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Comment by popobobo | Hacker News Reader

I think most professional tech worker they are trying to hire would be able to afford a round trip ticket and travel expenses to New Zealand.

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3rd world people are not in the same boat, in Brazil a trip to NZ is a fortune, I've done it twice because of my job and for fun. It's one of the most expensive plane tickets you can buy here.

I can afford it as a vacation, though it would be a pretty big dent.

But I can't afford it just to hear "sorry, we've decided to go with someone else."

Flew to Auckland from SFO for our honeymoon for ~$950 roundtrip per ticket, so it's not horrendously expensive, but of course I'd hardly call that the kind of sum you'd want to throw away jut for an interview.

$950 from SFO isn't a bad deal. It can be considerably more expensive around peak season if you don't catch a sale (easily $1.6k to $2k).

Prices have dropped massively in the last year or so as there are more flights and airlines doing AKL<->SFO now

Even over the summer months? Google is telling me about $1,400 for late March.

United entered the market within the last two years and that does seem to have driven the prices down a bit.

I fly to Auckland or Christchurch at least once a year with a family of 4 so welcome cheaper prices!

Ours was April on Air NZ but its been a couple years and 1400 doesn't sound out of the question.

I know loads of tech workers who are still paying off their student debt/etc (or putting their kids through school) despite the relatively high salary.

Not if you're from India or Sri Lanka. Even though we could afford a round trip to NZ, but I wouldn't want to spend about 2 months of salary for an interview.

But are they willing? There are so many countries.

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