Denied Entry to Costa Rica
Apr 8, 2013, 10:00 am
#46
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What you suggest about the fine would be like me asking a passenger in my car to pay a speeding ticket I got because he didn't tell me to slow down.
The fine is against the carrier for what it did-- deliver a passenger without proper documents. They have no basis to recover it from the OP.
dreamfool, I do feel for you and can imagine how shocked and disappoined you were to have your obviously much-needed vacation cut short. And I do wish you the best in realizing that vacation.
However, you did come on here looking to blame someone else (bolding mine) if you look at a quote from your initial post:
I think that is why you got some of the responses that you did. You were looking to see who else was responsible for the unfortunate situation you found yourself in. I think people are just generally a bit tired of those who are always looking to blame others for things they should check and double check themselves, especially when it involves something as important as entry requirements to a foreign country.
However, you did come on here looking to blame someone else (bolding mine) if you look at a quote from your initial post:
I think that is why you got some of the responses that you did. You were looking to see who else was responsible for the unfortunate situation you found yourself in. I think people are just generally a bit tired of those who are always looking to blame others for things they should check and double check themselves, especially when it involves something as important as entry requirements to a foreign country.
The OP came here and asked, essentially, whom to blame for this unfortunate circumstance. The appropriate answer is "you because . . .", not "you, you stupid idiot how dare you suggest it was anyone else's fault; people like you who seek to avoid personal responsibility are the downfall of society".
Apr 8, 2013, 4:32 pm
#47
Join Date: Mar 2009
Posts: 1,972
In fact, they should have given the person documents at the Bio interview that specifically tells them that they can't travel outside the US until the new card arrives unless they have an advance parole stamp in the passport. Anything else is considered abandoning the application.
Apr 8, 2013, 5:04 pm
#48
Moderator: Manufactured Spending
Join Date: Jul 2011
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On what basis? If airlines could pass immigration fines onto the traveler whenever they deliver the same without the proper documents, airlines would have no reason to comply with the document requirements in the first place because it would be no skin off their back. The fine is a punishment to deter airlines from delivering passengers without proper documents.
A) Each Passenger desiring transportation across any international boundary is responsible for obtaining and presenting all necessary travel documents, which shall be in good condition, and for complying with the laws of each country flown from, through or into which he/she desires transportation. UA reserves the right to seek reimbursement from the Passenger for any loss, damage, or expense suffered or incurred by UA by reason of such Passenger’s failure to do so. UA is not liable for any assistance or information provided by any employee or agent of UA to any Passenger relating to such documents or compliance with such laws, or for the consequences to any Passenger resulting from his/her failure to obtain and present such documents, which shall be in good condition, or to comply with such laws.
Where legally permitted, UA reserves the right to hold, photocopy or otherwise reproduce a travel document presented by any Passenger. UA also reserves the right to deny boarding to any Passenger whose necessary travel documents are not in good condition or which otherwise do not comply with laws of the specific country the Passenger is departing from, transiting through, or traveling to.
B) Subject to applicable laws and regulations, the Passenger must pay the applicable fare whenever UA, on government order, is required to return a Passenger to his/her point of origin or elsewhere due to the Passenger’s inadmissibility into/or deportation from a country. The fare will be the applicable fare in effect at the time of the original Ticket’s issuance. Any difference between the applicable fare and the fare paid will be collected from or refunded to the Passenger, as the case may be. UA will apply to the payment of such fares any funds paid by the Passenger for unused
carriage or any funds of the Passenger in possession of UA. The fare collected for carriage to the point of refusal of entry or deportation will not be refunded by UA unless the law of such country requires that the fare be refunded.
Apr 8, 2013, 5:36 pm
#49
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On the basis of their contract of carriage, which states:
A) Each Passenger desiring transportation across any international boundary is responsible for obtaining and presenting all necessary travel documents, which shall be in good condition, and for complying with the laws of each country flown from, through or into which he/she desires transportation. UA reserves the right to seek reimbursement from the Passenger for any loss, damage, or expense suffered or incurred by UA by reason of such Passenger’s failure to do so. UA is not liable for any assistance or information provided by any employee or agent of UA to any Passenger relating to such documents or compliance with such laws, or for the consequences to any Passenger resulting from his/her failure to obtain and present such documents, which shall be in good condition, or to comply with such laws.
Where legally permitted, UA reserves the right to hold, photocopy or otherwise reproduce a travel document presented by any Passenger. UA also reserves the right to deny boarding to any Passenger whose necessary travel documents are not in good condition or which otherwise do not comply with laws of the specific country the Passenger is departing from, transiting through, or traveling to.
B) Subject to applicable laws and regulations, the Passenger must pay the applicable fare whenever UA, on government order, is required to return a Passenger to his/her point of origin or elsewhere due to the Passenger’s inadmissibility into/or deportation from a country. The fare will be the applicable fare in effect at the time of the original Ticket’s issuance. Any difference between the applicable fare and the fare paid will be collected from or refunded to the Passenger, as the case may be. UA will apply to the payment of such fares any funds paid by the Passenger for unused
carriage or any funds of the Passenger in possession of UA. The fare collected for carriage to the point of refusal of entry or deportation will not be refunded by UA unless the law of such country requires that the fare be refunded.
A) Each Passenger desiring transportation across any international boundary is responsible for obtaining and presenting all necessary travel documents, which shall be in good condition, and for complying with the laws of each country flown from, through or into which he/she desires transportation. UA reserves the right to seek reimbursement from the Passenger for any loss, damage, or expense suffered or incurred by UA by reason of such Passenger’s failure to do so. UA is not liable for any assistance or information provided by any employee or agent of UA to any Passenger relating to such documents or compliance with such laws, or for the consequences to any Passenger resulting from his/her failure to obtain and present such documents, which shall be in good condition, or to comply with such laws.
Where legally permitted, UA reserves the right to hold, photocopy or otherwise reproduce a travel document presented by any Passenger. UA also reserves the right to deny boarding to any Passenger whose necessary travel documents are not in good condition or which otherwise do not comply with laws of the specific country the Passenger is departing from, transiting through, or traveling to.
B) Subject to applicable laws and regulations, the Passenger must pay the applicable fare whenever UA, on government order, is required to return a Passenger to his/her point of origin or elsewhere due to the Passenger’s inadmissibility into/or deportation from a country. The fare will be the applicable fare in effect at the time of the original Ticket’s issuance. Any difference between the applicable fare and the fare paid will be collected from or refunded to the Passenger, as the case may be. UA will apply to the payment of such fares any funds paid by the Passenger for unused
carriage or any funds of the Passenger in possession of UA. The fare collected for carriage to the point of refusal of entry or deportation will not be refunded by UA unless the law of such country requires that the fare be refunded.
Apr 8, 2013, 7:00 pm
#50
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Ari When you say this:
"On what basis? If airlines could pass immigration fines onto the traveler whenever they deliver the same without the proper documents, airlines would have no reason to comply with the document requirements in the first place because it would be no skin off their back. The fine is a punishment to deter airlines from delivering passengers without proper documents.
What you suggest about the fine would be like me asking a passenger in my car to pay a speeding ticket I got because he didn't tell me to slow down.
The fine is against the carrier for what it did-- deliver a passenger without proper documents. They have no basis to recover it from the OP."
You are just plain wrong. Not only do the COC clearly cover this but carriers do pursue and, presuming that the pax has the assets, collect. These are not small amounts and they are sizeable enough to make it worth pursuing.
"On what basis? If airlines could pass immigration fines onto the traveler whenever they deliver the same without the proper documents, airlines would have no reason to comply with the document requirements in the first place because it would be no skin off their back. The fine is a punishment to deter airlines from delivering passengers without proper documents.
What you suggest about the fine would be like me asking a passenger in my car to pay a speeding ticket I got because he didn't tell me to slow down.
The fine is against the carrier for what it did-- deliver a passenger without proper documents. They have no basis to recover it from the OP."
You are just plain wrong. Not only do the COC clearly cover this but carriers do pursue and, presuming that the pax has the assets, collect. These are not small amounts and they are sizeable enough to make it worth pursuing.
Apr 8, 2013, 7:07 pm
#51
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Can you quote some cases? I have trouble believing that the fines are enough to warrant a corporate law dept chasing them except on a very rare instance when some other factor is involved. Or you have an airline that simply are simply pricks about litigation.
Apr 9, 2013, 3:20 pm
#52
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Join Date: Aug 2005
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Ari When you say this:
"On what basis? If airlines could pass immigration fines onto the traveler whenever they deliver the same without the proper documents, airlines would have no reason to comply with the document requirements in the first place because it would be no skin off their back. The fine is a punishment to deter airlines from delivering passengers without proper documents.
What you suggest about the fine would be like me asking a passenger in my car to pay a speeding ticket I got because he didn't tell me to slow down.
The fine is against the carrier for what it did-- deliver a passenger without proper documents. They have no basis to recover it from the OP."
You are just plain wrong. Not only do the COC clearly cover this but carriers do pursue and, presuming that the pax has the assets, collect. These are not small amounts and they are sizeable enough to make it worth pursuing.
"On what basis? If airlines could pass immigration fines onto the traveler whenever they deliver the same without the proper documents, airlines would have no reason to comply with the document requirements in the first place because it would be no skin off their back. The fine is a punishment to deter airlines from delivering passengers without proper documents.
What you suggest about the fine would be like me asking a passenger in my car to pay a speeding ticket I got because he didn't tell me to slow down.
The fine is against the carrier for what it did-- deliver a passenger without proper documents. They have no basis to recover it from the OP."
You are just plain wrong. Not only do the COC clearly cover this but carriers do pursue and, presuming that the pax has the assets, collect. These are not small amounts and they are sizeable enough to make it worth pursuing.
Apr 9, 2013, 6:13 pm
#53
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As a matter of fact, it is infrequent that the airline even gets hit with any fine when it comes to most of those incidents where people are denied entry to any of the 25 largest countries in international flight passenger numbers, the US being in there of course.
I am not going to expand at all into the following beyond saying that in some jurisdictions it is unlawful for the airline to try a fine pass-thru for such circumstances, even when considering use of an airline COC clause as attempted cover for such. In a couple of countries at least, a lawyer making this kind of collection effort could be subject to career disruption to say the least and risk seeing their client placed in greater jeopardy than a single fine amount. Then some government employees get called in to try to calm things down on behalf of corporate overreach with regard to overseas incidents when its a major company with a lot of connections.
In the OP's situation, the airline allowed the passenger to travel after examining the passenger's documents and ok'ing the documents for travel to Costa Rica. It sounds like the airline failed in some ways too. Did the airline get hit with a fine for this incident? Not necessarily, and doubtful unless the airline (or its tools) or the Costa Rican government wants to highlight what happened by supplying documentation showing a fine being levied and paid/collected.
I am not going to expand at all into the following beyond saying that in some jurisdictions it is unlawful for the airline to try a fine pass-thru for such circumstances, even when considering use of an airline COC clause as attempted cover for such. In a couple of countries at least, a lawyer making this kind of collection effort could be subject to career disruption to say the least and risk seeing their client placed in greater jeopardy than a single fine amount. Then some government employees get called in to try to calm things down on behalf of corporate overreach with regard to overseas incidents when its a major company with a lot of connections.
In the OP's situation, the airline allowed the passenger to travel after examining the passenger's documents and ok'ing the documents for travel to Costa Rica. It sounds like the airline failed in some ways too. Did the airline get hit with a fine for this incident? Not necessarily, and doubtful unless the airline (or its tools) or the Costa Rican government wants to highlight what happened by supplying documentation showing a fine being levied and paid/collected.
Last edited by GUWonder; Apr 9, 2013 at 6:23 pm
Apr 9, 2013, 7:01 pm
#54
Moderator: Manufactured Spending
Join Date: Jul 2011
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Can you name some such jurisdictions?
Apr 9, 2013, 8:08 pm
#55
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Apr 9, 2013, 9:25 pm
#57
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On what basis? If airlines could pass immigration fines onto the traveler whenever they deliver the same without the proper documents, airlines would have no reason to comply with the document requirements in the first place because it would be no skin off their back. The fine is a punishment to deter airlines from delivering passengers without proper documents.
Each Passenger desiring transportation across any international boundary is responsible for obtaining and presenting all necessary travel documents, which shall be in good condition, and for complying with the laws of each country flown from, through or into which he/she desires transportation. UA reserves the right to seek reimbursement from the Passenger for any loss, damage, or expense suffered or incurred by UA by reason of such passenger’s failure to do so.
I would say it's pretty presumptuous to actually believe something very clearly stated that you agree to when you buy the ticket is something that can not or will not ever happen.
Apr 10, 2013, 3:06 am
#58
Join Date: Nov 2004
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Pardon me but if the agency you are dealing with gives you a letter in which you are basically told that you ARE able to travel with this "document" until the real thing arrives why should anyone not accept this as true and suspect that this acception has not been agree upon via diplomatic accord?
Just reading one days worth of post here already prooves that no person is infabable when it comes to making false calls due to believing they know better. Immigrations world wide are no less at this risk. What are the chances the OP got to an immigrations office in CR who simply missed the memo or misunderstood it for that matter?
I would certainly not take this sort of thing laying down. Some one screwed up here and it was not necessarily the OP in this case. He was told by the issuing entity that he was OK to travel why should he have doubted that? Bear in mind CR only required what the OP legally was in posession proof of his US status and according to the issuing US entity he was indeed in posssion of that legal proof.
Just reading one days worth of post here already prooves that no person is infabable when it comes to making false calls due to believing they know better. Immigrations world wide are no less at this risk. What are the chances the OP got to an immigrations office in CR who simply missed the memo or misunderstood it for that matter?
I would certainly not take this sort of thing laying down. Some one screwed up here and it was not necessarily the OP in this case. He was told by the issuing entity that he was OK to travel why should he have doubted that? Bear in mind CR only required what the OP legally was in posession proof of his US status and according to the issuing US entity he was indeed in posssion of that legal proof.
Apr 10, 2013, 4:55 am
#59
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The contract of carriage, which in case you are not aware is a document outlining your contract with the airlines you agree to when you purchase a ticket states
Each Passenger desiring transportation across any international boundary is responsible for obtaining and presenting all necessary travel documents, which shall be in good condition, and for complying with the laws of each country flown from, through or into which he/she desires transportation. UA reserves the right to seek reimbursement from the Passenger for any loss, damage, or expense suffered or incurred by UA by reason of such passenger’s failure to do so.
I would say it's pretty presumptuous to actually believe something very clearly stated that you agree to when you buy the ticket is something that can not or will not ever happen.
Each Passenger desiring transportation across any international boundary is responsible for obtaining and presenting all necessary travel documents, which shall be in good condition, and for complying with the laws of each country flown from, through or into which he/she desires transportation. UA reserves the right to seek reimbursement from the Passenger for any loss, damage, or expense suffered or incurred by UA by reason of such passenger’s failure to do so.
I would say it's pretty presumptuous to actually believe something very clearly stated that you agree to when you buy the ticket is something that can not or will not ever happen.
A lot of things can possibly happen even as not all possible outcomes or elements claimed by (or on behalf of) an airline/industry/government or apologists thereof -- even claimed in memorialized form -- are generally applicable under law in practical terms if not also otherwise. The world is a pretty diverse place and outcomes are many, not all of which are justified under law in the same way.
Most individuals who fly into countries in the Americas and get turned around by passport control types are not being hit by fines and airline bill collectors for being refused entry, even in those minority of circumstances where a maximum legal penalty hits the airline for the airline's unlawfully transporting a passenger who is turned around on arrival.
Apr 10, 2013, 9:15 am
#60
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Pardon me but if the agency you are dealing with gives you a letter in which you are basically told that you ARE able to travel with this "document" until the real thing arrives why should anyone not accept this as true and suspect that this acception has not been agree upon via diplomatic accord?
Just reading one days worth of post here already prooves that no person is infabable when it comes to making false calls due to believing they know better. Immigrations world wide are no less at this risk. What are the chances the OP got to an immigrations office in CR who simply missed the memo or misunderstood it for that matter?
I would certainly not take this sort of thing laying down. Some one screwed up here and it was not necessarily the OP in this case. He was told by the issuing entity that he was OK to travel why should he have doubted that? Bear in mind CR only required what the OP legally was in posession proof of his US status and according to the issuing US entity he was indeed in posssion of that legal proof.
Just reading one days worth of post here already prooves that no person is infabable when it comes to making false calls due to believing they know better. Immigrations world wide are no less at this risk. What are the chances the OP got to an immigrations office in CR who simply missed the memo or misunderstood it for that matter?
I would certainly not take this sort of thing laying down. Some one screwed up here and it was not necessarily the OP in this case. He was told by the issuing entity that he was OK to travel why should he have doubted that? Bear in mind CR only required what the OP legally was in posession proof of his US status and according to the issuing US entity he was indeed in posssion of that legal proof.
while of course we all make mistakes, and in hindsight it is so easy to give advice (once you know what you are looking for), the Costa Rica embassy site states the requirements. A US government agent cannot overrule the entry requirements of another country just by saying 'this is good for travel'.