Can you briefly exit a country and re-enter?

Upvote:5

Visas are a pretty big deal. You cannot afford to mess with that, or you can get 10 year or lifetime ban from the country, lose any visa waiver privileges you get due to a nationality, and for the rest of your life have to answer "yes" when any country asks you if you have been refused or expelled. In youth this all seems trite, but later, not trite.

And now that you've asked the embassy, fair chance the fact that you've asked is in your immigration file. So they will be on the watch for misbehavior here. Remember there's no freedom of travel, well there is, but it's called "citizenship". Every country or union gets to decide the conditions under which foreigners may enter. And the embassy vs immigration... assuming those agencies don't talk to each other is optimistic.

The scheme of buying a round trip airline ticket whose first segment arrives as your planned trip would depart, fails because of "hidden city ticketing" or skiplagging. Short version: anytime you miss a segment of travel, the entire rest of the ticket cancels.

So when you went to collect the second half of that round trip, you would be stranded need to buy a new one-way ticket on the spot. Or a new round trip ticket - you can always bail on the last segment. If you don't do it often enough to annoy the airline.

Of course since you're willing to pay for the round trip, you could always book the next day ... and actually fly the segments, after obtaining appropriate visa if you're not under VWP. Then when you present yourself at immigraton, your explanation is very simple: you planned to stay for an extra week but found out the scholarship doesn't allow that, so the necessity for the double flight.

Upvote:9

There is a much simpler option: just call the airline and change the return flight yourself. It's in your name and you have all the information needed to do so (PNR/booking code etc). And there is no magical connection between the airline and the organization granting the scholarship, so they will not be notified if you do so.

The one thing to beware of is change fees, if any: you will need to make certain you pay for these yourself, because if they get charged to the organization, they will find out.

As an aside, what is it with scholarships and stupidly restrictive flights? When I had one in Japan, not only did I have the same issue as you, but they bought two separate one-way tickets to ensure you could only return after completing the program -- even though this was far more expensive than buying a return!

More post

Search Posts

Related post