Visa Application: Australia 2015

the vain traveler goes to Australia AGAIN! hehe :)

This was by far the fastest visa application i have experienced in my entire traveling experience excluding the VOA in some countries, of course.  

I applied Visitor Visa (Subclass 600) through online application. This visa is for tourism/business purposes for up to 3, 6 or 12  months. Moreover, this visa is available for online application for passport holders of some countries. Luckily, Philippines is included in the list. 

Let me share the requirements, process and timeline of my OZ visa application...

Documents Prepared prior application:

SCANNED COPIES OF...

1. passport bio page
2. signed invitation letter from my sister
3. birth certificate of my sister
4. US VISA and Canada Visa
5. complete passport stamps
6. Certificate of Employment
7. Pay slips (3 months)
8. Bank statements (3 months)
9. Credit card billing statements (3 months)
10. passport photograph

Given that i am an OFW residing in Jakarta, Indonesia and my working visa was processing by the time i applied, it was included in my COE regarding that legal aspect of my current status.

Process:

1. Prepare all scanned documents
2. Create an ImmiAccount
3. Click "new application"
4. Fill up the online form*
5. pay the australian visa processing fee - 130 AUD* + visa fee (1.o8%)
6. At the right sidebar, click the attachment of documents option and start attaching all scanned documents
7. wait for the visa grant in your email

* my visa fee was still included with the previous visa pricing of 2014. yay! However, current visa fee for Visitor Visa is 135 AUD.

Timeline:

January 20, 2015 [7:00 pm] - created an immiaccount, filled up the online form, paid the visa processing fee and attached scanned supporting documents

January 20, 2015 [10:00 pm] - finished attaching all scanned supporting documents

January 21, 2015 [11:00 am] - received visa grant via email *happy dance*

fast forward to July 5, 2015 (4 days till my flight) - double checked my visa grant only to realize that it has a wrong passport expiry year. huhuhu! i panicked! I went to my immiaccount and edit my passport details citing "incorrect recorded"

July 6, 2015 - emailed Australia embassy of Jakarta for change of passport details. I attached my passport bio page, visa grant and Form 929. i was still panicking!

July 7, 2015 - Australia embassy of Dili, Indonesia replied to my email and i emailed again the documents. Few hours later, the embassy replied stating they were able to update my passport details in their system

LESSON LEARNED: double check!!!!!!!!!! always double check!!!!!!!!

Moving forward, with the same immiaccount, i applied visitor visa for my parents. With the same process, i was able to apply visitor visa for each. However, since the embassy who would be reviewing the visa application is Australia Embassy in the Philippines, their visa application took 3 weeks. 

There you go folks, i hope this entry will help you in applying tourist visa (visitor visa) in Australia because i'm telling you now, Australia is worth all the effort.