Anna told us her story here:
“I began my search on New year’s day 2010. The only information I knew was his name and place of birth – Cambridge, England and that he had a younger brother. I traced my uncle quite quickly. Fortunately for me, my ‘uncle’ still lived in Cambridge. I turned up on his doorstep unannounced, it was very emotional. He showed me lots of photos and confirmed that my dad had moved to Australia and had 6 other children. I had always wanted siblings (I’m an only child) and now I have 6! It appeared that my eldest sister worked for a radio station in Western Australia, and by luck I found her on Facebook. Now for the difficult part, what do I say? I decided to assume she had no knowledge of me so I wrote…’I think you are my half-sister’. The following day a message in my inbox read ‘we have always known about you but not known enough to contact you’… ‘I have called dad and told him and he is overjoyed you have made contact with us after all these years’. WOW, they all knew about me. This was the start of February and by the 14th Feb I had booked flights for our most amazing trip ever.
The journey was a long one but well worth the wait, my dad travelled to meet us and it was an incredible reunion; I was immediately treated as one of the family. I am so lucky to have found my father and my siblings after 38 years of not knowing, and secretly wishing I did. Three years later we talk often online and my dad texts me regularly – I would love to go again, it was a dream come true. Australia turned out to be a beautiful backdrop for a perfect family reunion.”

Well, we’re so happy for you, Anna! Thank you for sharing this great story with us. We hope you put the Grillslinger to good use!

If you’re currently living and working in the UK, there’s a very good chance you could be owed a significant tax refund. Thousands of overseas workers are owed a refund from HMRC so don’t miss out and apply today.

The average refund amount for PAYE workers is £963. You could be owed money for any of the following reasons:

• You didn’t work throughout the full duration of the tax year
• You had more than one job simultaneously
• You paid emergency tax when starting a new job
• You incurred work-related expenses that were not reimbursed by your employer
• You had a change in circumstances e.g. became self-employed

The average tax refund for a self-employed person is £1453. The self-assessed UK filing deadline was 31st January so if you have self-assessed income, register today to avoid any HMRC penalties.

Taxback.com has been providing tax refund services for people working in the UK since 1996. It’s FREE to find out how much you’re owed so check now. We provide income tax refunds from 16 different countries so if you worked in another country it’s worth checking if you are due any tax refunds.

The necessity to open a UK bank account is a common concern when starting an employment in the UK. Well, there is a smart solution to that too. Check out taxback.com’s pre-paid international MasterCard®.

The company provides international tax refund expertise for 16 countries including, UK tax refunds, Irish tax refunds, US tax refunds and Australian tax refunds. They have over 600 staff worldwide available to help you 24/7 in your language online, on email or on the phone.

Average refund amounts are £963 for UK tax refunds, €840 for Irish tax refunds and AU$2500 for Australian tax refunds.

All you need to do is apply online now. Want instant answers? Chat live with taxback.com’s specialists 24/7!

The necessity to open a UK bank account is a common concern when starting an employment in the UK. Well, there is a smart solution to that too. Check out taxback.com’s pre-paid international MasterCard®!

We asked: What is the most common wild bird in the UK? Robin, House Sparrow or Wren. The answer was, of course…. WREN as Richard James tells us on the RSPB website here: http://www.rspb.org.uk/advice/expert/previous/mostcommon.aspx Ooh, I din’t know that. Did you?

Well, at least one of you did. Congratulations Susan Cowan who won this lovely prize! Susan tells us that her son is an avid bird watcher but that his avid-ness has spurred her to take an interest in bird watching too! She tells us that her favourite bird is the Robin.

Well, Susan, perhaps your new bird home will help those gorgeous red-crested birds in the Winter time. Do send us pics of any birds that do move in. We’d love to see them

We initially chose one winner at random but they didn’t get back to us, so we had to reselect! So we chose Rachel Watson who sent us this lovely Instagram shot of her and her ma: http://instagram.com/p/Wxih5lxzXq/ Ooh, very nice!

We asked Rachel how it felt to win the spa treat and she told us that she was “really excited to win” and that she couldn’t “wait to use the prize to spend some quality girl’s time with [her] mum”. Rachel didn’t get to actually spend Mother’s day with her ma because Rachel lives in Kent, and her ma in the West Midlands, but no mater. Every day is like Mother’s Day with umi Hotels.

We hope you really enjoy the day together, Rachel. And please do Instagram photos of the day with hashtag #umihotels so we can look at them with envy

To find out more about the great work that Divine do, go to: http://www.divinechocolate.com/default.aspx

Congratulations to Stuart Payne who won the hamper. Stuart found the competition via our Facebook page and has never won anything as big as this prize before. We asked Stuart how it felt for him to win and what he planned on doing with it. Stuart said that it “felt great and put a large smile on my face for the whole day and my wife and children are also excited to try the chocolate! I’m planning to enjoy it over Easter with my family.”

We hope that you had a great Easter with the family. Feel free to send us any pics you have of you guys enjoying the basket You can always Instagram us your pics by hashtagging the images with #umihotels

If you are self assessed in the UK you will need to file your UK tax return by 31st October annually if filing on paper or by 31st January if e-filing. If you miss these deadlines you will incur penalties. Below we have outlined the now more stringent penalties that came into place on 31st January.

For a FREE Self Assessed Quotation simply register here.

If you have just arrived in the UK and plan to start an employment here you might be facing the necessity to open a UK bank account in order to receive your salary. If you wish to skip the bureaucratic procedures related with that we have a smart solution for you – a pre-paid international MasterCard®. This is the new clever way to pay for things when you’re abroad. We’ll provide you with a reference letter to your employers, which is all they need in order to transfer your salary into your pre-paid debit card. It’s also possible to load funds on your card from your home country. Our pre-paid debit card is accepted everywhere that MasterCard® is so you don’t need to carry cash when you travel to the UK. The best part is that all transactions with the card are considered domestic in the UK and you don’t get charged with international transaction fees. All direct purchases with the card at POS terminals at shops, restaurants etc. are free of any transaction charges. Find out more…

Every year millions of UK workers (no matter what nationality) fail to claim a tax refund, meaning HM Revenue & Customs are left with a substantial amount of unclaimed money! So unless you do the exercise you will never know if you are owed any tax!

If you’ve paid too much income tax either through work or your pension, (or by earning extra income on investments), then you might be owed a tax refund or “tax rebate” as its also called.

Forget thinking that if you are owed tax it will automatically be adjusted for you – HM Revenue and Customs is under no obligation to notify you of any overpayment.

Applying for a tax refund can be confusing and complicated so we’ve partnered with taxback.com to help make getting your tax back fast and hassle free for you. You can Chat Live with a tax expert now about your refund via instant messenger. Use the FREE tax calculator to find out how much you could be due and submit your application online if you wish to apply for this tax rebate.

Pre-paid international MasterCard®

This is the new clever way for students and work & travel participants to pay for things when they’re abroad. The card Available for US ($) Canada (CA$) Europe (€) and the UK (£) and eliminates the need to open bank accounts or carry cash when you travel and work abroad. Accepted everywhere that MasterCard® is it allows to receive your salary directly onto the card and you do not pay international transaction fees. Find out more…

For January’s competition, we wanted to give one lucky person a special 2-night stay in Hotel Chateau Bethlehem in Maastricht, Netherlands!

Congratulations to Vidhya Ramasubramaniam who said she said this fabulous prize made her and her husband go over the moon and that “because of buying a house last year, our finances are pretty tight at the moment, and this means we will be able to go on a holiday this year”. Well, we’re so glad that you and your husband will be able to have a well-deserved break on us and hope that your stay in the Netherlands exceeds all your expectations! Bring us back some chips and cheese!

To keep updated about our future competitions, please sign up to our newsletter via the signup widget to the left of this page!

For December’s competition, we gave away a £50 Selfridges voucher for one lucky applicant in time for the January sales. It’s an especially interesting time for Selfridges following the new series, Mr Selfridge which we are all hooked on right now!

Anyways, I digress.

Congratulations to Denise Soos who said that she was really pleased about winning the prize. We’re glad we could give Denise some retail therapy!

To keep updated about our future competitions, please sign up to our newsletter via the signup widget to the left of this page.