round-trip ticket?

[walkerr06 0]

Hi everyone,

My fiance's interview is on September 16th (less than a month, we're so excited for this to be over with -- for now, anyway), and we were looking at plane tickets trying to figure out when he could be in the US should his interview be successful. We noticed that one-way tickets from Holland were literally more than 3x the cost of a round trip ticket. Can he just buy a round-trip ticket and miss his flight home? He'll be here on his K1 visa. We were thinking of perhaps setting the "return" date after we'd already married and filed his AOS. Does it send up a red flag of any sort if your foreign fiance buys a round-trip ticket? Could it lead to difficulties in the future? Or is it likely nobody would even notice?

Thanks!

[JimVaPhuong 4,863]

If he just "misses" the return flight then it very well could cause problems. There have been at least two VJ members recently whose AOS was denied because they bought round trip tickets, didn't use the return ticket, and the immigration officer somehow concluded the applicant had left the US. In addition to claiming the applicant left the US, they also claim they don't have any record of the applicant reentering the country.

The best any of us could guess is that the airline might have sold the empty seat to a standby passenger without updating their passenger manifest. The manifest they subsequently give to DHS indicates the original ticket holder actually boarded the flight and left the country.

If you get a return ticket you should make sure you cancel the return ticket after he arrives in the US. The airline will clear the seat for sale to someone else, and hopefully avoid this potential disaster.

[njrichardson 0]

My fiance bought the round trip ticket for the same reason of price. Though we haven't reached the AOS yet, I don't feel it will be any issue. Hopefully if there is question we can just explain why we bought a round trip.