Australia to America removals.

[dark faery 0]

Does anyone here have any advice on shipping belongings from Brisbane, AU to Los Angeles, USA?

My husband and I move back to America on April 14, so the time is approaching very rapidly. One company called us today, they're located near Brisbane international but want to charge about $1,400 to ship his belongings (which basically consists of books, DVDs, computer equipment, and misc. little items). Not to mention, they told me it'd take us about 14 weeks to recieve said belongings as its shipped via the UK. I'm shipping-stupid to be honest, but I think that is a bit steep. It'd be cheaper to pack it all up in luggage and have it charged as excess baggage on Qantas. MUCH cheaper.

So yeah, anyone know of any companies in the Brisbane area? If so, we'd be eternally grateful, as I have no clue where to start and he's at work nearly every day so I get to deal with most of it. I want to get this done ASAP,too. If possible,a month before our flight leaves so that stuff will have transit time before we even get to America.

Thanks.

[mwfaith1971 0]

see my reply in the land downunder topic.

matt

[lisa71 0]

I moved from Brisbane to the Bay area last October. After looking into shipping my books, CD's and photos with a shipping company I decided to simply pay excess baggage. I saved thousands! I flew Air NZ. So, I phoned them about 2 weeks ahead, advised I would have excess baggage asked the price etc. Upon checkin I handed over around AUD450.00 for around 10 pieces of luggage and all was well.

If you don't have tons of stuff, I'd recommend that route.

[Kajikit 65]

I looked into removalists but they cost so much money that I decided to split the difference and do it myself... I took THREE suitcases on the plane because that was as much as I could manage, and I seamailed myself half a dozen boxes of assorted knicknacks etc that I didn't want to give away.

[dark faery 0]

Thank you so much!! I was getting a bit desperate- I'm going to be looking into all the options everyone here has suggested on Monday when my husband is home from work and has time to check it out as well. We don't have a lot of things to move really, which is why I was so blown away by the proposed cost from the company I talked to yesterday. Again, thank you.. it's very much appreciated.

[rochellerochelle 0]

I used Jetta.com.au to move 26 kg of stuff in a 6 foot long snowboard bag, they are out on Kingsford Smith Dr just before the Gateway Bridge. It cost me $285.00, which was fine, because the airline I was flying internally in the US wouldn't take the snowboard bag cos of its hugeness, and it only took just over a week, which I was happy with.

I did have a small problem though. By the time I got out to Jetta, they had realised they didn't ship to my local airport (Reno), so in the end I had to go to Sacramento, which is about 2 hours further away. Ok, fine. I called to verify my stuff had arrived, was told it had, drove the 3 and a half hours through the snow to Sac, only to find that while my bag was there, the customs paperwork was not, it is shipped on a separate flight so it doesn't get lost (it's actually kind of funny) so come back next week. Bit of a pain. But apart from Jetta, I didn't know what I would have done, cos of the awkwardness of my baggage.

Excess baggage sounds good, but only if you are booked through the one airline to your destination. You have to be careful too because some domestic airlines have reduced their per bag weight limit, like Southwest has a 50lb limit per bag, but you can take 3 bags (whereas Qantas has a 32kg limit per bag but only 2 bags allowed).

Good luck!

[dark faery 0]

hey hey.. thanks everyone. we're pretty sure we got our moving company now thanks to this thread. we're probably going to go with OSS movers, as mwfaith suggested. they quoted us $890 AUD w/out insurance vs. the $1,400 AUD the other company wanted w/out insurance. that saves us $500 PLUS a month less of transit time.

we're probably also going to seamail two fairly large but somewhat lightweight items so they won't take up too much room with the rest of the stuff.

and one lot of excess baggage most likely-- thanks rochelle with the advice on that. I probably would've never really thought of that, but luckily we're flying a direct flight from Brisbane to LA and that's the end of it, as I live about 45 minutes outside of LA.

so all in all, I'd say I'm pretty happy with the results. thanks SO much to you all.