Need help - flying in family members for a holiday

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Ade

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Hello Fellow AFF'ers,

I live in Sydney. My parents and sibling are based in Chennai, India.

I'm planning to bring my parents, sibling and two other family members for a holiday to Sydney. The dates for the holiday are around last week of October until second week of Nov 2019.

I'm going to be sworn in as an Australian citizen in last week of October and I'd love to have my parents & sibling to be present at the ceremony.

Assuming that I'd be applying for their visa by next week - I'm looking for some advice/suggestions/recommendations from our community on the below ;

1. Air fares - I'm flying in 5 of my family and I'll have to foot the bill for 3 of them. The other 2 are happy to pay their share of air fare - I looked up on ITA Matrix, flights with decent connection times are costing around A$1200. That times 5, I'm looking at initially A$6000 airfare bill. Any suggestions on how to get some cheaper fares?

2. Accommodation - I looked up AirBnB and found some nice places in & around where I live right now for A$1500-A$2000 for 10 nights. Guess that's fine ? any suggestions here ?

3. Taking them around Sydney - I can't drive in Australia, yet :) So I won't be able to drive'em around to places around Sydney. So are there any tour companies that I can sign them up with? I'm guessing a tour company that would typically pick us up from our accommodation or we go their pick up point ? Or as we're 6 people in total, any chance of getting a private tour ? like a van for ourselves and we're happy for the tour company to come up with a tour plan. Suggestions/contacts on this please?

Although I've lived around Australia for the past 6 years, I've never found the time to travel. I've always been busy at work and didn't take the effort to go around. So my list of places to see in Sydney is very limited and I also know that my family members are not "let's go and explore" type of people. They'd be happy if I took them to some iconic places - Opera House, Circular Quay, Manly, Bondi beaches, temples (for sure, a very religious & orthodox family), Toronga zoo etc. I've also planned to spend a couple of days in Canberra (take the bus from Sydney, to save costs)

Anything else I should consider? How do I go about planning this trip ? Seriously, I've never planned a trip so far - it was always my roommates who do the planning and I just join them on the day the trip begins.

Any help from our community to help me plan this trip will be highly, superbly, supremely appreciated :)

Cheers, Ade
 
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Dear All,

Thanks to each and every one who provided inputs in this thread. I've got some updates ;

I had a lot of overseas trips in the last 3 months and had to delay my ceremony date by 4 months, which I think has caused some confusions and my invitation letter got lost between council, DIBP and DHA :( So, after a lot of back and forth between the council, DIBP and DHA - I finally got my ceremony date :) It's on the 22nd October.

It's funny how the invitation letter was dated 27 Sept, but I only got it yesterday and I live in the same suburb (2 streets away, actually) as the council offices :)

With less than a week to plan, book, travel - I booked tickets for my parents and sibling last night on MH at $1600/person ... didn't have a choice but to spend the big bucks ... it's alright I guess :)

They're only here for a week, mum couldn't take more than a week off work and sister runs her business, so can't stay away for longer than a week. Dad was happy to stay back, but guess he changed his mind in the last minute :D

Re : tours - Spoke to a mate of mine who runs a travel agency and he was more than happy to take us around to SYD and MEL for the week.

Re : accommodation - Looking at AirBnB and QF Hotels. It's all EXPENSIVE !!

All in all looking at around $15K for a week's time in SYD and MEL :D

Looking forward to spending time with family :)

Enjoy your time with family.

All the best 👍
 
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