Reasonable visa help?
 

What do you think is a reasonable level of help that a standard luxury hotel should provide, putting aside an exotic location or destination hotel that might be accustomed to providing such service, or providing just a basic official confirmation/invitation print-out that some jurisdictions require? Twice now I have unsuccessfully asked concierges at Four Seasons hotels in places where most guests probably don't need visas but my travel companion, alas, does -- Morocco and Singapore -- whether they could help with visas.

At Casablanca, they basically just shrugged their shoulders and said there was nothing they could do. At Singapore, the concierge sent me a dodgy-looking typo-laden web site for some type of agency that claims to be able to get a visa with no supporting documentation. It seems like in Singapore, one can apply online with only an additional form submitted by a "local contact." It seems like providing this form would be a reasonable service that the hotel should provide for a long-time Four Seasons customer (though never at that property). Or is my expectation out of bounds? (The Conrad Singapore also refused to do anything besides steer me to the government web site; I would have expected more from even that level of hotel, especially as a Diamond member of Hilton Honors.)

Someone will say that this puts the hotel at risk, etc. I get that, but there are other services that a luxury hotel front office could provide that theoretically entail some risk. There's a balance.

I doubt many people would ever try to use such a service in all apart from some very specific countries, and as a result I would expect hotels to be quite bad at it.

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Thanks
Obscure2k
Moderator
Luxury Hotels and Trave

Your expectation is out of bounds.

If you dig thru what is requirements for visa to Singapore, 'local contact' means beasically an invitation from a private person and that person theoretically is on hook if the invited person has trouble with a law (immigration or otherwise) in Singapore.

Not for Singapore. Expectation that a a local private person (again - 'local contact' is a private person) puts him/herself on a risk for some foregner and does it for free is outside of a reasonable expecatation even if you spend $1m/year on Hilton.

Thank you. You seem to be knowledgeable about Singapore entry requirements, so if I may please pick your brain. What do you think of the Singapore visa service link in my OP? I guess that agency fills out the "local contact" form for the traveler and takes its chances? Or is there some other way it might obtain a visa? You can imagine my reluctance to use that service, though the Four Seasons recommending it is, I suppose, one factor in its favor. Second, what do you know about the 96-hour visa-free transit rule? The government site says that the traveler, who meets all of the listed requirements, "may" be eligible. This is typical language that visa authorities use, but do you have any insight into this? A poster on another thread thought the visa-free transit would work, FWIW.

Thanks again. There's little recent discussion of this topic on the Singapore forum.

I spent 10 years living in Singapore, so yes, have familiarity with the process.

My relative visiting me used 96 hour Visa Free Transit Facility rule several years ago, so I can tell that it works. Conditions are well outlined - you need to have passport from countries qualified to use VFTF, onward departure ticket and can enter to Singapore by air/ground/water.

If somone needs to stay longer than 4 days in Singapore, then there are following options:

• Business visit: company hosting the person must lodge documents/processing for visa. Must outline purpose of the visit, duration of the stay, etc
• Personal visit: either via local contact mentioned above or via authrized MFA agents. Before submitting information to the Agent, I would check if the agent is in the current list of MFA and then communicate with the agent.

Regarding the second part - one needs to get visa before arrival to Singapore. 96 hour VFRF does not allow any extension or change to differnt type of visa - one has to exit the country and then come back using the same option or having visa on hands. However, I would discourage to do quick turnarond doing VFTF - most likely entry will be refused and highly likely that future entries as a tourist will be refused as well.

Also needs to be specifically mentioned that there is close to impossible getting tourist/visitor visa (either via local contact or via agency with longer than 96h stay not using VFTF) for young unmarried females ('young' means younger than 45 years old) from Russia and Ukraine due to suspicion to be engaged in prostitution. There was a bust of a prostitution ring several years ago employing women from Russia and Ukraine who were in the country on tourist visas. In line how Singapore governmt acts (by overreacting) when they see a problem - now there is a such policy.

In your case, if the person does not need to stay more than 96 hours in Singapore and is qualified to use VFTF rule, I would suggest to use it.

Thanks a lot.