Marvin Boggs Posted January 8, 2020 Posted January 8, 2020 We are organizing a business trip for me, and exploring what it takes to get my wife a visitor visa to go along. This is to a Schengen country. The documentation has been easy to obtain, except we don't know where to purchase a flight itinerary without purchasing the actual ticket. Its a little bit Catch-22, since we don't know if she will be approved for the visa, and don't want to waste the purchase price of the tickets. If any of you have experience in this area, please relay it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Freebie Posted January 8, 2020 Posted January 8, 2020 And dont forget that you will most certainly need and be asked to show medical insurance for the duration of her time in the various countries she visits. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GeoffH Posted January 8, 2020 Posted January 8, 2020 I would suggest buying tickets of a type that are fully refundable, that way if you don't get approval down the track you can get your money back. And if you wanted to you could even (after you had the entry visa for your wife) refund those tickets and go and buy some cheaper ones. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stevewool Posted January 8, 2020 Posted January 8, 2020 When we did this many years ago for Emma to visit Europe we did not have any flights booked at all but just the dates we would like to travel, plus we did have a annual travel insurance and it was so easy , but like many things I was worried before we went . Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marvin Boggs Posted January 8, 2020 Author Posted January 8, 2020 The new Schengen requirements include proof of a flight, proof of a hotel, and proof of health insurance. The hotel we just booked as I normally would, because the booking site has a cancellation policy. The health insurance was easy to find, just $15 for the coverage they needed, put in the dates and pay online. For the flight, we found a booking service that I think we will use. Basically $25 for a throwaway flight itinerary. As Geoff suggested a refundable ticket would be another option, I just can't bring myself to press the 'pay now' button on a ticket that expensive, haha. Turning Kanoy. 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OnMyWay Posted January 9, 2020 Posted January 9, 2020 On 1/8/2020 at 11:30 AM, Marvin Boggs said: The new Schengen requirements include proof of a flight, proof of a hotel, and proof of health insurance. The hotel we just booked as I normally would, because the booking site has a cancellation policy. The health insurance was easy to find, just $15 for the coverage they needed, put in the dates and pay online. For the flight, we found a booking service that I think we will use. Basically $25 for a throwaway flight itinerary. As Geoff suggested a refundable ticket would be another option, I just can't bring myself to press the 'pay now' button on a ticket that expensive, haha. Turning Kanoy. Wow, I couldn't believe you have to have a confirmed ticket to apply, so I did a bit of research, and it does appear to be so. Thinking about taking the family in the next year or two. Tickets without a cancellation charge are getting hard to find. I just looked at the KLM website and they charge $160 to cancel, and that is for their most expensive economy tickets. The two cheaper economy tickets don't even have cancellation. However, the fact that they do require that indicates to me that most visa requests are approved. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marvin Boggs Posted January 10, 2020 Author Posted January 10, 2020 We are in Manila today. The only part of the process that was not straightforward was the location. Since we had applied on the destination country embassy website, it was was not clear that the paperwork is actually processed by a partner company called VFS. So we wasted a trip into Taguig, only to then have to go Eco Plaza in Makati. VFS (who also has an office in Cebu) said everything was in order, and will send the paperwork to the embassy in Bangkok it turns out, so effectively there is a 10-15 day wait until we even know if she is approved or not. Normally I would fume and complain, but it is what it is. Wife seemed to think there was a very high percentage rate of approvals, according to what her interviewer told her. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OnMyWay Posted January 10, 2020 Posted January 10, 2020 (edited) 5 hours ago, Marvin Boggs said: We are in Manila today. The only part of the process that was not straightforward was the location. Since we had applied on the destination country embassy website, it was was not clear that the paperwork is actually processed by a partner company called VFS. So we wasted a trip into Taguig, only to then have to go Eco Plaza in Makati. VFS (who also has an office in Cebu) said everything was in order, and will send the paperwork to the embassy in Bangkok it turns out, so effectively there is a 10-15 day wait until we even know if she is approved or not. Normally I would fume and complain, but it is what it is. Wife seemed to think there was a very high percentage rate of approvals, according to what her interviewer told her. Was an interview required? VFS handles New Zealand too, and you only have to do an interview if they tell you it is required after you send your paperwork. We did everything by courier for this trip and they didn't ask for an interview. Probably because my wife has quite a bit of Int'l travel under her belt and her second trip to NZ. They gave her a 2 year visa this time. 4 years ago, New Zealand was done via their Bangkok embassy. They called for a phone interview with my wife. There was some confusion because my wife got some e-mails from someone named Porn and she disregarded them because she thought it was spam! It was the embassy interviewer in Bangkok, named Porn! They finally hooked up for a quick interview and we had a laugh! Edited January 10, 2020 by OnMyWay 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OnMyWay Posted January 10, 2020 Posted January 10, 2020 5 hours ago, Marvin Boggs said: destination country embassy website, What country did you apply with? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marvin Boggs Posted January 11, 2020 Author Posted January 11, 2020 13 hours ago, OnMyWay said: Was an interview required? VFS handles New Zealand too, and you only have to do an interview if they tell you it is required after you send your paperwork. We did everything by courier for this trip and they didn't ask for an interview. Probably because my wife has quite a bit of Int'l travel under her belt and her second trip to NZ. They gave her a 2 year visa this time. 4 years ago, New Zealand was done via their Bangkok embassy. They called for a phone interview with my wife. There was some confusion because my wife got some e-mails from someone named Porn and she disregarded them because she thought it was spam! It was the embassy interviewer in Bangkok, named Porn! They finally hooked up for a quick interview and we had a laugh! I think the interview was really just a paperwork review, as VFS is just submitting the package on to the appropriate embassy (Sweden). Its unfortunate they cannot just be processed in Manila, because of the time delay. I wonder if we could have chosen a different Schengen country with more robust embassy services, but I didn't want to waste time on the 1 day we had available in Manila. Will keep an eye out for Porn emails, haha! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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