Round Trip Ticket?

[Joe]

Please be forewarned that the airlines will wait until your at the airport to spring this on you. I bought a fully refundable ticket and canceled a full month before the flight (i've posted on this here) with the disgraceful LAN airlines. Five months later I am still fighting with them. The latest is they say they can't credit a credit card purchase on a ticket bought in Ecuador... WTF. I've complained to the credit card company and they put a conditional hold - the first hold was reversed - LAN told AMEX I didn't have the correct cancellation number. Now it's on the second iteration but I expect it to be reversed as well and to have to continue this nightmare. LAN wants to give a cash refund in pesos if you are in Argentina. Obviously that works out in their favor. I beleive La Coqueta also was ripped of by LAN in this way if memory serves. If the several hundred active members of BAexpats have at least two cases of LAN ripping them off for refundable tickets you can bet it is a company practice.

You need to buy a ticket - but the thing is that if the gate attendant is a real jerk then they can insist that it is a ticket to a country that you have legal residence in, e.g. the country of your passport.

But buying a bus ticket from Mendosa to Santiago. Also Buquebus has really cheap ticket for the over nighter to Uruguay that I believe you can buy online.

Please be careful with LAN airlines, they are totally disreputable. I'd rather fly Air Campora.

 

[PhilipDT]

Immigration officials never ask for proof of onward traveling. But the airlines use it as a profit center to force people to buy unnecessary tickets. So be prepared. I bought a refundable ticket in Ecuador to deal with this and five months later - no refund...

I just smiled at the lady and told her I'd take my chances. I took it as just being Delta wanting to sell me something more.

They're not doing it because they want to squeeze you for profit, although they undoubtedly want to do so. They're just erring on the side of caution since, if you're refused entry, they'll have to transport you back at their cost; most likely on a flight they've already oversold.

That's why they double and triple check passports, visas (for those who need them), and reciprocity fees.

 

[ARbound]

I flew ORD-GRU-AEP and perhaps because it is Aeroparque they only asked where I was staying and a thumb or index finger print. That was it.

I didn't buy a roundtrip ticket because I was moving here and they didn't even check for my retaliation fee departing São Paulo.

 

[GS_Dirtboy]

Two years ago I was denied boarding at Atlanta on American until I proved I had a return ticket. Fortunately, I had my certificado de residencia in my papers.

 

[ajoknoblauch]

Two years ago I was denied boarding at Atlanta on American until I proved I had a return ticket. Fortunately, I had my certificado de residencia in my papers.

Maybe the Cracker factor (May I say that?). Notable that the city's International League AAA team was, for many years, the Atlanta Crackers, until they stole the Braves from Milwaukee.

 

[natykerouac]

So if you buy a bus ticket from BsAs to Santiago instead of a return ticket to the US, they could still possibly deny you entry? This is what I'm planning to do.when I move to Argentina I'll have to move on a tourist visa becuse I can't get my residency until I live there.. -_- If they do deny entry into Argentina, could I then able to buy a (refundable) ticket back to US so they let me in?

 

[richvide0]

I flew from Boston to BA on Delta a month ago. At the counter they said I couldn't fly to BA with just a one way ticket or I needed a special visa. My g/f just flew one way from San Diego a couple of weeks before so I was confounded. We went off to the side, clerk got on the phone with "global" or something like that, they went back and forth a bit, the clerk told me I needed to do this and that and pay a fee. I said "wait, are you talking about the reciprocity fee?" Her eyes lit up and said "Yes!". I already had paid that the previous November and had my paperwork. I just showed it to her and all was well. So apparently this special "visa" they were referring to was the reciprocity fee. The airlines still don't know how to handle the reciprocity fee thing very well yet.

When we visited last November I just happened to stumble upon the reciprocity fee when doing research about the country. No mention was made of it on the airline's website. Turns out it would have been better if I hadn't found out about it at all. Kind of a confusing story....

So we bought the reciprocity fee and my g/f sent me an email with what she thought was the receipts. We brought it with us and I put it in one of my checked-in bags thinking I'd need it in BA. Turns out I needed it in Atlanta. Why didn't they tell me that at any point considering the importance of it? We found this out as we were boarding. So they told us to go to the adjacent room and print it out. At the gate in Atlanta there is an adjacent room with a handful of clerks helping people with this and I guess various other problems. So we're sitting in line sweating because we are supposed to be boarding and there is a long line of people. We finally get to the desk and my g/f can't remember her password to the site where she bought the tickets. So now what do we do? We were willing to just buy new reciprocity fees right there but couldn't because our social security numbers are already in the system. They held the plane up just for us until they just couldn't wait anymore. We missed our flight. At least Delta set us up in a hotel. After a while my g/f finally got her password right and was able to get to our reciepts. We flew the next day.

 

[Ceviche]

After a while my g/f finally got her password right and was able to get to our reciepts. We flew the next day.

Moral of the story. Go easy on deciding the passwords as they might come back to bite, the more complicated they are.

 

[natykerouac]

American Airlines told me they only deny boarding if it's accordance with the country's law, but there isn't actually a law in Argentina that says you can't enter with a one-way ticket. So AA said it would be fine. I bought a one-way ticket using 20,000 AAdvantage points, so I don't think I'll have to go through LAN at all, right..?