Originally Posted by
donjo
Thanks for your reply. The only reason I posted this in the United forum was to determine how reliably the international gate agent is at catching errors on these types of documents before allowing a passenger on an international flight. Apparently they are not reliable to any extent. I understand the responsibility ultimately lies with me and I fully accept that. However, like many people who are confused by a dynamic process involving immigration, I chose to hire someone who does this for a living. And that person did not do their job correctly. Lesson learned. My concern going forward as was mentioned above, is how long will I be banned from re-entry now that I have been deported.
Given that you had a document that looked like a visa, and so far it sounds like no one in this thread has determined conclusively what the problem was, I'm not surprised that UA let you board.
UA
does attempt to check the validity of visas and documents, but it is an obligation to themselves because they face the burden of removing you from Japan and can also be fined by the Japanese government for delivering inadmissible pax. I would absolutely say you had an extremely rare experience - 99% of the time someone without the correct documents for entry will be caught by UA and denied boarding at their origin. TIMATIC would have flagged you for a visa check, and an agent should have confirmed that you had a visa - since we don't know what the issue was I have no way of knowing whether it was reasonable for the agent to catch it. In a sense, you could say that UA messed up too, but they don't have a contractual obligation to
you here - UA messed up, and they paid for their mistake by having to take you back from Japan, and they may get in trouble with Japan.