VISA problems, advice please!

Wow, I worked for the State Department, but after all of this, I am confused. I really would verify this with the U.S. Embassy in Madrid or Consulate in Barcelona. I am still not clear as to why she is buying an open-ended airline ticket, as that usually costs more and may (may) cause visa problems. Your travel agent sounds, well, confused (like me).

thank you everyone for your responses, I did look into the visa waiver program and I phoned the US border patrol and they said she would be eligible for a visa waiver, but when she phoned the US embassy in Spain, they said she should not book a flexible roundtrip ticket from Europe to NY.

Again, we are leaving from NYC to go to South America July 4th and we have fliexible return tickets to south america, so we may not return until december, who knows. she needs to buy a ticket to NY for late June, just before we leave and also a return back to Europe at the end of our trip, after she returns with me to NY. The embassy said she might have problems if she buys a flexible return, but I don't see why because if she comes into the States on June 27 and does the visa waiver, she will leave 2 weeks later, should be no problem, and she will adjust her return date to Europe depending on when we comes back from south america and will again apply for a visa waiver. They said she is eligble for the visa waiver as long as she can show them her onward ticket to south america. but some officials also said she cant have a flexible ticket, why should it matter if she will never be in the states longer than even 2 weeks and wont even be trying to get a visa with the visa waiver program?

So, we are unsure if she should buy 2 one way tickets, one to come to NY in late June and another in october to go back to europe, just to have a return although we dont know if we will be back by then, she may have to miss it. Financially makes more sense to buy the flexible..

please tell me if you think we will have a problem. and thanks again everyone i really appreciate it

If she doesn't want to buy a return ticket from NY to Madrid, she should just get a tourist visa. It's really not that big a deal, and it's probably cheaper than buying a ticket with a 6 month open jaw.

The rules for the Visa Waiver Program is that you must have documentation that you are leaving the USA by air within 90 days of the date of arrival. If your friend has a flight ticket from NY to South American that leaves within 90 days of her arrival in NY, then she is fine.

The return would be the same. She can re-enter under a different WVP entry if she has an ticket departing within 90 days of her return to NY. It appears to me the problem is the "flexible" ticket she has returning from NY to Madrid. She will need to have a return to Madrid that is within 90 days of entering the USA from South America. If her ticket does not have a travel date, then there may be a problem. I would just suck it up and but a round trip with confirmed dates.

The two trips( going to South America, and returning from South America) do not relate to each other, because she will have fulfilled the VWP requirement of departing the North American continent ( which includes Canada, Mexico, and the Caribbean islands).

If you were flying through NY directly to Mexico, Canada, or the Caribbean islands, it would be a different story.

"The rules for the Visa Waiver Program is that you must have documentation that you are leaving the USA by air within 90 days of the date of arrival.

No, the rules say no such thing. You can actually read them right here:

law.justia.com/us/cfr/title08/8-1.0.1.2.21.html

For arrival by air, the rules say the ticket-out must have a validity of at least one year and be issued by an airline that's agreed to the Visa Waiver program.