Dave Noble

This part is easily avoided though by getting an electronic visa in advance at https://visa2egypt.gov.eg

For the rest, it seems understandable to me that there would be suspicion of someone travelling UK-US with a 4000 mile detour

mrow

IAN-UK

Just to update. Nothing at all happened to my application, apart from it being acknowledged. My payment stuck as pending for 10 days, before being un-pended by my bank. I battled the frustration of sending a comment through the website: the reply was one requesting further information. But life's too short, I'll write it off as Ramadan induced lassitude.

Now it's time for a measure of humble pie and hat eating. For the first time in many years of frequent trips to Cairo, only one desk for visa stamps was working. This was T3, with around half a dozen desks.

The open one was the Emirates NBD Bank, a bit mobbed, but the disarmingly charming agent dealt with me and a companion quickly and efficiently AND short-changed both of us by a EGP100 note. About £4 each, so not a fortune, but it's annoying to be taken as a fool.

Now fleecing tourists generally isn't a career threatening move in Egypt, but dishonesty in a bank employee is. So perhaps the bank is correct, and the employee simply made two consecutive mistakes in counting notes

Evil-minded companion suggested that a single-note loss could be explained away fuss-free if detected immediately at the counter, while the £4 shortfall would be unlikely to be realised later, and if it were, would be written off as carelessness. So fleecing a proportion of your clients of a small amount over a long day could be quite safe, and a nice little earner ...

MORAL: if you buy a visa stamp on arrival, and/or exchange cash, you will (should) get a printed receipt detailing the transaction. Count the Egyptians notes you receive and compare with the balance shown on the receipt. Sounds like common sense, indeed it is common sense, but after long flights and faced with unfamiliar currency most visitors seem to pocket the cash without checking it.

Dave Noble

I did another purchase for another traveller - payment cleared email came 24 hours after completing purchase online - a few hours later , he visa arrived

I don't know what happened in your case, but my experience has been that it worked well and , when I did have a communication with the visa people ( to check what to put for host ) the person responded promptly

Did you respond to the person's request?

I would have no hesitation in doing it again and would recommend it to anyone

IAN-UK

Well, yes. If it had worked for me I would also recommend it to anyone with time on their side, pre-armed with

• passport photos of the correct size,
• insight into how to handle the "host/sponsor" riddle
• ingenuity to work out how to fill in text boxes

and our posts have certainly contributed to the knowledge base of what is required.



But it didn't work out for me. So I can't.


And although the via stamp business took all of five minutes in a queue, the process itself was near-instantaneous and can be conducted in any of the FOREX negotiable currencies. Only one caveat:

• count your change!

Clearly the e-Visa is the way to go for any holders of passports not eligible for visas on arrival. But for those blessed with VOA eigible passports, the decision is much less clear cut. If you are on a one-off visit to Egypt it's hard to see the faff of an e-Visa as attractive, though acquisition of the knowledge base to make subsequent applications speedy and efficient could shift the balance towards the electronic version.

As for the reliability of the electronic process, I have absolutely no idea how common my (negative) experience is. As a bit if a geek I don't resent the time I lost, but I can see it as a considerable frustration to others.

On the other hand, the VOA has a 100% success rate for those eligible.

Dave Noble

No passport photos were required from what I recall, just a scan of the photo page of the passport

The host bit is now understood quite well now , soi is a one off issue

Filling in text boxes didn't require any ingenuity that I could see

I think that it is very good for anyone that does not have the exact amount of required currency in cash and would need to get some to be able to do a Visa on Arrival. Saved me a trip to the bank to get one of the acceptable currencies

The queuing requires 5 minutes on arrival - the time doing the evisa was time when I was also doing things such as watching television shows - plus I would have spent a lot more time going to a bank to get currency

Tom Otley

A new lounge has opened

NAS Brings Comfort and Luxury to Cairo International Airport with New Pearl Lounge

I'm in it now.

It has plenty of usb charging points, useful considering the laptop and iPad and large power banks ban.

At check in you get an invitation.

Also takes PP.

m0hamed

Photos here https://nationalaviationservices.afr...lounge?lang=en

IAN-UK

ok, substitute "scan of the size required of the photo page of the passport" for "passport photo of the required size": for some of us (me!) reducing image size is a challenge.


maybe it was me and my fat luddite fingers, or my browser, but the Egypt site kept refusing my address. Trial and error suggests it didn't like line breaks: so I used text with comma separated lines. Yay!


I did check on this, and most negotiable currencies are accepted buy the banks. They simply convert what you give them to EGP, take the EGP equivalent of USD25, and give you the change from the transaction (in EGP). Just watch out you get the notes you expect!!

I'm guessing you wouldn't get far with Myanmar Kyats, but any major currency should be fine. So for most of us, no need to trudge to a bank.



Finally, the elephant in the e-Visa room is that my application was totally unsuccessful. Not in terms of being refused a visa, but because the process stalled at an intermediate phase. Yours wasn't, which of course is good news. Perhaps my fail was a one-off: who knows?

wcel

Do you still have to go through the security scanner after leaving the lounge like the previous one?

Also I presume there's still no alcohol on offer?

Tom Otley

No, but you have the full search at the gate.

​​​​​​There is alcohol. I saw someone having a beer

anabolism

Nice to have this option, especially with our flight now departing at 3:45 AM. We'll probably hang around the W-A Heliopolis Towers as long as we can, then get to the airport and wait in the lounge. The pictures, however, do not seem to show a lounge that "offers the ultimate in comfort and luxury" as the press release asserts

m0hamed

MaxFlyer

Dave Noble

As Above, assuming that you are staying at a hotel

For Host type , Tourism Operator
For Host details , put the Hotel name and the Hotel address