again, for those coming in late to this discussion: you can buy a $35 guate to Copan ruinas ticket online with Hedman Alas. As long as you have a ticket out of the country less than 90 days after you arrive, nobody's going to say anything.
NOT when the AA ticket agent is demanding you purchase an onward air ticket on the spot before issuing you a boarding pass!
Exactly. Everybody is quick with solutions but the airlines hold the cards. They do not have to accept some dodgy print off of future itineraries, bus tickets etc. You are standing there and you are screwed. Unless of course you follow the rules (no matter how much they shouldn't be the rules) in the first place. Now there's a thing....
Unless of course you follow the rules in the first place.
Wait... so it's the airline's fault that I've done this time and time again without the slightest problem?
You are standing there and you are screwed.
It's true that a bus ticket may or may not work in this situation (and if the person is able to calmly explain the "rules" to the ticket agent, it should), but it's also worth considering... since we sadly(!) do not have any video footage of this incident, it's hard not to wonder... if someone is already furious with a certain airline before an issue like this, does it maybe make them predisposed to come across in a way that would make the ticket agent even more determined to make life hell for them, as opposed to someone who is prepared to calmly talk – or even politely argue – their way past it? Just curious, as I've been able to override their "concerns" on a few occasions by just walking them through the issue. I'm sure everyone's got their own style though!
Maybe like Joan Rivers problems when she was denied boarding here in CR. The more she threw her weight around the deeper the hole got.
So much like Joan Rivers in fact that this may be the perfect analogy.
please bear in mind that there is no such thing as an onward air travel requirement, whereas the onward travel requirement (by any means, as long as you can prove it's going to happen) is a very real thing
It is not a scam. The are enforcing the rules as they know them. If a Tourist Visa for a certain Passport is so many days, thats what the return flight has to be within. Otherwise, you need proof of Onward Travel leaving the country. Nothing new there.
Maybe this issue was not an American Passport?
These rules have very little, in inseption, to do with the average tourist nor the airline companies. The problems that breezer and untold others have and will experience are just ancillary hardships that have resulted from rampant immigration and the xenophobia that it has brought about in people in many countries, especially developed countries. The native people of any country perceive that these immigrants are a drag on society (not always true of course) and simply do not want them to stay. They come on foot, by boat, in the trunk of a car but just as many arrive on a jet aircraft with a legitimate visa and do not intend to leave when that visa expires.At that point they become ilegal. Not a scam but what I would call laws of histeria.
Breezer-
It was Spirit Airlines that started this, and they were a new start up. I got nailed in Copa, with Codeshare United flight. Taca before it changed to Avianca also had these rules.
The issue is, each check in agent has to decipher what the rules are and how to apply, and thats where it becomes a issue. Do you think AA makes money when you buy a Fully Refundable Ticket at the Check In on order to adhere to a rule, then you cancel 24 hours later for a full refund?