36902BRF

There is another US guy posting who speaks Turkish and claims to have spoken to the visa folks while transiting IST yesterday who confirmed the three day rule. He later arrived in Athens and went to change his TK ticket to stay from 1 to 3 days in Athens (before he returned to IST) and the TK folks in Athens said you don't need to do that and called IST who confirmed the 3 day rule to them. I wouldn't assume this is all BS though it could very well be more YMMV than we would like.

dreamingawake409

Yeah I saw that too, its a huge mess with no communication or clear guidelines coming from there on this, its quite frustrating, but, I'm still holding out. 5 days until the new refund/re-route window updates.

Sinter

Sincerely hope this isn't the case. Re-booked the Amsterdam portion of my trip to make it so that I'm transiting IST on 11/18 with a return to IST 48+ hours later on 11/20 with the intent to enter the country. New York consulate told me this was possible by email last week.

Will be sure to update, I'll be traveling with a Turkish speaker as well.

dreamingawake409

@Sinter , thanks and definitely keep us updated on things.

hfly

I do not post on Tripadvisor nor rely on it. The 3 day thing may or may not exist. WhatI know is that As I live in Turkey U probably know and know of more people that are effected by this than others. No one has had nor mentioned this problem previously other than this Bates guy, someone whose previous posts have left a lot to be desired in terms of accuracy. Whether the 3 day thing exists or is being enforced is moot in his case, as the reason(s) he could not come in were do to his residence permit issues. Even had this current state of affairs not been in play, he having left Turkey without his 14 day paper could have resulted in him not being admitted into the country. The work around had often been a VOA, but that was not guaranteed at any time. For all you know his residence permit could have expired 95 days before, and they would not allow re-entry. We do not know, but what we do know is that the reason he was not let in had nothing to do with any 3 day rule.

dreamingawake409

@hfly that's completely fair and you do have a point. I'm just trying to find clarification on things is all so once the 20th comes around I can make the right decision on handling the route change.

hfly

People can be as careful as they want. The problem is looking and seeing what other agendas and relative expertise are, especially when there are people out there that are possibly making dollars and cents decisions about what they read and the general level of sophistication of the posters and readers. Witness the amount of people on the Tripadvisor thread that ask the same question over and over again. Or witness silly warnings that still seem to resurface and scare people off........early in this thing someone claimed that they were told by their airline in Portugal that no US citizens would be allowed into Turkey even if they had a visa. Maybe the airline employee said this, maybe he/she did not. Maybe this was a call center employee working for a third party that did not understand the instruction, maybe it was the poster who misunderstood. In any case it was 100% incorrect, but someone posted it on TA, and it became gospel for some.

Now I just came through IST a couple of hours ago, and I saw one of the Police "Sef's" that I "know" (meaning that we recognize each other). I asked him if there is a 3 day thing. His answer was "no", but he also said that people should not be traveling directly from the US if they want to get a VoA. So I would take that to mean that if you showed a boarding pass that was from the same day as your previous one, or even the next day they COULD interpret that to mean that you are traveling directly, and they could choose to give a hassle about it if they wanted to.

Regarding the supposed 3 day thing which up until now has been the claim of one person, and that it supposedly effected first one, then as many as 7 Americans, who had been to London for originally 20 hours, and then "after 24 hours", methinks that it looked like a direct connection, and that is why they got slammed. I should note that generally when Turks speak about three days they speak about three calendar days and are generally not fussy about exact times, so if someone entered at 23:59 on the 1st, and left at 00:01 on the 3rd, that would normally count as three days. I am not basing this on just immigration, but also on a whole bunch of other factors such as tax office issues and legal registrations.

Back to this Bates guy on Tripadvisor. He is the kind of guy who makes statements like this:

"Because we are living here, we get the extra screening every single time. It doesn't take that long, they just call you aside, carefully go through all your carry-on bags at the gate, swipe for bad stuff, have you turn some electronics on, and then allow you to put it all back together. It's usually just when I get to my last stop before the U.S. (typically Paris for the route we take). "

What is this guys experience or sample? Boarding an AF flight in IST, one does have a chance of extra screening, probably greater than 25%, just as much if one is flying to the US as just to CDG, GIG or anywhere else, whether one is Turkish, French, or Martian. Being American living in Turkey has nothing to do with it. Regarding CDG, is he claiming to be SSSS'd? or is he just saying that he gets extra security every single time. And if its every single time, what is is sample, Twice? 3 times? I mean, I have done that routing literally at least 80 times, and it has ebbed and flowed, but I would say that they regularly do extra screening to anywhere between 10 and 40% of pax at CDG irrespective of whether they are connecting from Turkey or anywhere else or O/D from Paris, and has pretty much been that way, and sometimes worse since early 2002.

This person then goes on to state in post 367: " For the other poster, I don't think the residence permit issue helped or hurt. We brought it up thinking it could help (it's usually a reasonable person on the other side of the desk) and they just kept saying, sorry, no, it has to be three days. Their hands were tied."

This had absolutely EVERYTHING to do with it. Everyone here (Foreigners in Turkey that are legally resident) knows that when your residence permit is being processed, you are able to stay in Turkey until you receive it with no penalty, but if you leave, you will not be let back into the country. One needed to get a 14 day "pass" from the Migration Department, but the advent of the electronic system made this quite onerous and confusing (witness the posts early on this thread about a friend of mine who was stuck at the beginning of this saga). The workaround was always to just leave if one needed to and get an E-visa when one returned. As Resident's permits were not supposed to legally take more than 90 days, all was good. Except, as I stated this was always a workaround, and there was no guarantee that you would be readmitted (admittedly I only know of one person who ever really had a problem with this). Furthermore as this person had papers "proving a future appointment" this means that there was something wrong with his application papers, because if all is right there is no need for an appointment as the permit is just sent to you. A person like this would have had a problem a month ago or six months ago, and again this has nothing to do with what any normal traveler to Turkey would experience.

Lastly, and I mention this because it is mentioned on the TA thread, but has not properly been highlighted here. Anyone with a close Turkish connection, spouse, child, grandparent, and can prove it qualifies for VoA automatically, one just has to carry some sort of proof of the relationship.

dreamingawake409

@hfly that's a good point once again, and your analysis on this whole makes a lot of sense. Especially in regards to the whole 3-day thing and the residence permit stuff that the majority of us are not to be concerned of. So ultimately, if the window comes up on the 20th, and I decide to say stay in Amsterdam before making the flight to Istanbul, should I do a day or two days to be on the same side? Cause my flight is originally scheduled for Dec.1st and would land in Europe on the 2nd. So if I leave on the 30th, transit through Istanbul and land in Amsterdam, stay there overnight and fly out the next day, would that still be counted as a connection? Or should I just add on an extra day just in case and then go to Istanbul. Sorry for the questions, just trying to get this right and get a good opinion from someone who is on the ground there and actually knows the situation there, before the window comes up to change routes.

I'm extremely grateful for your help and assistance by the way.

36902BRF

hfly I agree with you on Bates what gives me pause for thought is dave69NewYork made the claim he spoke to somebody in immigration (like you did today) while transiting Istanbul in the last few days on his way to Athens (so he could turn around the next day and come back to Istanbul) and he was told three days and that this was a recent change. He got to Athens and went to change his reservation with TK so he could spend the "required" three days in Athens before returning to IST to get a VOA. The TK folks in Athens said that wasn't necessary at first but when they checked by calling back to Turkey they were informed of the three day rule. So it is not just Bates making this claim.

hfly

Everyone is acting like the passport police have online access to computers to check a hypothetical 3 day rule and whether one had violated it. The actual fact is that one gets sent to a window with a slip of paper. At that window it seems to be 50-50 as to whether they ask you anything at all or just stamp the paper, which allows you to get a VoA. Seemingly for the other half, they ask to see a boarding pass that does not originate in the US and then stamp the paper. Of the remaining 25 percent, they may look to see an exit stamp, or previous boarding pass - the exit stamp being insidious as many places do not have them like the UK. At which point, pretty much everyone gets the stamp. The exceptions seem to be, from what I understand those who are traveling directly from the US, witness my description above of how they may define it, or people who already have issues with entering Turkey.

As to what someone heard from a probable third party agent in ATH, who knows? I went through one station twice a week apart and witnessed them acting on wrong information, so I spoke with the airport manager, he was sorry and said it would be corrected. The next week the information was still wrong. I have seen them try and deny check in to US citizens with long term residency, I have also seem them let most through with no questions. I am not doubting Dave here, but the veracity of anything that he may have been told, i.e. he is asking one TK person to ask another one in another country, to in interpret the rules, which have been in flux, so probably easier for them to read about direct connections and just agree with him.

dreamingawake409

@hfly you're right. I'm just gonna wing it if things don't change by the 20th(doubtful) and just do the stayover in Amsterdam and then try my luck from there. No point in stressing over it, worst case scenario, I'll just go back to Amsterdam *shrug*. Anyway, thanks a ton for the information and common sense as well. Truly appreciate it.

36902BRF

TPG has another article on success of getting VOA.

https://thepointsguy.com/2017/11/ent...n-route-to-us/

dreamingawake409

Good grief, seems like its getting more like a PITA to enter to be honest with all the questioning and verification through stamps, its getting pretty annoying now. Politicians making crazy decisions and the people pay the price in the end smh...

36902BRF

It is hard to tell (from a single data point) whether this guy just got (un)lucky or whether this is more representative of what to expect.

dreamingawake409

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.