susiesan

$200 for a visa to visit Turkey as a tourist? That has to be one of if not the most expensive visas in the world for Americans. I am scratching Turkey off my list of future vacation destinations. This huge cost will have a massive effect on the cruises that stop in Istanbul or Kusadasi. That traffic has already dried up.

docbert

A US visa costs $160, and every Turkish person coming to the US has had to pay that, even before this whole issue started.

$200 is on the higher side for a visa, but there are lot more than a higher - just that Americans are lucky that most countries don't require a visa so you don't notice the costs. (Although my current Saudi Arabia visa cost over $1600, which make $200 look very cheap...)

hfly

1. As of 2 years ago there have not been too many cruises, as many companies stopped coming to/through Turkey.
2. If the pax are hitting a Turkish port from another place, they can get the VoA.

gr8pirate

Unexpected positive side effect of this sad situation:

The possibility of having to pay $200 per person to bring my US-born kids on a layover in IST has finally inspired this procrastinator to finally get them their EU passports.

hfly

Although seemingly a temporary measure, this harkens back to 1995. The US and Turkey had had a protocal in place from the 1950's which basically said that US citizens could travel to Turkey without a visa for normal purposes, and that while Turks needed a visa, these were to be issued FREE OF CHARGE. The lame duck Foreign Minister in 1995 was names Mumtuz Soysal, he literally had no good ideas, but the one that he thought would make him popular was highlighting the disparity of the fact that he thought it "unfair" that Turks required visas to the US and not viceversa. So he instituted visas for US citizens which were also available on arrival,and cost $20. The US of course reciprocated immediately and imposed a $20 fee on Turks. A year later they raised it to $40, the US reciprocated. Then to $55 or $60 (I cannot recall). After 9/11 the US raised the fee to $100 and the Turks matched. It was at this point that certain members of the travel industry started having meetings with the Tourism Ministry and explained how this was getting detrimental to its growth as several cruise lines said they would stop visiting Turkish ports. The government relented and the fee went back down to $20.

The glaring thing about this, that the Turks did NOT realize, or did, but did not care, was that while the maximum duration for a Turkish visa was 3 months - which later became 90 days. The maximum duration for a US visa was TEN YEARS. So while a theoretical Turk could get a US visa for 10 years for what eventually became about $170, a theoretical American would have to pay $800 for the same validity.

It would seem that this principal is once again, at least temporarily being applied, and again ignoring that US visas are often good for 10 years, while Turkish ones are 90 days.

dtxdnc

I would definetely pay 20$ for Visa on Arrival for USA for all my visits instead of the hassle to obtain a visa.
Please understand that to get a visa, You have to get appointment, gather so many useless documents to prove you will only visit and will return, spend 1-2 day to collect all the necessary documents, need an updated photo etc&etc. So much procedure & waste of time. Yes I have 10 years but same procedure goes for EU Schengen.

20$ for VoA to USA entrance? Yes I would skip a lunch at Carls.Jr and pay for that

Holding a Passport that is able to travel without a visa requirement or VoA for acceptable cost is a bliss.
Only people that has spent their 2-3 days to obtaining documents to apply a visa for many of their travels, can understand what I mean.

hfly

The US does not do VoA for anyone. Maybe one day when Turkey gets its amount of visa violators to the USA down Turks will qualify for VWP, last I looked the overstay rate was roughly TWICE the threshold.

dtxdnc

I know no VoA for US to anyone, what I meant is 20$ for VoA is better than spending your time on visa applications. Thats my opinion of course.

VWP for Turkey will never gonna happen, not in this life time. With the 3 million Syrian refugees which 1/4 of them already got Turkish Passport nobody will open their borders.

hfly

Actually hardly any Syrian citizens have gotten Turkish nationality, irrespective of what political noises have been made by certain people for doing so, less than 5% have formal/legal residency (the vast majority are on refugee papers) and the vast majority that have gotten formal residency have not been in the country or held it nearly long enough to even start applying for Turkish citizenship. So that is not what the issue is.

The issue regarding Turkey and VWP is that even with all the aforementioned paperwork that you reference for getting a US visa, the violation rate for Turks is still quite high. In better times I recall the Turks lobbying to get the rate up to 5% (never gonna happen) so that hopefully they would qualify for VWP.

docbert

You can't compare what the US calls a (tourist) visa with what Turkey calls a (tourist) visa.

Turkey Visa-of-Arrivals, at least for citizens of countries like the US, are nothing more than a tax on travelers. Every Visa-on-Arrival I've received involved them looking at the cover of my passport to work out how much to charge me (US$60 for an Australian!), taking my money, opening to a random page and putting in the sticker. At no point did they ever even look at the bio page or have any idea who I was other than my citizenship.

US Visas actually involve at least some level of vetting of the applicant.

I'm sure every traveler would prefer the first option due to cost/simplicity, but it's simply never going to happen for the US. In fact, they US is going in the opposite direction (eg, even people entering via the Visa Waiver Program now need an ESTA application in advance)

dtxdnc

Reality is much different than the numbers given to the internet. Anyways, I am not a fan of talking about politics.

Exactly what I meant to @hfly on my first comment. He made the budget comparement for 2 different type tourist visas, so I said I would prefer VoA instead of losing time with all procedures to get thru vetting process.

Its just my opinion afterall, maybe I would have think differently If I were visiting once every 2 month, dont know

dreamingawake409

@hfly looks like someone was denied entry to Istanbul and the visa desk told them because of the three-day rule.Was in Paris for a little while(not sure if it was a stopover or a layover though) Really seems to be no real way of procedure in regards to Americans being allowed entry in.

It's on post 350 on the TripAdvisor thread over this topic. Really just a huge mess, fortunately I'll be in the next refund/route change policy for TK when the 20th comes up.

starflyergold

Gentle reminder that this thread is about visa issues between Turkey and the US and how this relates to TK flights, and NOT about general political issues. Please use OMNI for those discussions.

starflyergold
TK M&S forum moderator

luigib0913

Does anyone know the official word on whether US citizens traveling to Turkey via another country will be allowed to enter? I'll have a long layover in Istanbul coming from Singapore next week.

hfly

Yeah, I just looked at that post 350, coincidentally that is also the same guy (or his wife) that originally cited the three day thing in the first place, also that guys situation, at least from what is written, is very specific and had nothing to do with tourists. It is written that he had his OLD RESIDENTS PERMIT, paperwork that he submitted for his new one and a copy oid his appointment. What he needed and which was very specific to his situation was a piece of paper from the Goc Idaresi allowing him to leave the country for a period of up to 14 days at a time until his new permit is issued. As he did not have it, that is the reason that they denied him entry. This is a bit different than any normal tourist who is not normally resident in Turkey. Now there are a whole bunch of issues relating to how paperwork is now submitted through the E system and the possibility of getting the 14 day paper in a timely manner, especially for Americans at the moment, but that is another subject and this guy should have known better and stayed out 3 days, or have visited the Goc Idaresi to get his three day paper, however I suppose that something was out of order with his paperwork because if it was all set he would not necessarily have even needed a future appointment.

in other words, that guys situation had nothing to do with that og 99 percent of those on here.