vazagothic

Actually SkyScanner isn't that much cheaper (only one option around $1k, the rest similar to Kayak.com) and the option for entire month doesn't seem to be working for flights between Seattle and Sydney (but does work for Seattle -> Los Angeles and Los Angeles -> Sydney). Prices are similar to Kayak though. But, I'll keep that site in mind :-)

With so many people already booking flights (to either validate their visa or fully relocate) I've started to scout prices on Kayak.com myself (a site I've used so many times before to successfully book flights). I've decided to look for tickets from Seattle to Sydney around February/March 2013 as to give myself extra time to save money and find possible job while still in the USA. To my surprise finding the cheapest flight turns out to be quite .. difficult. For example, a flight from Seattle (SEA) to Sydney (SYD) (one way): February 13th (Wednesday): (looking +/- 3 days around that day) Cheapest: $1103 (on 02/10) - takes whooping 39 hours with one 22h layover in Honolulu Shortest (and somewhat still cheap): $1251 (on 02/14) - 21h with two layovers in Vancouver, Canada and Auckland, NZ I've checked later dates, but the price oscilates around $1100 (+/- $50) for the months of March and April (and later). Anyway, I've decided to find an alternative, cheaper route by checking prices of individual flights between the following cities: 1. Seattle -> Los Angeles -> Sydney 2. Seattle -> Honolulu -> Sydney So I've checked Kayak again .. Option 1: Seattle -> Los Angeles -> Sydney 1a. Seattle -> Los Angeles : $109 on 02/15 - 2.5h long 1b. Los Angeles -> Sydney : $587 on 02/16 - 19h long (one 3h stop in Nadi, Fiji) Aside from paying for one night stay in Los Angeles a family of 4 could save a lot of money just by splitting the flight into two. Seattle -> Sydney * 4 = $1103 * 4 = $4412 Seattle -> Los Angeles -> Sydney = ($109 + $587) * 4 = $696 * 4 = $2784 Savings: $1628 (minus a $150 or so for a room) Option 2: Seattle -> Honolulu -> Sydney 2a: Seattle -> Honolulu : $197 on 02/12 - 6h long 2b: Honolulu -> Sydney: $528 on 02/13 - 10.5h long In this case savings over a "direct" flight are a little bit smaller. Seattle -> Honolulu -> Sydney : ($197 + $528 ) * 4 = $725 * 4 = $2900 Savings: $1512 (minus $150 or so for room) A little bit more expensive than the Option 1, but Hawaii is a bit more enjoyable than Los Angeles :-D I'm tempted to contact an agent to see what kind of prices would he/she find for me. Does anyone have similar experiences with trying to find cheap plane tickets?

Average (net) wage in the USA (according to Social Security site) was about $40k in 2010, though the median was much lower and around $26k (source: http://www.ssa.gov/oact/cola/central.html). Other page (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Income_in_the_United_Kingdom) mentions £26k as average and £20k as median in the UK. Going that way it would be seem that US salary to OZ salary has a conversion rate of about x1.4 to x1.5. I've spent several months in Oz in 2009/10 and I did find certain items to be more expensive (meat, petrol) while others were priced quite comparably. I guess I'll just have to wait and see :-)

Everyone around seems to have the x2.2 calculation for the UK, but what about the USA? Petrol is quite cheap here, so is food, but it looks like we pay more for cell phones and health insurance (if your company doesn't cover it). For example I pay about $200USD/week for health insurance for a family of 4 ($180 for medical + $20 for dental), my cell phone bill is about $130/month. Renting a 2BR condo costs us $1150/month, car insurance is around $350 for 6 months. Food about $250/week. For reference there are 4 of us (myself, OH, 18 months daughter and 2 week old son). I don't want to do a thread-hijacking but it would be interesting to know :-) All prices in USD.

Or the original page on which the above link is located http://www.immi.gov.au/e_visa/general-skilled-migration-attachments.htm

As everyone said - practice :-) I booked two tests in advance and studied for a few days. I passed the first one, but my score wasn't good enough for my liking (8.5/7.5/8/7.5). A few weeks later I sat the 2nd one and scored 9/9/9/8.5 without doing ANY additional studying at all. The 2nd time I was definitely calmer as I knew what to expect (especially the speaking part). Also the reading/listening/writing topics were more to my liking as I read about it before (the Tunguska event), knew the subject (Underwater Robot) and could connect to it (letter to a teacher). For speaking part I had to talk about my friend I haven't seen in a while which wasn't too hard either. FYI I'm not a native speaker, though I've been living in the US for the past 11 years. I don't speak much in my native language either aside from occasional calls to my parents. Hope it helps :-)