What does booking airline tickets for a visa look like? How to book a flight without paying for a visa

Often, in the package of documents for any visa, you are asked to provide round-trip tickets. But booking tickets for a visa is a risky business, as the visa may be denied. In this case, the tourist needs to consider options for booking a flight without payment.

How to get a visa if you have a flight reservation

As standard for any visa, you are asked to provide a bank statement, photographs, application forms, accommodation reservations, a travel voucher and air tickets.

It is best to buy tickets online on the airline’s website; after payment, you will receive a confirmation of purchase or reservation with data by email, this is exactly what you need to provide to the visa center.

In order to make a reservation you need:

1. Go to the airline's website;
2. Select destination and dates;
3. Select the number of passengers and flight;
4. Start filling out passenger information;
5. Be sure to indicate your phone number and email, this is where confirmation will be sent;
6. Make the payment, do not forget to click the checkbox under “I agree to the terms and conditions...”.

Important! When choosing a date, you need to take into account that reviewing documents can take a long time, so do not buy tickets for the next week in the USA; for example, it is better to buy such tickets six months before the intended trip.

After payment, you can easily print out the tickets and take them to the consulate for approval. It is important to know that in case of refusal, some airlines agree to return tickets and money for them. But for this you should buy return tickets and not use a low-cost airline. It is better to book air tickets for a visa with major airlines, where about 30% of tickets can be returned and you can get your money back. At Aeroflot, for example, tickets are returned in the following categories:

• Premium Business;
• Premium Comfort;
• Premium Economy;
• OPTIMUM tariffs - return with a fine from 50 to 200 euros/dollars;*
• Budget and Economy tariffs are non-refundable (including taxes and fees).

Schengen visa

You can also get a visa to Italy, Spain, France or other countries included in the Schengen zone after purchasing tickets. To do this, remember a few conditions:

• You can purchase an air ticket to any city in the country, even if you later return from another city. For example, if it is cheaper to fly from Moscow to Barcelona, ​​but a tourist needs to go to Madrid, then it is better to buy cheap tickets, and only then get on Spanish transport in the capital.
• Schengen visas are often issued by travel agencies; they do not guarantee that a visa will be issued, but they will help you fill out the documents correctly after ordering.

Additional Information! Some airlines allow up to 72 hours for payment, such as Turkish Airlines. After booking, time is given, which means you don’t have to pay right away.

How to make a flight reservation without paying for a visa

Experienced travelers have long learned to use various life hacks, so they know that a visa can be obtained by booking tickets without paying.

To get the coveted piece of paper, for which you do not have to pay, you can use various methods that will help you do this.

You can book a plane ticket online without paying.

To do this, use airlines that have a long period of free booking. These include:

• EuropeAir up to 7 days
• Korean Air up to 10 days
• Lufthansa up to 2 days
• Qatar up to 10 days
• SAS up to 2 days
• Turkish Airlines up to 10 days
• United Airlines up to 7 days
• AirBerlin up to 4 days
• AirFrance up to 4 days
• Aeroflot up to 2 days

The main thing to remember is that many airlines only make reservations for a day; this period is not enough to apply for a visa.

Some Airlines and sales sites can extend the booking period for a small amount. In AirFrance, for 5-15 euros you can extend the time to 7 days. OneTwoTrip will extend the period for 200 rubles. On Anywayanyday you can extend the term if you choose to pay in cash.

Use a special agency.

Some services will help you make a reservation for a long-stay visa. Such an agency is, for example, agent.ru.

All you need to do is:

• Go on the website.
• Choose a flight and direction, you don’t have to pay attention to the price.
• Fill out the data and click “Apply”, payment can be delayed for some time, but you will immediately receive a confirmation by email, which you can print and storm the visa center.

If you wish, this reservation can be canceled ahead of schedule or it will automatically disappear; it is worth remembering that sometimes the airline itself can shorten the holding period for tickets, so you need to book them in advance.

What if the reservation doesn't go through?

Sometimes the verification site itself may malfunction and not show tickets, there is no need to panic, for this:

1. Check on similar sites
2. Go to the airline website and check there
3. Try checking the next day after purchase

In any case, you should reload the site several times until tickets are found.

Risks

Of course, there is always a risk of not getting a visa, even for experienced travelers. To reduce it, you should take out travel insurance. You can buy it directly on the airline’s website, where you should carefully read the conditions for receiving a refund.

Some companies will turn non-refundable tickets into refundable ones for a small amount, and with this rate it will be possible to return almost 100% of the ticket price. But the cheapest promotional tickets, as a rule, are not refundable, so it is better to give preference to proven national companies.

You can also purchase a ticket from airlines that can cancel the reservation if the passenger does not receive a visa, such as KLM, MAY.

It is important to remember that a visa decision is made by a living person, many consuls simply do not check the authenticity of vouchers and reservations, so many tourists cheat and submit false documents, sometimes it works, but it is too risky, since it is illegal, and they certainly will not give a visa with with these tickets.

Some tourists even go to the most extreme measures, realizing that the decision is made by a person who is already overloaded with work; they think that he will not want to check each ticket for validity, which means they can create it in Photoshop or show an old printout. But this is very dangerous, as they may not allow you to enter this country at all or may issue you a fine.

To protect yourself you can also:

• Pay for the ticket and bring real confirmation;
• Book other transport;
• Buy a tour.

Even if you have real tickets, there is always a risk that the tourist will not be given a visa. Therefore, before going to the visa center, you should check not only air tickets, but also other certificates, especially if the country is not famous for issuing visas easily.

Note! You need to be especially careful when collecting documents for countries such as the USA, Japan, Australia, Canada, and the UK. All of them are very difficult to issue visas to Russians, and the package of documents is many times larger than for Schengen visas.

How to apply for a visa and provide flight reservations as confirmation

The procedure for applying for a visa is quite simple:

1. You should register with the Consulate of the country where you plan to travel. You can also contact a visa center, where the procedure will be faster and more pleasant, but an additional fee will be charged for their services.
2. Collect all the necessary documents. Their list depends on the specific country, but the standard is a photograph, special requirements for each visa, certificates from work, registration, bank statement, booked hotels and round-trip tickets.
3. Some visas require fingerprints; the consulate will help you with this.

Mandatory documents must be a bank statement, registration and tickets. You can print them from the airline’s website or from the same website where tickets are checked for their validity.

It is important that the tickets can be round-trip, and you can present a circular route, for example, show tickets Moscow - New York, and return tickets Los Angeles - Moscow, the main thing is that the consul sees that the tourist will return home in any case .

Or you can present tickets to another country, for example, Moscow - New York, New York - Paris, which also indicates that the tourist will leave the country within the specified period.

It is possible to book an air ticket without paying for a visa, besides, the consulates themselves do not insist that it be paid in full, they just need to show a printout of the reservation, and you can do the same with a hotel. But with accommodation everything is simpler; just find a hotel that does not require prepayment and which can be canceled for free before the specified date.

The main thing is to convince the consul that the passenger has reasons to return; to do this, submit as many certificates as possible from work, school, bank statements - this all confirms that the tourist will return and will not live and work illegally in a foreign country.

*Prices are current as of July 2018.

Dear tourists! It seems that there is no point in reminding you that summer is just around the corner and it’s time for the long-awaited vacation. We are pleased to welcome you again on behalf of EuroAvia. Today we will talk about how to obtain the necessary documents to submit documents to the embassy for visas.

How can you book air tickets without paying for a visa using our airline.

First, let's figure out in what case you will need this.
For example, if you decide to vacation in Thailand in the summer, but you are only going to buy a ticket there (you are not planning a return ticket) and want to avoid problems with check-in at the airport. Our advice will also be useful for those who decide to relax in other countries. Believe me, now in many embassies it is best to present a reservation to obtain a visa (and it will be easier to book air tickets without paying for a visa than to pay money and not receive it).

Why is it best for you to book flights without paying for a visa using our airline?

The fact is that most airlines require you to pay for the reserved tickets immediately or do it within 24 hours, otherwise the reservation will be canceled. With EuroAvia you can make a reservation for a period of 7-10 days.

Step-by-step instructions on how to book air tickets without paying for a visa on our website.

1..
2. In the search form for air tickets, select the city from which you are going to fly and the final destination of your trip.
If you do not need a return ticket, simply skip this field. Select your departure date. If you are going to spend your holiday in Thailand, then remember that you can only stay in this country without a visa for 30 days (this is immediately after you get an arrival stamp at the airport). Remember then the following: you must set a date for your departure from the country 30 days after arriving in Thailand.
Write in the search option how many people are going to fly, and then go to the “Find flights” field.
3. In the window that opens, select the flight you need (please, do not focus on prices and flight durations, because you are only booking air tickets, not purchasing them).
4. As soon as you select a flight, a new window will open in front of you.
You must fill out the following information about yourself: first name, last name (necessarily in Latin letters, everything as in your foreign passport), gender, citizenship, series and number of your foreign passport, its validity period, your telephone number. You will also need to enter your email address and create a password. After all the necessary information has been entered, you check the “I agree” box and click “Place an order.”
5. In payment methods for orders, select “for visa” and pay for the service. Next, a booking confirmation from the airline will be sent to your email address.

But booking flights without paying for a visa is not all. You will need to print your booking confirmation to present at the embassy along with your other documents. This reservation will remain valid for 7-10 days.

To obtain Schengen, consulates require booking a round-trip air ticket. This is inconvenient for an independent tourist: the date and country of return are not always known, and a visa may be refused. And if a hotel reservation can be easily made through Booking and cancelled, with air tickets things are more complicated. Let's figure out how to book air tickets without paying for a visa, or reduce costs to a minimum.

The EU visa code clearly states that in order to assess the intention to leave the Schengen countries, it is sufficient to provide a return ticket, a round trip ticket or a reservation for such tickets.

Booking does not imply payment for tickets. But the validity period of the plane reservation is too short to get a visa. Is a one-day reservation enough to get a visa? Let's ask this question to the CC of Spain and Italy.

Response from CC Spain:

The Consulate General of Spain reviews the documents and makes a decision within 10 calendar days from the moment the documents are received by the Consulate of Spain in Moscow. Each visa application is considered on an individual basis. Therefore, the time frame for making a decision may vary. If you provide a complete package of documents that meet the requirements of the Consulate, the decision-making period will be 5 working days.

The ticket reservation must be valid for the entire period of consideration of your documents. The fact of paying for tickets to apply for a visa is not necessary.

Please note that with a Spanish visa, the first trip must be to Spain.

To apply for a visa to Spain, more days of the trip must be in Spain. If during your trip you are going to visit other Schengen countries, except Spain, you must provide all documents for your stay in these countries and movement between countries and cities.

Response from the Italian CC:

When submitting documents, both paid plane tickets (originals + photocopies) and confirmation of their reservation are accepted.

Theoretically, a visa officer can check the availability of a reservation by calling the airline or using online services. But will he do it? With a large flow of applications, it is unlikely. This is confirmed by numerous reviews from tourists. There have been no cases of anyone being turned away from Schengen due to a missing reservation.

Some even manage to get a visa with last year’s edited reservation, or print it themselves. We do not recommend using this method, as it is a deliberate falsification of documents.

What methods work?

• Real purchase of a ticket with full payment, and further refund.
• Booking through airline websites or intermediaries without payment.
• Confirmation of another mode of transport.
• Non-departure insurance.

Let's consider these points in more detail.

Ticket purchase and return

The most reliable way, but high costs. The ticket can be returned after receiving a visa. And sometimes even return the full price for it.

In accordance with Article 108 of the Air Code of the Russian Federation, the passenger receives 100% of the paid carriage charge, with the exception of the actual carrier expenses incurred. If the return is made less than 24 hours before the flight, a penalty of up to 25% will be charged. After the adoption of the law on non-refundable tickets in 2014, airlines can sell up to 30% of flight tickets without the possibility of a refund.

These rules do not apply to foreign companies. Therefore, you need to carefully study return fees before purchasing. Usually cheap tickets cannot be refunded, but this is possible in business class. If your visa is denied, you will lose money on both tickets and consular fees.

Aeroflot has fully refundable Premium fares:

• Premium Business;
• Premium Comfort;
• Premium Economy - excluding YPXRTRF/YPXOWRF tariffs to Simferopol;
• OPTIMUM tariffs - return with a fine from 50 to 200 euros/dollars;
• Budget and Economy tariffs are non-refundable (including taxes and fees).

Detailed return conditions are on the official Aeroflot website.
If you decide to buy a return ticket, pay in cash - it takes longer for the money to be transferred to the card.

To protect yourself, you can buy non-travel insurance, which will protect against visa refusal. You need to look for one from the airline so that it works without a package tour.

There is an additional ticket return service for 9% of its cost. Even if, according to the airline’s rules, tickets are non-refundable, you can still get a refund of up to 90% of the cost. Part of the money is returned to the OneTwoTrip savings account for further purchases.

For a 9% commission you can return up to 90% of the ticket price. The non-refundable part of the amount is returned to the account in the service.

Some airlines offer refunds if a visa is refused (KLM, UIA).

Reservation without payment

You can easily book a ticket for 1 day by selecting the payment method at the office or by bank transfer when purchasing. This is enough to get a real printout of the reservation and give it to the consulate. You can find reservations even for 10 days. If you put it right before applying for a visa, this should be enough for the moment of possible verification of documents by the consul.

You need to understand that a long reservation is not guaranteed. Sometimes it is removed if there is little time left before departure, or there are people who want to buy this place. Some services and airlines offer a paid booking service; this is a more reliable option.

Where to book

• • For 200 rubles you can extend your reservation for 7 days.

Reservation for 7 days for 199 rubles.

• • Through Agent.ru - deferred payment for bookings is available for some flights for 7-10 days. You need to register on the site.

The video shows how to work with Agent.ru (from 4 minutes) and get a ticket printout:

• • - booking is available if you are registered and have already purchased tickets through the service. You can get a reservation for several days by choosing the cash payment method.

Booking via AWAD.

• • Through Turkish Airlines - deferred payment for 10 days, no need to enter bank card details.

When paying for a ticket on Turkish Airlines, select deferred payment and reserve.

• Airfrance.ru - “Time to think” service for 5 or 15 euros. Reservations and rates are frozen for up to 7 days. The service is free for infants and first class passengers.

On many sites, the printout indicates that the reservation has not been paid. If the consulate does not require payment for the ticket, it is not necessary to erase this inscription. In other cases, you can get a more “solid” printout from third-party services:

You need to make a reservation in all services; they work with different databases. The reservation should be found in one of them. If you can’t find it anywhere, try to book your ticket again, or change your flight/airline.

Another option is to get a long-term reservation without paying for a visa through a travel agency for an additional fee or through friends.

Confirmation of another mode of transport

You don't have to travel to Europe by plane. Other ways to confirm transport:

• • When traveling by car: a free-form itinerary sheet (describing the travel plan for each date with hotels and cities), vehicle registration certificate, driver's license. You can attach your ferry ticket reservation.

Book a ferry ticket from St. Petersburg to Finland.

• Railway transport: Russian Railways refunds the full cost of a ticket for trains in the neighboring countries. Detailed return conditions are on the Russian Railways website.
• Combined option: buying a train ticket to Vilnius, then a plane ticket with the low-cost airline Ryanair to the desired location (30-50 euros). The train ticket is refunded, the plane ticket is either expired or reissued for a convenient date and direction.

What airlines say

We asked popular air carriers about the possibility of booking a ticket to obtain a visa without paying, the maximum booking period and fees for returning a ticket.

S7 Airlines:

For such a long period (10 days), a ticket reservation cannot be made without payment.

You can either:

1) Issue an air ticket using the “Standard” fare plan, which allows you to issue a refund without deductions.

You can familiarize yourself with the rules of application for each tariff (return/rebooking conditions) by clicking on the link:
http://www.s7.ru/home/info/fares.dot

2) You can also purchase a ticket with additional Travel insurance, which covers the risk of “Visa refusal”.

This insurance policy is suitable for individual travel. An insurance policy can be added when purchasing tickets on the website www.s7.ru.

More detailed information:

In case of visa refusal, the cost is fully refunded if the following conditions are met:

Additional information can be found on our website: http://klmf.ly/1j78W3T.

If you decide to purchase a ticket before obtaining your visa, you must ensure that the fare rules allow for changes. This information is available on our ticket search page - after round trip flights have been selected.

We can also create a reservation for you, but it will only be active for 3 days. In principle, this is usually enough to submit documents to the embassy.

UTAIR:

You can book tickets at any agency at the normal Economy Class (Y) fare, which has the longest lead time before which the ticket must be issued. After confirmation of your visa, you can buy tickets on the Airline website at the minimum available fare. The Airline website does not charge agency fees.

The first reservation will need to be canceled by calling the agency.

If a ticket is returned due to a refusal to issue a visa, the refund is not considered forced. If you buy a non-refundable ticket, the entire amount of the ticket will not be refunded.

Aeroflot:

On this issue, contact the Call Center operators and inform them that you need a reservation for the embassy.

Reservation is free.

Upon request, the Aeroflot Call Center can extend the visa reservation period to 7 days. Except for promotional rates, or if there is less than a week left before departure. You can also get a stamped reservation at the Aeroflot office/ticket office.

That's all. We have shown many legal ways to get a visa with an unpaid reservation. There is no need to take risks and falsify documents or edit anything. Share in the comments which method you chose and where you managed to get a visa.

One of the documents that should be prepared for traveling to a foreign country is booking tickets for a visa. Consular services request it as confirmation of the real purposes of the trip. Purchased plane tickets or their reservation will serve as proof that the visa applicant intends to visit a specific country on certain dates and then return to their homeland.

How to get a flight reservation to apply for a visa

The procedure for obtaining a visa depends on the decision of the consulate of a particular state. But as a rule, consulate officials are more willing to give permission to visit the country to those who have already purchased a ticket. However, in some cases, it is better to only book plane tickets to obtain a visa, and not buy them in advance. For example, not everyone wants to spend money and buy tickets if they are not sure that a visa will be given, or if the visa is issued in reserve and not for a specific trip.

You can book air tickets for a visa at a travel agency, or you can do it yourself. To do this, you need to use one of the aggregators for searching plane tickets on the Internet.

There are many search engines suitable for these purposes, among which are:

• metasearch engines - search for tickets on many sites and provide the information found about various options for flight conditions, airlines, dates and prices in one table;
• Ticket search sites – allow you to make a reservation without going to the airline’s website;
• air ticket exchanges – offer various promotions and discounts;
• airline websites.

How to make a reservation

How to make a flight reservation for a visa? Having opened the most suitable search engine and entered the details of the desired flight, corresponding to the travel details in the requested visa by direction and dates, you need to select one of the proposed options. After filling out the column with your first name, last name, passport data, and contact email address, you can proceed to purchasing a ticket.

Immediately before payment, a window should appear with all the passenger’s entered data, as well as the reservation number, which is a sequence of six characters - numbers and Latin letters.

As easy as obtaining an airline ticket reservation for a visa, the consular officer can check it for validity. Therefore, the reservation must be made with the company and on the site where it lasts the longest, so that at the time of submitting the documents it still has legal force. As a rule, an unpaid reservation lasts from one to ten days.

Where to check and print your flight reservations

Tourist and airline companies use special global systems to issue tickets. In them, but in a version adapted for ordinary users, you can check and print your airline ticket reservation for a visa. Basic systems:

Different airlines operate with different systems. Therefore, if no recognizable data about the global system was specified when booking a ticket, you will have to check each of them. To do this, you must enter your reservation number and last name in the window provided. If the information is found, it means that the ticket was successfully booked, and you can print this file to present at the consulate.

Is it possible to get a visa without booking tickets?

And finally, the most interesting thing is the restriction of travel abroad for debtors. It is the status of the debtor that is easiest to “forget” when getting ready for your next vacation abroad. The reason may be overdue loans, unpaid housing and communal services receipts, alimony or fines from the traffic police. Any of these debts may threaten to restrict travel abroad in 2018; we recommend finding out information about the presence of debt using the proven service nevylet.rf

Not all consulates require air tickets or flight reservations to obtain a visa. Therefore, in order not to do unnecessary work, before submitting the documents you need to check which documents should be prepared. For example, when applying for a Schengen visa, it is mandatory to present booked or purchased tickets.

Low-cost airline ticket

Please take the sociological survey!

An excellent alternative to a fictitious visa reservation is a real ticket for a low-cost airline. Low-cost airlines are low-cost airlines that reduce flight fares by reducing the services offered to passengers, as well as optimizing the work of company employees and equipment. Sometimes you come across tickets that are so cheap that even if they are purchased only for a visa and you don’t have to use them, you won’t mind throwing them away.

When using the services of a low-cost airline, the passenger receives an electronic ticket for a visa, which will need to be printed and attached to the main package of papers when submitting the application. This ticket differs from a reservation only in that it has already been paid for.

Low-cost airlines do not offer real tickets, since all sales are made online.

Confirmation of another mode of transport

You can also book another type of transport - train, ferry or bus. In addition, a combined travel option using several vehicles may be allowed. In this case, you must provide tickets or reservations for each of them.

Before applying for a visa, you need to find out from official sources which vehicle reservations the consulate of a particular state allows for consideration. For example, unpaid housing and communal services receipts, alimony or fines from the traffic police. Any of these debts may threaten to restrict travel abroad in 2020; we recommend finding out information about the presence of debt using the proven service nevylet.rf

So, there are 4 ways to solve this puzzle and get flight bookings without paying for a visa.

1. Unpaid Aeroflot reservations

You can submit unpaid daily Aeroflot reservations - you will probably get a visa. To do this, during booking, at the last stage of payment, select the “Cash” option; the reservation will remain valid for a day.

2. Possibility of holding a ticket reservation

Alternatively, you can pay for the service of holding ticket reservations on the airline’s website for 2-3 days (or more, it’s different for everyone), it costs from 500 to 1000 rubles.

However, not all airlines provide such services.

3. Booking tickets through KUPIBILET

Previously, it was possible to book tickets with a hold of 3 to 7 days on the Agent.ru website. However, there is currently no such function on the site.

Therefore, the easiest way is to use one of the airline ticket search engines, which guarantee a refund for 7-10% of the ticket price.

One of these search engines is KUPIBILET(other search engines also have this option, for example OneTwoTrip). Getting this service is easy:

04. It is also worth noting that this service is provided only for large air carriers such as Aeroflot, Turkish Airlines, etc. For example, Pobeda will not be able to return air tickets.

In general, it is convenient, but there is also a significant drawback - using this service is quite expensive. Therefore, when using this service, it is better to select tickets for flights that you intend to fly in the future.

4. Buy a return air ticket for a visa

For people who find the above options the height of adventurism, we can recommend an almost win-win option: buy a return ticket and cancel it after receiving a visa, although there may be financial losses (read the refund terms carefully). You should only buy such tickets through airline websites, because... When returning funds through aggregators, problems may arise.

Let me give you an example right away: at S7 airline, the penalty for returning an international ticket purchased at the Economy-Flexible fare is 30 euros (at the time of writing this post, this is 1,800 rubles). Fees are not refundable at all! So decide for yourself.

5. Buy a regular air ticket to apply for a visa

If you are sure that you will definitely get a visa, pay for normal tickets and apply for a visa with them.

This especially makes sense if you have found very cheap air tickets to Europe, for example from Pobeda. In this case, it makes sense to pay for the tickets immediately, otherwise they will simply disappear while you are applying for a Schengen visa.