Working Holiday Visa...

[BeeDubby]

So my girlfriend is coming to Australia from Texas in 2 weeks. She's getting a Working Holiday Visa for this. That's 12 months. And she's just got a one way ticket as she doesn't know when she'd want to go back (if she wants to stay longer than a year we'd look into other visa's for her to get later on). But what I was wondering, is when she gets off the plane and goes through customs they'll interview her right? Is she best off mentioning the truth for her visit (to meet her boyfriend she met online and spend a year with him) or would she be better off not mentioning that?
Cheers.
=)

[snow_girl]

Tell them she is there on a holiday working visa. Thats al they need to know

[Moon]

Americans can get a working holiday visa for Australia? I didn't think we could.

[lucybelle]

Never lie, but never volunteer information they didn't ask for.

[Dezface]

I'm on a working holiday visa right now. I wasn't interviewed at all whatsoever. But of course, it's always a possibility. I personally don't think it would matter too much what the reason is. I know a lot of people say to lie but I've never felt a need. In fact, I'm going home for a visit and returning to Oz while still on it. I'm clearly pregnant and if they ask, I'll tell the truth and say I'm here to finish my working holiday and then lodge a de facto visa.


But if you're worried she can always just say she's visiting friends or wants to see the country. I doubt, coming from The States, that she'll get too much grief.

[BeeDubby]

Geeze, this has done a lot to lower the stress and worry I've had about this. Cheers guys. =) OK, shall relay the advice back to her.
Now it's just about waiting on visa approval. From all I've read about it there shouldn't be a problem. She only filed her application online about 16 hours ago. It usually takes 24-48 hours to find out yes? Can you find out if you're approved on the weekend? Once all this visa stuff is sorted out I'll feel like I can relax more and just be 100% excited.

[Dezface]

Geeze, this has done a lot to lower the stress and worry I've had about this. Cheers guys. =) OK, shall relay the advice back to her.
Now it's just about waiting on visa approval. From all I've read about it there shouldn't be a problem. She only filed her application online about 16 hours ago. It usually takes 24-48 hours to find out yes? Can you find out if you're approved on the weekend? Once all this visa stuff is sorted out I'll feel like I can relax more and just be 100% excited.

I believe I applied on a Friday and got approved on Monday. You won't get an answer on the weekend. The visa stuff is very stressful...but the Working Holiday is on the super easy side of visa issues. So fingers crossed you'll get an approval super quick!

[Zapookie]

My SO applied for the WHV on a weekday and got a reply about 24 hours later. You don't need a return ticket but they recommend you have funds of at least 5k. My SO bought a copy of his bank statement but when customs stopped him and scanned his passport, he just told them he was coming for a working holiday, and they let him through and didn't bother to check. I have heard of people being checked though, it really depends on the officer (and sometimes whether or not they're having a bad day.) Chances are low though

[BeeDubby]

I don't know why this Visa thing ended up being such a hassle for us. It ended up taking over 2 weeks for approval. Which wouldn't have been so bad if we hadn't left applying for the visa so late. We applied about 2 weeks before her flight for it (a friend had misinformed us that the visa started immediately from when you got approved so we should apply right before the flight) and her flight day came with no visa approval. So we had to pay $106 to change the flight on the day of the flight. She just got approved today and paid another $100 to change her flight to tomorrow, we're sick of waiting hahaha. We're thinking next time we have to deal with visa stuff that we'll just go through a migration agency so we don't have to deal with as much stress. Has anyone used one of them before?

[Ashley1987]

Americans can get a working holiday visa for Australia? I didn't think we could.

Yep, I was on a WHV for a year. It's a shame America doesn't offer something like this. Would make life so much easier on me and the fiance!