International Transfer at Sydney Airport to Auckland

Can someone share their experience with doing an international transfer at the Sydney Airport continuing on to Auckland. My wife and I fly into Sydney from the US and arrive at 7:50 am and need to book a flight to continue to Auckland and we are arriving in Sydney on Virgin Australia. How much time between flights should we need? Do we need to collect our Bags and Recheck them? Does that require Customs and Immigration?

Would appreciate any insight provided.:eek:

Can someone share their experience with doing an international transfer at the Sydney Airport continuing on to Auckland. My wife and I fly into Sydney from the US and arrive at 7:50 am and need to book a flight to continue to Auckland and we are arriving in Sydney on Virgin Australia. How much time between flights should we need? Do we need to collect our Bags and Recheck them? Does that require Customs and Immigration?

Would appreciate any insight provided.:eek:

You can transfer direct to an International destination from your inbound flight without going through Australian customs. There are signs just after getting off the planes directing you to the international departures lounges. We just flew Etihad/Virgin from Frankfurt via Abu Dhabi and noted this.

Bags can be checked through to your final destination but best to book with an alliance airline of Virgin.

Bags can be checked through to your final destination but best to book with an alliance airline of Virgin.

After all, Virgin is not a member of any alliance, although it has a number of codeshare partners.

Or, at the other extreme, would they online bags on two separate tickets? There are some airlines that won't even do that.

We are doing this trip also DFW to SYD to AKL we connect in SYD with Jet Connect, Qantas partner, hopefully they check bags all the way to AKL glad to hear to you can just walk to International terminal after deplaning in SYD. Steve

We are doing this trip also DFW to SYD to AKL we connect in SYD with Jet Connect, Qantas partner, hopefully they check bags all the way to AKL glad to hear to you can just walk to International terminal after deplaning in SYD. Steve

Under Qantas policies, Qantas will through-check your bags all the way to AKL whether you are doing DFW-AKL on one ticket or whether you have a separate ticket covering SYD-AKL.

It's not really a question of walking to the international terminal. When you disembark the DFW-SYD flight, you are already in the international terminal, on the arrivals level. All you need to do is to clear transfer security and go up one level to the departures level, from which your SYD-AKL flight will depart. If you get anywhere near the immigration counters, you've gone too far.

(Questions about what Virgin will do for focusedcruiser arise because they are buying a separate ticket from SYD to AKL.)

Can someone share their experience with doing an international transfer at the Sydney Airport continuing on to Auckland. My wife and I fly into Sydney from the US and arrive at 7:50 am and need to book a flight to continue to Auckland and we are arriving in Sydney on Virgin Australia. How much time between flights should we need? Do we need to collect our Bags and Recheck them? Does that require Customs and Immigration?

Would appreciate any insight provided.:eek:

Hi Focusedcruiser,

International transfer, you should always allow for delays, landing at 8.50am is a busy time in Sydney airport, in saying that I have had a quick look at direct flights from Sydney to Auckland in the next month and the earliest flight would be around 9am with Air NZ a Virgin partner.

For baggage IMO if you advise the staff at the check in counter in the US that you would like it checked through to NZ they can do that for you. As long as your onward travel is with Virgin or a partner airline.

I think you will find that any airline that doesn't partner with another airline you would have to collect your baggage and check in again.

Hope this is helpful to you, happy travels

:)

We are doing this trip also DFW to SYD to AKL we connect in SYD with Jet Connect, Qantas partner, hopefully they check bags all the way to AKL glad to hear to you can just walk to International terminal after deplaning in SYD. Steve

Hello,

I had similar flights in March (DFW-SYD, SYD-AKL & SYD-DFW all on Qantas) though our flight to Auckland was after three nights in Sydney.

A great tip I got was to buy a 30 day membership, for $100, to the American Airlines Admirals Club which allows access to the Qantas Business Class Club in Sydney, along with the AA club in Dallas. I did the purchase online.

The Qantas Club was great, plenty of room, hot food, beer, wine, coffee, showers, good wifi & plenty of Apple desktop computers. Not sure how long your layover is in Sydney but it was the best $100 investment I ever made. The 30 day membership also allowed access for my wife.

Chris

Thank you all for your very helpful insight. I guess my question is answered with the fact that I need to make sure we have a little layover time just in case we need to recheck our bags. We are leaving Florida on Delta to Lax and the Virgin Australia from Lax to Sydney at which point I need a Partner from Sydney to Auckland to insure the bags can be directed through to Auckland Correct? Does anyone know who is code share partners with Virgin in Australia?::confused:

Thank you all for your very helpful insight. I guess my question is answered with the fact that I need to make sure we have a little layover time just in case we need to recheck our bags. We are leaving Florida on Delta to Lax and the Virgin Australia from Lax to Sydney at which point I need a Partner from Sydney to Auckland to insure the bags can be directed through to Auckland Correct? Does anyone know who is code share partners with Virgin in Australia?::confused:

why did you not stay in CA for a night.. takes two flights from FL and 2 more to NZ. i would of usev Air NZ or Qantas as it would of been easier...

never flown a plane by Virgin- not familar with the code shares..

Virgin flies from Aus to NZ….

Yes Mrs Waldo, Virgin indeed flies from Sydney to NZ.

Too bad, the International First Qantas Lounges out of Sydney/ Melbourne are actually probably the best I've been in. Beats Singapore ( great food but dated lounge- almost as bad as Hawaii in that regard), LAX which basically is business class lounge with Moniker of "First", Heathrow, or Dubai which takes up the entire side of the airport and is never even close to full. Honestly waste of space and took me 15 min to walk the length out of curiosity. They do have a dedicated women/ children's lounge though with glass door which was a quietly brilliant idea though. Hope those children don't hit the glass door though...?

It's the inclusion of the spa inside the International First qantas lounges that offer free services, massage etc and are very good with adhering to your boarding time that tips in favour of Sydney and Melbourne. But of course, Virgin flights are cheaper for the price conscious.

I'm not even Australian so that's a fair assessment.

Too bad, the International First Qantas Lounges out of Sydney/ Melbourne are actually probably the best I've been in. Beats Singapore ( great food but dated lounge- almost as bad as Hawaii in that regard) ...

The first class lounges in Sydney and Melbourne are some of the best in the world, though, without a doubt.