Can you fly into Buenos Aires from the UK without a return flight?

[FrankPintor]

If you ring the airline they’ll tell you you need a return.
The agent on the desk doesn’t always check in my experience.

If the desk agent does check (and you can't know in advance if he/she will or won't), then they will look up a database (Timatic) which tells them if you need a return ticket. Timatic collects information from governments all over the world to create their database, and the reason why airlines look it up, is because they get to fly you back to your point of departure at their cost, if you're rejected by immigration at your destination.

There may be a link to Timatic on your airline's website (there often is), so you can check yourself what the official Argentinian requirements are.

Quite often, immigration trusts the airlines and their self interest to run these checks, and don't necessarily bother themselves with checking when you arrive. But there's no guarantee that they won't.

Get an onward, refundable / throwaway ticket, maybe even to someplace you might like to see, and lose the stress.

 

[Caribbean Cool]

Don't go to the airport without a return ticket. Buy a refundable return ticket.....easy.......Next most complicated thing was building the A-bomb.

 

[Rich One]

May be no brainer, but people used to buy a Buquebus BA/Colonia ticket which may be cancelled

 

[DavidWPotts]

If the desk agent does check (and you can't know in advance if he/she will or won't), then they will look up a database (Timatic) which tells them if you need a return ticket. Timatic collects information from governments all over the world to create their database, and the reason why airlines look it up, is because they get to fly you back to your point of departure at their cost, if you're rejected by immigration at your destination.

There may be a link to Timatic on your airline's website (there often is), so you can check yourself what the official Argentinian requirements are.

Quite often, immigration trusts the airlines and their self interest to run these checks, and don't necessarily bother themselves with checking when you arrive. But there's no guarantee that they won't.

Get an onward, refundable / throwaway ticket, maybe even to someplace you might like to see, and lose the stress.

So if I were to get a bus ticket across the border, would that be fine?

 

[lunar]

So if I were to get a bus ticket across the border, would that be fine?

It depends on the airline. If this situation is not spelled in the playbook, the girl who checks your tickets will likely call her supervisor. You would then engage in a vivid conversation with the supervisor explaining your intentions. You would then discuss the importance of the semantic difference between a "return ticket" and an "onward ticket". Only after that it would probably be fine.

 

[Caribbean Cool]

Laughing this morning......Mr. Potts has revealed himself. He asks 'what if...???? ' The problem is that the only person in the world who can answer his supposed dilemma is the agent at the airline. That agent controls the destiny of his journey. Not me...nor you....nor a computer program.....just the agent. Mr. Potts? He may just be a gambler......or maybe just someone thinking about coming to B.A......Or maybe he likes long car trips with the tank nearly empty? Or maybe he gets a cancer diagnosis from a car mechanic. For this remarkable question.....gotta ask the agent at the airline check in.

 

[Millie]

Although I can’t speak from experience departing the UK for a flight to Buenos Aires, I can tell you that last year, via Copa Airlines, departing Boston, heading to Argentina, the woman at the ticket counter asked if I had a return ticket, and I told her I didn’t. I explained to her that I am a permanent resident, and I needed to show her my DNI/ permanent resident paperwork etc,. but I can guarantee that if I wasn’t a permanent resident, she wouldn’t have let me fly without a return ticket. She was pretty grumpy.
Get the return ticket. You can always cancel or modify it. You never know how the person at the ticket counter is going to act.
Good luck

 

[DavidWPotts]

It doesn't make any sense. Why do airlines sell you one-way tickets if they don't let you use them! If I new I needed a return ticket I would have bought a return flight instead.

 

[Millie]

It doesn't make any sense. Why do airlines sell you one-way tickets if they don't let you use them! If I new I needed a return ticket I would have bought a return flight instead.

 

[Millie]

My assumption is that people buy one way flights because they are going to stay in that given place for a time period … either a long period, or without knowing when they will return. Maybe they are moving somewhere or staying with an ailing parent. The point is that the person, when they need to return to where they are originally from, or plan to go elsewhere, at that moment they get an additional ticket. I can’t speak to why people do things nor can I speak to why the airlines have the rules they have; simply trying to help you with info based on my airline experience.
Best