Hi Guys
My partner currently has a valid NZ residency visa and is visiting her home country. While she was there she applied for a new passport, because although her current passport is valid for another year there is no embassy here in NZ (or anywhere else) so it is probably relatively difficult to get a new passport from NZ.
When she applied for the passport she asked that they not cancel her old passport as she needed it to get back to NZ, however there must have been some confusion and they did end up punching a hole through the old passport with her residency visa in it.
I found out about this today and her flight is on Saturday. I immediately got on the phone with INZ and she has submitted a form for the transfer of visa to an eVisa for her new passport, however it seems like it is unlikely it will go through within 24 hours. INZ can't even mark it as urgent as it hasn't entered their system yet.
So it sounds like she may be able to board the plane on Saturday based on what the airline said, but what is likely to happen when she arrives in NZ? INZ suggests that she could present at the border with both her old passport with the visa and new passport but it would be up to the Customs Officer as to whether they might accept her into the country.
Has anyone ever been in this situation? What is the most likely outcome when she gets to the border? And what would happen if they don't accept her and turn her back? Would we have to book urgent (expensive) flights out of the country, and/or will this affect her ability to get visas for NZ or other countries in the future?
Our other option would obviously be to cancel the flight booked for Saturday and re-book for in a couple of weeks, however that will cost about $12-1300 for the new flights and she is going to miss a wedding we are meant to be attending and she will be late starting a job she has lined up on her return.