Australian woman’s warning after having to pay visa-on-arrival twice at Bali airport
An Australian traveller has warned people heading to Bali of her “big life lesson” after she was stung by a fee for a passport mishap.
Melbourne local Laura Devy organised her visa-on-arrival — a payment of IDR 500,000 or about $A50 that permits visitors to stay up to 30 days — online ahead of her trip to ensure the airport immigration process was quick and smooth sailing.
However, Devy was soon made aware of a simple yet costly mistake she unknowingly made.
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By continuing you agree to our Terms and Privacy Policy.“When he was checking my details to make sure they were 110 per cent correct, he was like, ‘You’ve got to go pay another $50 because you’ve put in your passport number wrong’,” she said on TikTok.
“I was like, ‘No I haven’t, I’ve put all the numbers in correctly’ and he was like, ‘You’ve missed the two front letters’.”
It was then Devy realised her misconception about passport numbers.
“My two front letters are PA so all my life I’ve thought the two front letters meant ‘passport number’, so why would I have to include them,” she said.
“That is not the case.”
Australian passports are typically eight or nine characters and can contain letters and numbers.
The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade introduced Australia’s latest generation passport, the R series, in 2022.
Before that, Australians were issued P series passports since 2014.
The mix-up meant Levy was forced to pay another $50 for a new visa-on-arrival.
While Levy conceded most travellers were likely “smart enough not to do this”, she wanted others to be aware of her mistake.
“I paid $100 for 30 days,” she said.
“That’s a big life lesson for me.”
Originally published on 7NEWS
