Why is the Australian ETA application fee cheaper on a 3rd party website?

11/13/2019 11:49:17 AM

The “official” government web site is actually not run by the Australian Government. Rather, it is operated by SITA on the Australian Government’s behalf. You can verify this by clicking on the “About this website” link on the front page, which takes you to this page, with this description:

This site was developed and is operated by SITA on behalf of the Department of Immigration and Border Protection (DIBP).

The service fee for an online ETA will be payable to third party provider. The charge on your credit card statement will be against iVisa Services.

As noted above, the AUD 20 fee goes to SITA, not the government. As travel agents already have access to (and pays for) the SITA network through their GDS, they can offer ETAs for free.

11/13/2019 5:23:20 AM

There are 2 ways that an ETA application can be lodged – via the official Australian Government website, or via a travel agents GDS system (basically, the same system they use to book flights/etc).

When done via the official ETA website there is a fee of A$20 as you’ve stated.

When done via the GDS, there is no additional fee, other than the fees the agent has already paid to access the GDS.

As a result, third parties can submit ETA application for “free”. In some cases, they will actually provide this as a free service (eg, a Travel agent might choose to do an ETA application for you after you booked flights with them), however more normally they will charge you something for their time.

ETA and similar “electronic visas” are certainly an area where scams abound, and there are countless websites out there that will advertise different prices than what they end up charging (eg, the $x they advertise doesn’t include the actual ETA fee itself, which is only mentioned in the fine print when paying). Without first-hand knowledge it’s impossible to say if the one you’ve linked to is legitimate or not, however for Australian ETA’s it certainly is possible that they are legitimate and still charging less than the standard A$20.

Personally, I’d still be going via the official website rather than taking the risk to save a few dollars, but that’s entirely your call.

Note that the Australian situation is relatively unique – most countries do NOT allow similar free application via the GDS systems, and thus you would not expect to find (for example) a website offering US ESTA application for less than the official government website.

Credit:stackoverflow.com‘

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Hello,My name is Aparna Patel,I’m a Travel Blogger and Photographer who travel the world full-time with my hubby.I like to share my travel experience.

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