Mexico Visa?

[Sculpto]

  Ok, so lets say you want to fly your gal to somewhere in the Carib from Moscow. Most flights seem to connect through the USA. So then you need a transit visa.To much of a pain.
   I am sure there are some flights that go from Europe to the Carib without going through the US. So what airports in Europe does a Russian babe not need a transit visa? Or do they need one everywhere?

if its a Spanish speaking country look at Iberia.  As of last year no transit visa required in Madrid. 

[Turboguy]

Some of the options for tranist to the Caribbean or Mexico are Frankfurt, Paris, London and Madrid.  Frankfurt ususally works the best.  London usually won't work since you have to change airports and that requires a transit visa.  Paris and Madrid should be ok.  You may have a hard time using a site like Kayak to arrange the trip.  Quite often because it is USA based it will show only connections going through the USA which is not an option. 

If you do a search for flights from let's say, Frankfurt to Mexico or the Caribbean you may be able to find out what flights are available and then go directly to the airlines website and work it all out.  One good option is to have the lady check from her end.  Travel agents and airlines there know the ins and outs much better than their USA counterparts.

[Turboguy]

I just did a quick check with Lufthansa.  They have direct flights to Mexico City from Frankfurt and connecting flights to places like Cancun.  Without knowing where you want to go in Mexico that may help you a bit. 

[Admin]

Some of the options for tranist to the Caribbean or Mexico are Frankfurt, Paris, London and Madrid.  Frankfurt ususally works the best.  London usually won't work since you have to change airports and that requires a transit visa.  Paris and Madrid should be ok.  You may have a hard time using a site like Kayak to arrange the trip.  Quite often because it is USA based it will show only connections going through the USA which is not an option. 

If you do a search for flights from let's say, Frankfurt to Mexico or the Caribbean you may be able to find out what flights are available and then go directly to the airlines website and work it all out.  One good option is to have the lady check from her end.  Travel agents and airlines there know the ins and outs much better than their USA counterparts.

While TG was checking MX, I was looking at the Caribbean. I chose Jamaica just as a starting point. Trouble with getting from Moscow (SVO) to Kingston, Jamaica (KIN) is that all flights come from either the US or Canada - reference the Kingston airport incoming flight schedule -- http://www.nmia.aero/arrivals/arrivals/.

So then I decided to try The Bahamas. Here is their inbound flight schedule -- http://www.nassau-airport.com/Arrivals.cfm - again indicating predominantly flights coming in from the US with an occasional Canadian flight.

Maybe Dominica is a possibility as it is served by British Airways and Lufthansa - though the airport website is down.

Bermuda would be governed by British rules - as Puerto Rico would be by US rules - and, of course, Cuba has its own challenges.

Where else in the Caribbean would you be considering?

- Dan

[Gylden]

Try TAP air Portugal......they have flights; Kiev to Caracas then anywhere in the Carribean.

[Turboguy]

I found what Dan suggested to be pretty helpful when I was doing it.  When we were having trouble with our visa and wanted to spend the summer together I picked out where we wanted to go and then visited that countries Airport website and looked to see who flew in from Europe and picked up some very helpful information that way. 

Our criteria was a little different in that she wanted to go someplace where English was the spoken language which left some popular places such as D.R out of the picture. 

[Gator]

When we were having trouble with our visa and wanted to spend the summer together I picked out where we wanted to go and then visited that countries Airport website and looked to see who flew in from Europe and picked up some very helpful information that way. 

Some of the options for tranist to the Caribbean or Mexico are Frankfurt, Paris, London and Madrid.  Frankfurt ususally works the best.  London usually won't work since you have to change airports and that requires a transit visa.  Paris and Madrid should be ok.  You may have a hard time using a site like Kayak to arrange the trip.  Quite often because it is USA based it will show only connections going through the USA which is not an option. 

Two good nuggets of useful information.

I flew on the first flight departing Punta Cana (1984?).  One hotel - Club Med.  Look at the flights now:


http://www.flightstats.com/go/FlightStatus/flightStatusByAirport.do?airportCode=PUJ&airportQueryType=1

Air France, Iberia, Condor, Martinair, etc.  And this is summer.  In the winter there were two nonstop flights from Moscow.  And this excludes the charters for group tours.

One good option is to have the lady check from her end.  Travel agents and airlines there know the ins and outs much better than their USA counterparts.

I agree.

[daveyj]

If you purchase a single trip with one or more connecting flights which connect through a European airport than you will not need a visa for the country of that connecting airport. 

I've sourced roundtrip fares from Kiev to each of Montego Bay, Jamaica (approx $1700), Punta Cana or Santo Domingo, Dominican ($1500) and Barbados ($1500).

My process is to go to Kayak.com or Expedia.ca, and then play around with dates.  A great source of what is flying into/out of various airport is www.flightstats.com.  European airlines will "hangar" their planes at home.  Typically they will fly to the Carribean in the morning, (time zone advantage), arrive in late afternoon, fly back to Europe overnight. So use this as a guide, as you check out dates.  (ie use the same day of the week for arrival and departure - then, once you know what days you can fly, you can experiment with stays shorter or longer than 7 days)

Note that many of the flights to the carribean are seasonal, and typical run Oct to April.

Admin:  Maybe we should sticky the various flight tips somewhere.  Or create a sub-forum solely for visa friendly flight routes and carriers.  It seems to be a common question

[daveyj]

wrt the transit visa issue, if you are staying in the international "security" zone of a European airport, then you don't need to get anything.

In the US it is different from other countries, because they seem to require you to clear immigration when you land at any US airport, rather than connecting on without departing the security zone. At least that has been my experience.

[SANDRO43]

Admin:  Maybe we should sticky the various flight tips somewhere.  Or create a sub-forum solely for visa friendly flight routes and carriers.  It seems to be a common question

An alternative could be creating a new page - say, Booking Tips - in the Travel & Transportation section of our RWDpedia (http://www.russianwomendiscussion.com/mwiki/index.php/Main_Page) .

[Sculpto]

I have been using tripadvisor.com with excellent savings over expedia and other such sites..

[DKMM]

daveyj is not entirely correct.  Not all european airports have an international visa exclusion zone.  Most countries do not in fact, just some do.  Canada also makes you have a visa to transit btw.  Its important to establish this fact when choosing a flight for a lady to come visit.  The good news is, almost all major European airports do have an international zone with the exception of Zurich.  I have sucessfully flown Russian and Ukrainians to the carib on Iberia, Air France and Martinair/ KLM.

[spectris]

OK, it seemed like a simple question.

I understand that she needs a visa to go to Mexico, I was just curious how hard it would be to get one. 

I've learned that Europe is not a big problem as long as a local travel agency initiates it (no ask, no tell I guess).  I just have no idea about Mexico and the travel agency didn't seem too knowledgeable.  The biggest problem I've had by far is with her being able to get enough time off from  work to travel and not lose her job.  I'm really curious how all the women described on these boards are able to obtain visas to leave for days/weeks/months and remain employed, but...   

So far it has been my experience that having employment is an important part of obtaining a visa?  If not, I would like to know the workaround, because this is a true hassle...

[Jumper]

I do not have answers to your specific visa question..


to your more general question:

The average FSU person (or european for that matteer) gets more vacation annually than
the average Westerner..

so overall if "she" is seriously interested in the guy,
 odds are she has as much, or more,  vacation time than the man meeting her.

Obviously time off for both parties can become an issue ,
but its just more likely to be on the part of the average westerner..

[spectris]

Sadly AJ, I've found probably the one woman in the Ukraine who works more and harder than I do.   Geez, if she had the same career here in the US that she has there, she would earn $250k+ year. 

BTW, she doesn't make quite that much there...