When should I buy ticket for my fiancee

[BlakeandOlha 0]

Thanks a lot guys for all the advice. I am thinking all the thoughts here.

BoraBora: How much time did you keep between interview date and expected travel date? Since you bought the ticket before interview, I am guessing you kept a week or so between interview and travel date to be safe.

Bengali lover

The main thing you need to consider in making your decision is what is the likihood that your fiance's visa will be put on Administrative Review. Even for us, knowing that London has a very high rate of approvals, and even having been approved, we waited to book his flight until he actually had his visa in his hands.

I'm really stuck on this one. First of all, I want to be with my fiancee at the interview in Kiev - for her and her 6 year old son it will be a 12 hour train ride from the city where she lives. After the interview, I then want to spend the next 10 days or so helping her to pack and get organized for the trip over. Finally, I want to fly back with her and her son. So I've got two risks to consider. First is the risk that there will be a delay due to some administrative review, which I think is remote, and then secondly is the risk that the visa will take more than 10 days to reach her in her city. If it were just her, then I can see perhaps waiting on buying tickets, but we've got her son to consider and the start of school. Cost is a bit of a factor as well - in that even with advance purchase airfares are going to top $3,500 and the cost of buying the tickets in less than the "advance" time frame will run closer to $5,000. I think that perhaps the cost of changing the flight dates will be less than the cost of booking the flight immediately after she receives her visa. I still have a lot of thinking to do on this one.

[bora bora 1]

I guess it seems weird that I bought the plane ticket before the interview because I never understand why people set wedding dates before the K1 interview, but oh well.

Well, here's our story:

We found out my husband's interview date in the end of January. I bought our tickets here on the last day of January and hubby's interview date was March 13th. I was definetly going to the interview so it didn't matter that I bought mine or not for that time. We figured that since we were going to buy mine it'd be better to get them both. My husband is from Manaus, Amazonas (in the far north of Brazil) so he had to travel almost 4 hours to attend the interview in Rio de Janeiro. So my husband bought his one-way ticket from Manaus to Rio soon after I got the tickets between the U.S. and Brazil. When my husband left Manaus, he left for good.

We coordinated our flights so that I was arriving from Miami and he from Manaus at the same time in Rio...we also bought tickets for the same flight from Rio back to Miami - and that date was only 4 days AFTER the interview. Let's just say that we were pretty sure, right? Seems crazy now, but at the time it didn't. Our interview was on a Tuesday and it was super easy and we were approved in like 6 minutes. We went back 2 days later (Thursday) to get the visa and then were on our way to the U.S. on Saturday (if I remember correctly).

Everything worked out as planned - except that Bush arrived in Sao Paulo on the same day as we did and my husband's plane was delayed. I FREAKED out when I got to Rio and hubby wasn't there. We did meet up in the hotel later. My baby had saved the hotel name/address/number and called to say he was on his way.

Edited April 2, 2008 by bora bora