Originally Posted by WHBM
There is a contradiction in all this if there is an insistence on seeing booked travel arrangements.
This was fine and a standard thing some years ago when you could book and change at will. But nowadays many/most pre-booked fares are non-refundable, a situation visa providers somehow seem to have missed. How can visa officials ask to see evidence of booked travel arrangements that are usually non-refundable before deciding whether or not to grant the visa.
Anyone have an answer to this one ?
Depending on our travel plans we will either risk it and purchase the non-refundable ticket, have our travel agent put the trip on hold for use which gives is a full itinerary that we can print out or just do a book and hold on like Uniteds web site which we can do as 1K's. We never give anything more than a printout and I think once I even gave a printout of an expedia itin that had not been purchased yet. I dont think most embassies are strict on this these days.