Having recently returned from a F Class RTW trip, I was stopped and questioned by Canada Customs at YVR and treated like a drug smuggler/high ranking organized crime boss (They asked to see my ticket and asked "who paid for my trip" and a bunch of other embarassing questions then x-rayed my bags.)

The reason that they told me was that I was young (20 years old), flew first class (asked to see my ticket), and went to so many places in such a short period of time.

Now I am thinking of using 3 RTW tickets at the same time (but don't know what to explain to customs/immigration when i return to Canada). Any tips on how not to get caught?

Ticket 1:
YVR-HKG-BKK-X/HKG-LHR-JFK-YVR

Ticket 2: (buy in BKK because CX/UA is cheap there !!)
BKK-X/HKG-YVR-JFK-LHR-HKG-BKK

Ticket 3:
BKK-X/HKG-LHR-JFK-YVR-HKG-BKK

Actual use of the tickets:
(Purpose: To go to HKG and visit friends/family/hangout etc. in between school breaks, with maybe some fun in London on the way back.)

Trip #1
Ticket 1: YVR-HKG (Stay 2 weeks) HKG-BKK (to pick up physical tickets 2 and 3 while in BKK [issued by TA 7 days before I arrive in BKK])
Ticket 2: BKK-X/HKG-YVR (School for 3.5 months)

Trip #2
Ticket 2:
YVR-JFK-LHR-HKG-BKK
Ticket 3:
BKK-X/HKG-LHR-JFK-YVR

Trip #3
Ticket 3:
YVR-HKG-BKK
Ticket 1:
BKK-X/HKG-LHR-JFK-YVR

Then the cycle repeats again each year...

All I hope is that the CX/UA RTW fare still exists and won't be discontinued in the near future !!

just tell them the truth -- you dad is rich, and criminal at your age won't fly F anyway.

as for your trip, it is definitely valid.
for your second year you might want to buy a 1-way to HKG or BKK or ICN. then you dont need to start from YVR every year again.

if u r using OWE, ex-Seoul is lot cheaper than ex-BKK now, i think

I think it has to do with YVR's customs.

Of all the North American gateways I know, YVR seems to be the only place I have been asked to go through that 'questioning' session several times. Not in YUL, YYC, YYZ (not to mention any U.S. gateways, maybe except for Portland, where DL pulled out its Japan flights apparently because of some problems many passengers had with the customs there).

I like YVR except this customs clearance thing.

I would also recommend that you tell them just the truth. I think you would also get by if you arrive late (when that baggage check section is closed). But not sure, though.

Customs' people like this really tick me off! Despite being normally well behaved I usually experience difficulties in dealing with bureucrats of such low level. I normally tell them that if I didn't have any brains then I'd be a peasant just like themselves and still worked for the government. Of course, I have nothing to be worried about in my luggage since some might take offence unjustifiably.

If they persist just tell them to stop with the questions and feel free to search your bags, then insistently say, "And when you're done, make sure you put everything back the way it was!". They are petty bureaucrats that resent anyone younger than them that has more than them.

Spider and hfly,

Normally you guys have great posts but are you sure you have not taken some of the drugs you have been "accused" of smuggling? Why mess with someone who can make your life hell (even for a little bit). It is far easier just to answer the questions and move on. They are confrontational for a reason and that is to try and get those actually smuggling something to "break down" and admit it. Try the antagonistic approach some day in Isreal? See where it gets you. I know it got me searched and wasted a couple of hours.

Good luck,
rich

My rule in these situations is to be calm, polite but firm. Being confrontational or even being nervous is likely to make the situation worse. I've had a situation where an overzealous agent became increasingly agitated with me but I just stood my ground. Eventually a supervisor came over and "relieved" him of the inspection and I was on my way in a few minutes. Most times I don't get that much grief from customs, except in Japan where they very politelly grill me and insist on opening one or more of my bags.

On a separate note but kind of related. I had a QF agent feak out when I wanted to reissue one of my RTW's that I had stopped part way in the U.S. I was in the Sydney QF office and she started berating me that using coupons out of order was illegal and I would have to pay the full fare for the segments I used to get to Australia. I pulled out my two other RTW's and a Circle Pacfic (all partially used) and suggested she might like to go through them to check that I had in fact arrived in Sydney legally. At that point she practically bent over backwards to do all the changes I wanted - not even checking the rule book!

Being young is, fortunately, a curable problem (but one I wish I still had). There isn't much you can do about it in the short term. Face it, it makes you unusual in the context of RTW trips in F. Unusual gets reactions from these folks. It's what they're trained to look for.

You might say you were lucky enough to get into a dot-com early and get your money out before everything tanked, so now you're enjoying yourself for a while. That's consistent with your age and the situation. Other than that, as others have suggested, stay calm and let them do their thing. They can make things more unpleasant for you than you can for them.

Your experience seems to be a problem for Asian travellers flying into YVR. Honesty in answers doesn't seem to make any difference to the petty power-crazy bureaucrats.

I get around it by flying into the nearest U.S. airport( SEA for me but prefer arriving from outside the U.S. at small international airports such as PIT) and taking a bus from there (much laxer customs).

I really feel for you in this situation, through my teens and college years I was constantly travelling long haul and mostly in Premium classes. In the world's most important airports you never have this sort of petty bureaucracy as the agents have tons of flights coming in and are "professional" in what they do. Whenever I flew into second and third tier international airports like Boston, Toronto, Prestwick, etc. I would encounter small minded bureaucats who ere picking on me for my age, or whatever reason. It was in these instances where I honed my skills (see above) for dealing with them.

I would also like to point out that in some cases at some airports, immigration officers amuse themselves by playing "billiards", "darts", "9 Ball" and other such stupid games to amuse themselves and compete with other agents.

For those of you who are not familiar with these "terms" they refer to the pattern in which they question and/or harass people. They will stop people according to the color clothing they wear, in the order of these games, Numerically as per darts in competition with another agent.

As a matter of fact, several years ago I arrived in LHR and had to go back to the plane because I left my sunglasses. I was therefore the last person through customs, there was no one except me and about ten agents at desks in the hall.

After I passed through, I heard one agent ask the other, "What's the next flight?", answer "Nigerian Airlines". Response, "Let's have fun, you grab odds, I'll grab evens!" Read into this what you will.

As for Israel, a friend of mines father was getting very tired of bring asked for the third time why he had travelled there. He responded quite firmly and practically shouted, "because its my ETERNAL HOMELAND and I have a God given right to come and go as I please!!". End of questions.

When I arrived in LHR from NYC and used the Fast Track arrivals line, I had no problems.
No problems at HKG, BKK, or SIN and EVEN JFK !! either. (maybe these airports are used to having "rich" kids/students flying in and out, especially LHR and JFK?)

FYI, my CX flight in F from HKG to YVR only had 2 passengers (I was one of them)

It is YVR that really bugs me.

Will getting CANPASS help? or should I buy a one-way ticket to Seattle on my return next time and use the "International to USA" transit facilities to "connect" to Seattle? (then take the bus back to Vancouver)

[This message has been edited by daniellam (edited 08-02-2001).]

Canada is just doing its duty in vetting out suspects in illegal activties. There's no way you can avoid it. They don't specifically pick on you, it's just that sometimes you've bad luck when they do.

With the recent events surrounding the China Kingpin drug smuggler who is seeking asylum in Canada for fear of persecution if sent back to China, Canada has got to be more deligent in weeding out possible refugees, smugglers and the like. For all the years I have been in Canada, I have seen immigration at both Vancouver and Toronto try to put their hand in preventing honest people from coming to visit. Commonwealth citizens do not need visas except from a few countries in the world, and yet I have seen Canadian officials give exact date visa entries to people even from UK, New Zealand and Australia. (Hence, asians are not the only suspects).

I've a caucasian friend who was asked why he flies so often between London and Toronto and how he can afford it. He just says that he's rich and that usually shuts them up.

So maybe you should just do the same.

It's got nothing to do with Canada, the entire continent seems to treat weird travellers (young, first class etc..) like criminals. JFK is top of my list, I had a 2 hour interregation when I arrived on Concorde...

Last year I transited internationally at JFK. I arrived from Europe and was to go take a flight on CX metal to HKG (btw, before anyone asks why I would take such a long route to go to HKG -I was not on a mileage run - I had a RTW ticket and at the last minute my meeting in NYC got cancelled, so I flew straight to HKG).

With transit in the USA being so terribly organized, I had to go though immigration and pick my own luggage and go through customs in order to change terminals at JFK.

Problems started soon. I was stopped at customs and the agent started asking questions. I was responding in a normal way. He asked to see my ticket to HKG. I started to search for that ticket among the many that I had. Then he snapped "give me the whole thing". I nicely said "wait, there are too many tickets, i will give you the right one". his reply and in a bad snappy tone "i said to hand me the whole thing". now i became annoyed and in a sudden movement with an ugly look put the whole thing in front of him. now things started to really go down. he had no clue. couldnt find the ticket (i had many partially unused tickets, including a few RTWs with segments still valid). he said he did not understand and obviously expected a comment/answer from me. i said nothing. again he said "i do not understand, i can not find the ticket". Reply: "are you expecting an answer, because i heard no question?"

(i do not know how to make the story short as the whole incident lasted about 40 minutes).

Along the way we discussed why I had so many tickets bought in bangkok. Then he checked the exchange rate for the bath, trying to figure out the price of the ticket (it was a RTW in F). he said he had not seen anything like that (so many confusing tickets and such routings) in so many years working there. here i said "maybe because sophisticated rich people like me are not the people you usually interact with". ok i admit it, that was a nasty comment, but he was being an as**ole himself along the way. of course by then he was opening my bags, and bingo!!, i had a box of cuban cigars. when he tried to give me a hard time on this. i finally told him that i didnt care about the f***ing cigars, that he could keep them. that i was just trying to get to hkg and that he was delaying me and making me risk missing my plane to get the h*ll out of the usa. that because the screwy way the lousy airports in the usa work, no transfer of bags could be possible between different international flights in diffeent airlines. i didnt intend to bring the cigars into the usa, but etc. etc. etc. my final coment was along the way of i do not care about the cigars. take them, do whatever you want but decide whether you like me so much that you want to keep me in your country against my will, because if you leave it up to me, i will rush to get the h*ll out of here and fly to hkg asap. he called supervisor, conferred for about 5 minutes. came back and without lloking at me handed my documents back and said "go" and turned around.

under normal conditions i would have been less confrontational, but...i got annoyed and i thought i had a good response to the issue of the cuban cigars (i expected the airline to transfer the bags for me like they do at other airports) and i actually did not care about missing the flight as i was in no rush. i could easily have stayed a day in nyc -not that i wanted, but it would have been of no consequence.

probably i fit a strange profile: young, traveling first class, with british passport, but heavy spanish accent in english, living in singapore and with plenty of thailand, malaysia, hkg, china and venezuela stamps in the passport. i guess that could easily confuse them

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The trouble with resisting temptation is...that you may not get another chance :-)

I don't think it is necessarily always due to their perception of you, I think it is also if they just feel like being a jerk. My second international return, I was sent to secondary for 2 hrs. I think I was 24 at the time, mid-January, coming in from about 3 weeks gone. Flew coach on VS, nothing out of the ordinary. One mistake I made was that I put "student" for occupation, which was absolutely true. Now, I don't care what I am studying, I won't put student on *anything* from any country. Oddly enough, I have had few or no problems with US customs since then. Knock on wood. Also oddly enough, the one place I *always* have problems is going in and out of Indonesia.