US /Turkey suspend visa issuance [now lifted]
Nov 16, 2017, 2:52 pm
#181
Join Date: Nov 2017
Posts: 29
Well I got a reply from the airport and they gave me contact information for the appropriate department in relation to visa management, its a start so I'll go from there and report what I find from there.
Nov 17, 2017, 11:43 am
#182
Join Date: Aug 2013
Posts: 1,710
Yeah, its just all over the place on different experiences. I've emailed the airport, and am currently on hold with the 24/7 consular hotline to see if I can get anymore clarification on things. Just trying to get as much info as I can before the new refund/route change window opens up in 4 days.
Nov 17, 2017, 12:49 pm
#183
Join Date: Nov 2017
Posts: 29
Honestly in the current state the only guaranteed more or less risk free solution would be to apply for a visa at a Turkish mission in advance assuming you have time and are near a Turkish mission. The informal visa on arrival is process is necessarily going to be less than guaranteed. I have noticed that TK on twitter has pretty much given up on any sort of visa guidance. Personally I am going to sleep on it for a day or two but I think I have reached the point of just pulling the plug on my trip in February and visit someplace else. I am not that far from DC but the cost and overhead of getting a visa in advance is not appealing with my busy schedule between now and early February. And I just want to lock in my vacation (which I have already changed once because of this).
@hfly, what do you suggest? Should I just spring for the visa or just wing and try my luck with the VoA attempt?
Nov 17, 2017, 1:18 pm
#184
Join Date: Nov 2017
Posts: 29
@36902BRF I just got off the phone with the foreign ministry hotline, and they said they have no such rule of a 3-day stay requirement in another country prior to traveling to Istanbul. Just that American travelers have to come from a non-US airport and $30 to pay for the VoA. I'll take their word for it and probably just wing it and go from there.
Nov 17, 2017, 1:19 pm
#185
FlyerTalk Evangelist
Join Date: Jan 2000
Posts: 15,345
Honestly I do not want to be responsible for what people do. I know people that have in the last few weeks come to Turkey via a third country and had spent less than 3 days in that country. I also as I noted above asked just two days ago whether the three day thing was in fact "a thing" and have posted those answers as well. Honestly I interpret things like the second TPG post as someone being overdramatic and looking ahead at time what he was going to post on the internet as soon as got out of the airport before he even left his house in the first place. Internationally a transfer of less than 24 hours has always been considered a "connection" in airline parlance, so a minute (or more) on either side can be interpreted as 3 days, quite easily, so judging from what I was told, I do believe that some believe this to be 3 days, whether it in fact really means 3 days or not. My biggest problem with this whole 3 day thing is that the proponent of it has issues that have nothing to do with it, and judging by the veracity of this person's other posts makes me believe that this person is also looking to be an internet star, and to deflect from the fact that separate from all these other issues, this person was in at least two "violations" in regard to this person's residence permit which had nothing to do with the matter at hand. Furthermore as the "friends" experience magically grew from EXACTLY 20 hours to "over 24" hours, means that this person has an agenda.
Regarding the confirmation from the ATH office, knowing TK and how its people operate...............
I do believe everything that Dave said, but do not believe it as necessarily accurate from the Turkish side. By this I mean that when he transferred on the way out, he decided to see if he could get a visa then or on his return, he was told about the three day thing. As he was not handed this in writing in anyway, the person telling him this could have been going off the transfer/connection thing as I described above, also everyone puts great importance in the fact that he speaks Turkish, so do I and about 85 million other people, it does not mean that the information one is getting is full and correct. In ATH they told him he was wrong, they called and called IST, and I can believe that someone there could have agreed. That does not make it a real policy, but may now have become the de facto policy out of ATH............I have witnessed two other TK stations make their own de facto policies in as many weeks, one more in addition to the one I wrote about in a previous post.
Regarding the confirmation from the ATH office, knowing TK and how its people operate...............
I do believe everything that Dave said, but do not believe it as necessarily accurate from the Turkish side. By this I mean that when he transferred on the way out, he decided to see if he could get a visa then or on his return, he was told about the three day thing. As he was not handed this in writing in anyway, the person telling him this could have been going off the transfer/connection thing as I described above, also everyone puts great importance in the fact that he speaks Turkish, so do I and about 85 million other people, it does not mean that the information one is getting is full and correct. In ATH they told him he was wrong, they called and called IST, and I can believe that someone there could have agreed. That does not make it a real policy, but may now have become the de facto policy out of ATH............I have witnessed two other TK stations make their own de facto policies in as many weeks, one more in addition to the one I wrote about in a previous post.
Nov 17, 2017, 1:34 pm
#186
Join Date: Nov 2017
Posts: 29
Honestly I do not want to be responsible for what people do. I know people that have in the last few weeks come to Turkey via a third country and had spent less than 3 days in that country. I also as I noted above asked just two days ago whether the three day thing was in fact "a thing" and have posted those answers as well. Honestly I interpret things like the second TPG post as someone being overdramatic and looking ahead at time what he was going to post on the internet as soon as got out of the airport before he even left his house in the first place. Internationally a transfer of less than 24 hours has always been considered a "connection" in airline parlance, so a minute (or more) on either side can be interpreted as 3 days, quite easily, so judging from what I was told, I do believe that some believe this to be 3 days, whether it in fact really means 3 days or not. My biggest problem with this whole 3 day thing is that the proponent of it has issues that have nothing to do with it, and judging by the veracity of this person's other posts makes me believe that this person is also looking to be an internet star, and to deflect from the fact that separate from all these other issues, this person was in at least two "violations" in regard to this person's residence permit which had nothing to do with the matter at hand. Furthermore as the "friends" experience magically grew from EXACTLY 20 hours to "over 24" hours, means that this person has an agenda.
Regarding the confirmation from the ATH office, knowing TK and how its people operate...............
I do believe everything that Dave said, but do not believe it as necessarily accurate from the Turkish side. By this I mean that when he transferred on the way out, he decided to see if he could get a visa then or on his return, he was told about the three day thing. As he was not handed this in writing in anyway, the person telling him this could have been going off the transfer/connection thing as I described above, also everyone puts great importance in the fact that he speaks Turkish, so do I and about 85 million other people, it does not mean that the information one is getting is full and correct. In ATH they told him he was wrong, they called and called IST, and I can believe that someone there could have agreed. That does not make it a real policy, but may now have become the de facto policy out of ATH............I have witnessed two other TK stations make their own de facto policies in as many weeks, one more in addition to the one I wrote about in a previous post.
Regarding the confirmation from the ATH office, knowing TK and how its people operate...............
I do believe everything that Dave said, but do not believe it as necessarily accurate from the Turkish side. By this I mean that when he transferred on the way out, he decided to see if he could get a visa then or on his return, he was told about the three day thing. As he was not handed this in writing in anyway, the person telling him this could have been going off the transfer/connection thing as I described above, also everyone puts great importance in the fact that he speaks Turkish, so do I and about 85 million other people, it does not mean that the information one is getting is full and correct. In ATH they told him he was wrong, they called and called IST, and I can believe that someone there could have agreed. That does not make it a real policy, but may now have become the de facto policy out of ATH............I have witnessed two other TK stations make their own de facto policies in as many weeks, one more in addition to the one I wrote about in a previous post.
Nov 17, 2017, 1:34 pm
#187
Join Date: Aug 2017
Location: New York City
Programs: TK E/*G, Hilton Diamond, Hyatt Explorist, Marriott Platinum
Posts: 151
@36902BRF I just got off the phone with the foreign ministry hotline, and they said they have no such rule of a 3-day stay requirement in another country prior to traveling to Istanbul. Just that American travelers have to come from a non-US airport and $30 to pay for the VoA. I'll take their word for it and probably just wing it and go from there.
Nov 17, 2017, 1:41 pm
#188
Join Date: Aug 2013
Posts: 1,710
@36902BRF I just got off the phone with the foreign ministry hotline, and they said they have no such rule of a 3-day stay requirement in another country prior to traveling to Istanbul. Just that American travelers have to come from a non-US airport and $30 to pay for the VoA. I'll take their word for it and probably just wing it and go from there.
Nov 17, 2017, 4:01 pm
#190
FlyerTalk Evangelist
Join Date: Jan 2000
Posts: 15,345
dreamingawake, this has been really insidious and shows the danger of the internet and how literally "fake news" can seemingly be turned into reality through chat boards, especially when there are a lot of "rookies" involved, people do not know what to believe, and some people make things up, or at least massage the truth in order to justify their existence or make themselves seem more important.
Just top spell it out for newcomers, so they would not have to read through everything:
This Bates person created a "3 day rule", posts about some friends who crucially he admits had only been in the third country for less than a day, and claims that they were not given visas. The 20 hour thing IS KEY to this, as it is less than a day, can be viewed as a connection.
Despite the fact that there are a few knowledgeable people around TA and here that say that it is not true and there are no such rules, many believe it as true, because well, its on the internet.
This Bates person,or his wife(?) claim the next week that he has been denied such VoA when he got to Turkey because he was in violation of this supposed 3 day rule. This person also let's leak that oh, he had had a resident's permit, that he had a future appointment, which means to absolutely 100% to ANY foreigner that has had a resident's permit in Turkey that this person was a CHANCER, knew that they could not leave the country, had NOT gotten the requisite 14 day paper that they would have needed to leave the country and the existence of a future appointment normally means that there was something wrong with their paperwork, etc. Also interestingly with Bates, when criticized, those people from the UK which had been on a 20 hour layoverbefore now were "more than 24 hour layover" people. Now I am thinking that they are also people who had resident's permits issues as well.
Dave, seemingly, just wanting to be careful, asked on his way through IST, and was basically, I believe told no connections, which by the letter of the law means not within 24 hours, may have been told 3 days, which could mean 24 hours, plus a minute on both sides. At ATH he asked and asked the TK people, they called and probably someone read the connection/direct thing and interpreted it as 3 days. Now that station is going by that info, which is different than what they have gotten from their own intraweb info!
So we have a situation where someone by making something up, and not stating that their situation was different to 99.9% of the people on these boards, has repeated a mistruth so many times, and concerned so many people that in some limited cases, it is in fact becoming a truth?!?!?
Just top spell it out for newcomers, so they would not have to read through everything:
This Bates person created a "3 day rule", posts about some friends who crucially he admits had only been in the third country for less than a day, and claims that they were not given visas. The 20 hour thing IS KEY to this, as it is less than a day, can be viewed as a connection.
Despite the fact that there are a few knowledgeable people around TA and here that say that it is not true and there are no such rules, many believe it as true, because well, its on the internet.
This Bates person,or his wife(?) claim the next week that he has been denied such VoA when he got to Turkey because he was in violation of this supposed 3 day rule. This person also let's leak that oh, he had had a resident's permit, that he had a future appointment, which means to absolutely 100% to ANY foreigner that has had a resident's permit in Turkey that this person was a CHANCER, knew that they could not leave the country, had NOT gotten the requisite 14 day paper that they would have needed to leave the country and the existence of a future appointment normally means that there was something wrong with their paperwork, etc. Also interestingly with Bates, when criticized, those people from the UK which had been on a 20 hour layoverbefore now were "more than 24 hour layover" people. Now I am thinking that they are also people who had resident's permits issues as well.
Dave, seemingly, just wanting to be careful, asked on his way through IST, and was basically, I believe told no connections, which by the letter of the law means not within 24 hours, may have been told 3 days, which could mean 24 hours, plus a minute on both sides. At ATH he asked and asked the TK people, they called and probably someone read the connection/direct thing and interpreted it as 3 days. Now that station is going by that info, which is different than what they have gotten from their own intraweb info!
So we have a situation where someone by making something up, and not stating that their situation was different to 99.9% of the people on these boards, has repeated a mistruth so many times, and concerned so many people that in some limited cases, it is in fact becoming a truth?!?!?
Nov 17, 2017, 6:54 pm
#191
Join Date: Nov 2017
Posts: 29
dreamingawake, this has been really insidious and shows the danger of the internet and how literally "fake news" can seemingly be turned into reality through chat boards, especially when there are a lot of "rookies" involved, people do not know what to believe, and some people make things up, or at least massage the truth in order to justify their existence or make themselves seem more important.
Just top spell it out for newcomers, so they would not have to read through everything:
This Bates person created a "3 day rule", posts about some friends who crucially he admits had only been in the third country for less than a day, and claims that they were not given visas. The 20 hour thing IS KEY to this, as it is less than a day, can be viewed as a connection.
Despite the fact that there are a few knowledgeable people around TA and here that say that it is not true and there are no such rules, many believe it as true, because well, its on the internet.
This Bates person,or his wife(?) claim the next week that he has been denied such VoA when he got to Turkey because he was in violation of this supposed 3 day rule. This person also let's leak that oh, he had had a resident's permit, that he had a future appointment, which means to absolutely 100% to ANY foreigner that has had a resident's permit in Turkey that this person was a CHANCER, knew that they could not leave the country, had NOT gotten the requisite 14 day paper that they would have needed to leave the country and the existence of a future appointment normally means that there was something wrong with their paperwork, etc. Also interestingly with Bates, when criticized, those people from the UK which had been on a 20 hour layoverbefore now were "more than 24 hour layover" people. Now I am thinking that they are also people who had resident's permits issues as well.
Dave, seemingly, just wanting to be careful, asked on his way through IST, and was basically, I believe told no connections, which by the letter of the law means not within 24 hours, may have been told 3 days, which could mean 24 hours, plus a minute on both sides. At ATH he asked and asked the TK people, they called and probably someone read the connection/direct thing and interpreted it as 3 days. Now that station is going by that info, which is different than what they have gotten from their own intraweb info!
So we have a situation where someone by making something up, and not stating that their situation was different to 99.9% of the people on these boards, has repeated a mistruth so many times, and concerned so many people that in some limited cases, it is in fact becoming a truth?!?!?
Just top spell it out for newcomers, so they would not have to read through everything:
This Bates person created a "3 day rule", posts about some friends who crucially he admits had only been in the third country for less than a day, and claims that they were not given visas. The 20 hour thing IS KEY to this, as it is less than a day, can be viewed as a connection.
Despite the fact that there are a few knowledgeable people around TA and here that say that it is not true and there are no such rules, many believe it as true, because well, its on the internet.
This Bates person,or his wife(?) claim the next week that he has been denied such VoA when he got to Turkey because he was in violation of this supposed 3 day rule. This person also let's leak that oh, he had had a resident's permit, that he had a future appointment, which means to absolutely 100% to ANY foreigner that has had a resident's permit in Turkey that this person was a CHANCER, knew that they could not leave the country, had NOT gotten the requisite 14 day paper that they would have needed to leave the country and the existence of a future appointment normally means that there was something wrong with their paperwork, etc. Also interestingly with Bates, when criticized, those people from the UK which had been on a 20 hour layoverbefore now were "more than 24 hour layover" people. Now I am thinking that they are also people who had resident's permits issues as well.
Dave, seemingly, just wanting to be careful, asked on his way through IST, and was basically, I believe told no connections, which by the letter of the law means not within 24 hours, may have been told 3 days, which could mean 24 hours, plus a minute on both sides. At ATH he asked and asked the TK people, they called and probably someone read the connection/direct thing and interpreted it as 3 days. Now that station is going by that info, which is different than what they have gotten from their own intraweb info!
So we have a situation where someone by making something up, and not stating that their situation was different to 99.9% of the people on these boards, has repeated a mistruth so many times, and concerned so many people that in some limited cases, it is in fact becoming a truth?!?!?
Nov 17, 2017, 8:21 pm
#192
FlyerTalk Evangelist
Join Date: Jan 2000
Posts: 15,345
You know, the TIMATIC regs today are the same as they were when DOCBERT posted them on October 24th. They have not changed and what is posted on TIMATIC is generally what everyone goes by.
Nov 17, 2017, 10:04 pm
#193
Join Date: Nov 2017
Posts: 29
@hfly, just looked at that post. Very interesting indeed, so if TIMATIC is still the same, then thats all that matters. Stopover: 24+ hours, and you're allowed a visa. Doesn't get anymore straight forward than that in my eyes. Really glad that is still the case in the system, once again, thank you @hfly, you have been incredibly helpful.
Nov 18, 2017, 3:58 am
#194
Join Date: Nov 2017
Posts: 29
@hfly , I'm definitely starting to see what you mean in regards to those TA posters. Just checked it and dave got rejected. Saying that now to get a VoA you need to be US national living outside of the US, with a resident permit for proof. Yet that Bates person's husband got in with an expired resident permit. So I went and called the ministry hotline again, and they still say there are no other restrictions besides arriving from a non-US airport. Yeah...those TA folks are definitely up to something cause the stories keep getting more and more exaggerated.
Just checked TIMATIC and it shows the following:Visa issuance:
Nationals of USA can obtain a visa on arrival for a maximum stay of 3 months. This does not apply to nationals of the USA departing from the USA and traveling directly to Turkey or transiting in a third country less than 24 hours. Fee: USD 30.-, EUR 25.- or GBP 20.-.
So yeah they're definitely making something up or dave has a "unique situation" happening.
Just checked TIMATIC and it shows the following:Visa issuance:
Nationals of USA can obtain a visa on arrival for a maximum stay of 3 months. This does not apply to nationals of the USA departing from the USA and traveling directly to Turkey or transiting in a third country less than 24 hours. Fee: USD 30.-, EUR 25.- or GBP 20.-.
So yeah they're definitely making something up or dave has a "unique situation" happening.
Last edited by dreamingawake409; Nov 18, 2017 at 4:09 am
Nov 18, 2017, 5:58 am
#195
FlyerTalk Evangelist
Join Date: Jan 2000
Posts: 15,345
Timatic has not changed, I was through IST just this morning and discussed it with an airlines manager and nothing had changed. Either Dave has a particular issue,or his convincing Athens that there was a problem has blown back on him out there or something else is going on as even the Bates drama queens have now gotten it in direct contradiction of what he is saying.