NZeTA

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I just want you to know the trouble we're having to see if you can advise some help. We are a family of 7 (with 5 small children) from the United States. We've been volunteering at a mission hospital in the highlands of Papua New Guinea for the past 5 weeks with limited email access, electricity etc... We had a planned layover in New Zealand Nov 7-12 on our way home. We booked and paid for an Air B&B in KatiKati, car rental etc... After leaving the highlands and flying to the Port Moresby airport yesterday, we were unable to check into our flight to Brisbane and Auckland, we found about the new VISA waiver which went into place after we were already doing our mission work, and we were never notified. We had no idea. Unfortunately, we were not allowed on the flight, and we are now stuck with our young family in a very dangerous city. Because this dilemma was not the airlines fault, we are paying for everything. Because we don't know when the NZ visas will be approved, we don't even have a departure ticket out of Papua New Guinea. I applied for my visa online yesterday and haven’t received approval. I tried this app, but every time I try to take a picture of my 2 year-old, it says “face not visualized.” We just want to get home with or without a layover in New Zealand. Could someone please help? Thanks, Derek and Amy Holmes and family (Elijah, Meredith, Cora, Reagan, and Silas)

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I spent a good amount of time trying my best to get a shot of my toddler. The process to take a photo has a delay, so your child may look for a moment, then look away, move, and just plain lose patience. If you decide to try again later, you have to start over again. The app doesn’t save any steps you complete. I’m very irritated that at least for small children, they don’t allow for an uploaded photo. At least allow photo uploads if the birthdate of the person puts them under 2 years old. Both my wife’s application and mine were issued within 20 mins. It has been several hours now and my daughter’s still hasn’t been approved. I’m hoping I don’t have to go through this entire process again and have to pay the fees for my daughter again if they find the photo wasn’t to their standards. The shortcomings of their app should be on them.

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For anyone reading this review, this app will remove any progress you put into it if it’s closed or put into background mode. I inputted my entire family and it was erased. Another warning: while this may be the real thing, I really can’t be sure. There are about half a dozen fake websites and apps for NZeTA (some looking more official) and I never got any real official communication from my airline or other official agencies to do it other than a friend mentioning it by chance. Without an email from a .gov or the New Zealand government taking responsibility for cracking down on copy cats how can anyone follow along? They didn’t even take out a google ad. Come on! You instated this to get some extra fees!!! Spend a little to get a little! Help prevent your country’s visitors from being defrauded!!!

I was skeptical because of the previous reviews. But, then I had a few questions regarding the process that I could not get answered in a timely manner (i.e. I’m from the U.S. and when it prompts you to enter place of birth, on my passport there is only the state written not the city, but the form states to add a city if not written... but later says that the NZeTA should match the passport exactly). Anyways, I went back to the app to see if it was any clearer. Ended up scanning it and getting through the process in less than 60 seconds. I’m thinking previous reviews were probably user error.

It got stuck in the spinning spiral of death on my phone, but worked fine on my ipad. The shape of their window for taking pics of your passport is confusing. Since it’s rectangular, it appears that it would need both the signature page and the photo page, and you would think your passport should fill the window. The photo does not need to fill the space on the screen. The app appears to mostly need the numbers at the bottom of the passport photo page. Using ipad, I was easily able to add a family member. The app on my phone is still spinning away 40 minutes later, and it won’t allow me to delete it.