Wilma Wright, who has been trying to get back home to New Zealand from the Philippines since July, says the MIQ voucher system is failing her.
“I feel frustrated … I’m lost sometimes,” she told Breakfast from Manila.
After delays to her flight, Wilma was due to fly home on Thursday and had a spot booked in a managed isolation facility.
But, when her Philippine Airlines flight was moved to next Tuesday, her voucher was taken away. Rooms in quarantine are fully booked until April.
“I kept refreshing and refreshing [the MIQ voucher booking website] and there’s no spot at all. It’s negative for the month of February. I kept trying but no luck at all," Wilma says.
The delays have kept her away from her husband Warwick for months.
The couple left for the Philippines, where Wilma is from, before New Zealand shut its borders. Warwick managed to return home to Auckland before Wilma in June last year.
“It is what it is. Basically, we’ve just got to grin and bear it,” Warwick says.
“The only way she’s going to get home if she goes destitute to our embassy over there [in Manila].”
He says seeing groups like The Wiggles secure spots in MIQ was like a “knife in the heart”.
All he's asking for is to be listened to.
“All you get is an automated response … no-one listens to you,” Warwick says of MIQ officials.
“They’re trying to get back to me but I’m getting nowhere. It doesn’t take three to four days to get back to me … just the personal touch. It doesn’t take much for them to ring up.”
In a statement, a Ministry for Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE) spokesperson told 1 NEWS prospective returnees whose flights have been cancelled by an airline have been recommended to first contact their airline to check if any arrangements have been made with MBIE to reschedule their allocation.
The spokesperson said three options are available if an airline cancels their flight and has not contacted MBIE to reschedule the allocation to another flight, including, updating their flight details by selecting the 'change flight' option in step 3 of their registration.
Other options include emailing flightchanges@miq.govt.nz with evidence of their original flight, cancellation of flight, new flight and voucher if they are able to book a new flight which lands the day before, or the day after, their original arrival date.
Alternatively, they can cancel their voucher and select the next available allocation date in the Managed Isolation Allocation System which matches their new flight booking.
Wilma is only one of many Kiwis trying to get home saying they’re frustrated about the MIQ voucher system.
On Saturday, 1 NEWS spoke with the family of Trevor Ponting, a Kiwi professional athlete based in Japan, about their frustration with the MIQ system.
Ponting had been shut out of New Zealand despite being given months to live, refused an emergency spot in MIQ.
But now he will be able to complete isolation and reunite with his family in Christchurch after that decision was reversed.
Teenager Batu Waite, known as Rocky, has been stuck in Indonesia for over a year.
Teenager Batu Waite has also been stuck in Indonesia for more than a year. He was caught up in a bureaucratic tangle because he held dual New Zealand and Indonesian citizenship.
His distraught Taranaki-based father Tom Waite says his son just wanted to come home.
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