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Will a one-way ticket get me kicked out Greece?
Wed, 05/04/2005 - 19:04
New Member
Here’s my situation. I am traveling to Greece for three months, and then was hoping to travel to Italy for another four months. However no consulate will grant me a tourist EU visa because they just tell me that I need to be out before 90 days, no other options. However they did tell me that I can apply for an extension to stay in the country once I am there.
My question is, what type of plane ticket do I buy?
Currently I have a plane ticket reserved to Athens at the end of May but then leaves from Florence in the beginning of December. This assumes that I will get an extention, but I am wondering if my 7 month stay will be a problem for me trying get into the country. Would it be better for me to buy a one way ticket and then buy my ticket home when I know the situation? But how likely is it that they will let me into the country with only a one way ticket and my word that I will be out of the country within 90 days if I have to be.
Any information anybody has on one way tickets to Europe or even how I can get a visa would be helpful. By the rules I would have to apply at the Greek consulate, because that is my country point of entry, but they are telling me no.
Thanks.
If you go to the UK, you’re allowed to stay for six months. So just as something to think about, what if you got a roundtrip airline ticket that fit the six-month requirement to London? Then you could subsequently fly to Greece and work on the admin issues there. If it’s the right sort of ticket and you worked those issues out, you’d be able to pay a nominal fee to change the end date. The question is a lot more complex than this, but this is just a preliminary suggestion.
The sweet lady at the check-in desk in the US will take care of this issue before the police in Greece or Italy do. The "inbound" airlines must foot the bill for people who are deported from the EU. It is in their economic interest to check all passengers on a tourist visa for a round trip ticket. And this they do!
I can not vouch for the 180 day tourist visa to the UK, but the UK is NOT a member of the Schengen Union! So, buy the longest round trip ticket you can to London, and then make your way by surface transport out of the UK into the Schegen Zone. Your time in the UK does not count against your Schengen 90 days.
But look, most people don’t last more than 90 days at your age without some sort of support network in the EU and a pretty good plan behind it. I hate to say this, but the chances of you realising your travel dreams with so little planning and nothing lined up in the EU is pretty darn low.
On the other hand, you may be exceptional.
Either way, good luck.
Thanks for the info about flying into England… it was very helpful. I bought my ticket for 180 days to England, and am flying into Corfu from there, where I have a job lined up for the tourist season. I also am in the process of securing a job in Florence, only 20 minutes away from Prato where my cousins live. Thanks for the luck, hopefully I won’t need it!
Hey, good for you. You DO have a network and you ARE a go-getter. I like to see that.
Since you have family living in Italy, take some time to scope out your future opportunities vis-a-vis what it takes to get residence. I know two people who came to DK (where the immigration laws are frightful) as students (legal student visa) and then managed to parlay this into long term employment with a view toward permanent residence. One became fluent in danish. The other did not. Italy is pretty lingusitically impoverished, however.
That’s if you develop a dream to stay. But not everyone is as crazy as I am.
Have a fun trip!