Flight/Airline questions

[Quinn]

I have a complicated (or maybe not) question about plane travel, ticketing etc. A little background: We traveled down here from the US to explore our options and with the intent to stay for at least a year and hopefully longer. We arrived in Sept. on a tourist visa, and we were forced by the airline (Continental) to buy a roundtrip ticket as they told us that we could not buy a one-way ticket on a tourist visa. (The Argentine consulate told us the same thing). And so we had to buy a roundtrip ticket within the first 90 day visa period.

My first question is: has anyone found a way around this dilemma??

We know one can extend a tourist visa once for an extra 90 days in several ways (colonia, at immigration etc...please this is not the thread for the merits of Colonia trips or that whole thing).

We want to use our tickets within the year they are valid, but once we go home we will again have to buy roundtrips as we have not begun any sort of Visa process yet. And we will have the same problem.

My thought was to let the second half of the ticket expire (as to change will cost $250 + difference in fare). And buy a roundtrip from BA to the US and then flyback. But then is the same issue of coming back to BA on a tourist visa without some sort of return flight out of Argentina.

How has anybody managed this situation? I hope I have made it clear but if not let me know.

I'm surprised by the whole "round trip" issue. I rarely ever buy round trip tickets since I tend to bounce around whatever region I'm in. I moved here 2 months ago...bought a one-way ticket...even brought my dog with me. I'm wondering if anyone else has ever had an airline try to pull this. I've never had it with American or United, the two airlines I primarily use to get from the US to South America.

 

[ndcj]

I'm surprised by the whole "round trip" issue. I rarely ever buy round trip tickets since I tend to bounce around whatever region I'm in. I moved here 2 months ago...bought a one-way ticket...even brought my dog with me. I'm wondering if anyone else has ever had an airline try to pull this. I've never had it with American or United, the two airlines I primarily use to get from the US to South America.

Some check-in staff seem to make up their own rules, or just assume that every destination has the requirement of an onward ticket. It's a combination of lack of knowledge and laziness for the most part.

If you want to board a flight to AR without an onward journey and the check-in agent refuses to check you in, insist that they look up the requirements in Timatic (it's the database that airlines use to check cross-border passengar dox requirements). If that doesn't work, ask for their supervisor.