be stupid about it, if you're not 100% sure that you will have the funds to purchase a return ticket once in Australia don't risk it. It's not worth taking a twenty-four hour flight to be sent home before you've even left the airport.

4) Take Cost and Time into Consideration

As I said earlier I was stuck between the Working Holiday and the Tourist visa. For me it came down to how long I want to stay in Australia. The simple answer is - I don't know. For all I know I might get there and decided I want to be there three months, or I could decide I want to be there a year. With the Tourist visa I wouldn't have that option as it only lasts three months, so although the Working Holiday costs A LOT more money (you'll find expense is a recurring theme if you decide to travel to Australia) it was the better option for me.

5) Don't Leave it to the Last Minute

The main reason my visa experience became so stressful was because I left it so late to needing to book my tickets. This goes back to tip number two. I hadn't considered that I should probably make sure that the Australian's would actually have me in their country before booking tickets. When it came to booking my tickets I was asked if I had my visa, when I told them I hadn't the lovely young man on the end of the phone essentially told me to go away and come back when I'd got one. Of course I knew I'd potentially lose the cheap seats (cheap by the standards of the airline I had to book with due to my other halfs already booked flights, don't worry he got an earful), I'd secured on the phone and may not get a flight on the day I wanted because time is of the essence when travelling. Luckily my visa came back really quickly, however this isn't the case for everyone and if mine had taken a few days longer I'd have definitely lost the cheap seats and the date I wanted. So long story short, organise your visa way ahead of even thinking about a date of flying. Your visa doesn't activate until you enter Australia so don't worry about it expiring.

So those are my four tips for choosing an Australian visa. I hope someone finds them helpful, or at least finds that they make the experience less stressful, I'm sure either way your experience won't be as hectic as mine. So good luck, and enjoy the visa acquiring experience.