I just got an urgent call from a friend who was returning from a visa run to Singapore, when JetStar (new Australian budget airline) told him “nice 60 day visa, but where’s your onward ticket if we return you to Taipei sucka?” Plane boarding in 90 minutes.
Fortunately, Dale at Whose Travel in Taichung whosetravel.com/ saved our bacon, on very short notice. Rather than guess and buy a round trip TPE-HK ticket and have to pay to change the date… or buy a “fully refundable” ticket but pay some fine-print service fee when you cash it in… for 800 NT service fee he offered to sell us a “Ghost Ticket”. No, its not a ticked sold only in the 7th lunar month. Basically it just means they deal with issuing you a bona-fide ticket, emailing it to you, then canceling it later that day. Worked a treat.
I suppose the airlines and the immigration service are not excited about this in the long run. This points up the ridiculousness of the process. Indeed everyone seems to say they don’t even care anymore about onward ticket at Taiwan immigration. But the rule is still on the books, and JetStar has a reputation for being a stickler on this, since they’re holding the bag if you get denied entrance. That and, they’re wankers.
Although rarely enforced, it is a requirement for most countries in the world. According to every immigration rule I’ve ever seen in 20 years in the travel business, unless you are a legal resident of the country to which you are traveling, you are required to have onward or return tickets. Should the immigration officer check when you arrive and you don’t have it, at the very minimum the airline that took you there will get fined and you might get deported. For that reason, most airlines will ask you when you check-in and very likely deny you boarding if you don’t have it.
When I worked for AA, we had a kind of a hand-written ticket we could write, validating it on your credit card, which would only get charged should you use it. Once you passed immigration, you just tore it up and threw it away. Now, I think you need to actually purchase a ticket, then get it refunded.
Hi everybody…im really interested on this matter since im planning to travel to taiwan in 10 days or so…ill be working there for 2 years…the problem is that even if my english is not THAT bad, there are some things i dont understand from what u guys just wrotte.
Ok…ill explain my situation and i hope u can help me out with this!
Im from spain and i got hired by a taiwanese/spanish company…they decided they needed my as quick as possible so they told me to go there as a tourist and they will do all the visa stuff from there…my first 3 months will be internship…so they have time to see how i work and then decide if they finally hire me…then start with the visa procedure…in the meantime id be doing visa run short trips to Hk, etc.
I was planning to buy a one-way ticket but i guess this is gonna be a problem, right?
So…what if i buy a paris-taipe-HK…that shouldnt be a problem, right? I mean…all they need to know is that im gonna get the hell out of taiwan within 1 month.
And finally…would u explain to me what these “ghost tickets” are, if i can make use of them in my situation and how and where could i do it?
The source that ALL airlines (and most travel agents) use when verifying a passenger’s documentation is called Timatic. They do the legwork, researching immigration requirements for every country in the world for visitors of every nationality. Timatic has a web site but you have to pay to use it. It is, however, available for free on Northwest Airline’s site at: nwa.com/services/timatic.html . You use drop-down menus to provide your nationality, embarkation, transit and destination details, and it spits out every immigration rule that applies.
Here is the exact text of the rule for a citizen of Spain, boarding in France, going to Taiwan with respect to return or onward ticket requirements:
[quote=“Timatic”] Visitors must hold confirmed return or onward tickets and
all documents required for their next destination.[/quote]
So if the airline and/or the immigration officer upon arrival wants to follow the letter of the law, then they would want to make sure you not only have passage to HKG but also whatever documents are necessary for you to go there to. The reason is if you get to HKG without proper documents, HKG deports you to wherever you boarded, in this case TPE.
Since your real plan is to stay 2 years, and the maximum validity of any ticket (unless it’s changed since I left the business) is 1 year, a round trip ticket is not an option for you. If you plan to visit home before 1-year, though, you could buy an open return.
Another option is to buy two separate one-way’s and have the TPE-PAR ticket refunded. Travel agents can issue and within 24 hours “void” tickets (meaning you would never be charged), which might help you with the airline boarding. The fee people are referring to is just what the agent might charge you for the service. If you have an agent friend, they might do it for free, or as a service if you buy the other ticket from them.
The chance of the Taiwan immigration officer checking this is pretty slim, but the airline will likely check it, in order to protect themselves against fines and passengers getting denied entry. The infallible option is to get the return ticket and change/refund it. Any other route, you’re taking your chances.
Paris to Taipei to HK one way may work as far as Taipei is concerned but what about HK? Perhaps you can tell them upon arrival in HK that you plan to buy a HK-TPE-HK ticket in HK itself as they are cheaper (believable because they ARE).
And it would be ok to explain to the HK officer your plans regarding Taiwan as its not their business one way or another. They just want you OUT of HK upon the end of your visa and are sniffing at any over-stay potential in HK>
And by the way, dont overstay in Taiwan because that will affect your entry into HK too. Because that is of concern to them.
I had exactly the same problem a couple of months ago. I was flying cathay pacific.
in the end they gave me the choice of buying a full price ticket one-way to hong kong(which could be cancelled for about 500nt) or going online to buy a return ticket to hong kong for a much lower price (that was non-refundable)
it’s a bit stupid, but it the end it I bought the full-price ticket, cancelled it and it only cost me a few hundred nt
A fake e-ticket code for a real flight written into your diary usually works if you don’t have a real ticket. I did buy an actual refundable ticket which I later cancelled when coming to Taiwan, and ended up making money due to a lucky change in exchange rates.
