Originally Posted by
montreuxgarcon
About the visa free transit , there is no limit i guess , last time my layover was 8 hrs in JED and it was fine. as long only using SAUDIA. if you mixed airlines than it will be problem because you need to do immigration cleareance.
Not exactly. Per EF:
TWOV (Transit Without Visa):
- Passengers transiting through Dammam (DMM), Jeddah (JED) or
Riyadh (RUH) with a confirmed onward ticket for a flight to
a third country within 12 hours. They must stay in the
international transit area of the airport and have documents
required for the next destination.
- Only one transit stop-over in Saudi Arabia is permitted.
Originally Posted by
Beltway2A
Not every mileage run opportunity works for everyone, and I think that's okay. There are 4 countries (used to be 5 pre-blockade) whose citizens don't require a visa to visit Saudi, so thanks to the OP for sharing.
I've considered flying with SV in the past due to their super cheap J fares, but the inconsistent and opaque transit rules have always made me uncomfortable.
Officially (according to Timatic) the maximum allowed transit time to qualify for TWoV is 12 hours for a US passport. However, I've read reports from travelers who have been IDB by SV for 6hr or 8hr transits. With SV reps citing a 4hr max transit time. Since KSA ceased the issuance of transit visas, I don't know of any workaround to this.
If one books a 3-4hr transit and everything runs correctly, there should be no issues.
However, what happens if a flight gets re-timed or cancelled and one is left with a 12+ hour transit at RUH/JED? Ignoring the quality of the transit experience, I'd be really uncomfortable to be put in that situation. I have no idea how KSA authorities would deal with that (deportation?), but I'd not be eager to break any laws in KSA.