March 2015 K-1 Filers

[naire37 53]

Small rant..... Airline prices for July are horrible.

Normally I'd fly Delta but it's up to $2,500 for one ticket. I looked at Skyscanner.com and looks like I can get better pricing flying in to JFK than my usual route, and then flying to my airport. Doing that way I could potentially save $2,500.

Ugh, I feel your pain; so true! I'm very much looking forward to not having to spend an insane amount of money on flying!

(Past experiences:

- first trip to meet in person, was very excited and wanted to see him straight away to see if it was worth it... Booking flight only 2 weeks in advance, Boston to Murmansk, 4k (!!!) but so totally worth it.

- second trip, booked 2.5 months in advance, Boston to Moscow, flipping 650$ round trip, can you believe it?!)

I'm expecting to fly over to Moscow for interview in August and am already trying to save some money on it... anything remotely convenient is going to be at least 1.5k, methinks. Summer prices are way higher!

p.s. From past experiences: Delta royally sucks, Lufthansa and/or Air Swiss usually have better prices if they work for you.

[Amhara 460]

Btw, I don't know if this applies to K-1 filers, but apparently the spousal CEAC.GOV site is having issues:

http://www.visajourney.com/forums/topic/551625-ceac-website/

[Farrieress 18]

I assume most people on this board travel a lot. I fly about 100K miles per year. Here are some tricks I use.

1) I live by Kayak.com. Always use it to find the fare, but DO NOT BOOK through them. If you get messed up on the trip the airline won't help. So always look for the best route/fare and then go on their website and find it and buy it from them. 99% of the time its there

2) If you live in places like Atlanta and Minneapolis, many times you are "land locked" and fares are higher. Many times you can arrange to fly on one RT ticket to say New York, Chicago or Houston where fares are lower and match it up with an overseas trip. Be careful giving yourself time to recheck your bags if you do this. Since you have to recheck when you return to the US I don't see this as too bad of a hassle for the dollars you save I think you see this trick from your JFK comment

3) Best fares are usually found buying on weekends and traveling on Tuesday-Thursday. More flexible you can be the better the fare

4) Figure out where you want to go early and then shop for a few days. It's amazing but I have seen fares drop 500USD in one day on the same flight and same classification. The airlines are constantly messing with fares especially overseas ones

5) Part of comment 4, in that I sometimes look at the seat map and figure out how many seats are taken. If it looks fairly empty I will watch the prices on that flight and then get it when the prices dip.

Be patient and work it. Good Luck!

Thanks.

[Sabrina&Chuck 32]

Small rant..... Airline prices for July are horrible.

Normally I'd fly Delta but it's up to $2,500 for one ticket. I looked at Skyscanner.com and looks like I can get better pricing flying in to JFK than my usual route, and then flying to my airport. Doing that way I could potentially save $2,500.

d

July August September main season ?

do u think u can book via websites not from your country ? I know some then

Edited June 4, 2015 by Sabrina&Chuck

[Amhara 460]

do u think u can book via websites not from your country ? I know some then

When we traveled, I purchased both our tickets. I sent a letter with a copy of my sanitized debit card (blacked out some digits that could be used since he had to print at a local Internet cafe (the hard drives can keep records of printed documents). This letter said that I authorized the purchase of his tickets and blah, blah. I had my corresponding flight information. He never needed it, but I included the original in our petition as proof of relationship. Also, with Emirates, I enrolled us both as family in their flyer program. That may have made his trip easier, but I don't know. The letter they sent also made good evidence to send!

But I think you can still use foreign sites unless it's blocked by your country. Do you have some sites to share?

[Fractalina 8]

Want to share my update, just got back to my country and called the appointed hospital for medical examination. Apparently there's a queue and I got mine scheduled next week. And the report takes 7 work days, so I emailed the embassy telling them my documents are ready in two weeks. My interview is scheduled end of month.

I thought it would be sooner after I arrived but apparently not. Just sharing it here to remind everyone that the process is different in each country and we need to schedule things with lots of anticipation. *fingers are crossed*

Congrats to everyone who have been approved and best of luck to us all

[nancyandissam 13]

Ok guys, so now I go to the CEAC site just to see what the status says and it says Administrative Processing. Is that normal at this stage? The CO gave Issam a claim ticket yesterday and told him to return Tuesday to pick up his passport. Are we not out of the woods yet though? Ack, so stressful! Hope all is well with you all!!! <3

[Sabrina&Chuck 32]

When we traveled, I purchased both our tickets. I sent a letter with a copy of my sanitized debit card (blacked out some digits that could be used since he had to print at a local Internet cafe (the hard drives can keep records of printed documents). This letter said that I authorized the purchase of his tickets and blah, blah. I had my corresponding flight information. He never needed it, but I included the original in our petition as proof of relationship. Also, with Emirates, I enrolled us both as family in their flyer program. That may have made his trip easier, but I don't know. The letter they sent also made good evidence to send!

But I think you can still use foreign sites unless it's blocked by your country. Do you have some sites to share?

abctravel.de

swoodo.de

opodo.de

momondo.de

cheaptickets.com

Expedia.com

orbitz.com

the one I always looked for flights did I forgot right now lol ..I'll list it as well as soon as I remember what it was lol

btw sky scanner is not bad ..a hint look in the middle of the night for flights between midnight and Five in the Morning you'll get the cheapest flights ever

Ok guys, so now I go to the CEAC site just to see what the status says and it says Administrative Processing. Is that normal at this stage? The CO gave Issam a claim ticket yesterday and told him to return Tuesday to pick up his passport. Are we not out of the woods yet though? Ack, so stressful! Hope all is well with you all!!! <3

happens often after the interview but There is no time frame how long it will be in AP that's individual for each case

[my11662 0]

Ok guys, so now I go to the CEAC site just to see what the status says and it says Administrative Processing. Is that normal at this stage? The CO gave Issam a claim ticket yesterday and told him to return Tuesday to pick up his passport. Are we not out of the woods yet though? Ack, so stressful! Hope all is well with you all!!! <3

You are good that's the process after it status will change to issued give it a week .

[Sabrina&Chuck 32]

http://blogs.usembassy.gov/malaysia/check-the-status-of-your-visa-online-ceac-status-check/

check this site

[Amhara 460]

Ok guys, so now I go to the CEAC site just to see what the status says and it says Administrative Processing. Is that normal at this stage? The CO gave Issam a claim ticket yesterday and told him to return Tuesday to pick up his passport. Are we not out of the woods yet though? Ack, so stressful! Hope all is well with you all!!! <3

Yes, CEAC.GOV will typically say AP when they are printing the visa.

[Tony and Daisy 22]

Folks, if you are a frequent flyer miles freak like I am, be very careful about using discount sites... I just got screwed on miles from the May trip to the Phils to see Daisy. Using Cheapoair.com, the flight code (fare bucket) was such that I only earned 1/4 of the miles on the JAL (4000 miles instead of over 15000) flights than I should have just to save $200.00. If miles matters to you then use the normal sites.

[Toddandcamilla 34]

Interview over with and approved this morning❤️❤️ Thank you all for help and support! I hope you all get through it soon and get to go home and spend your lives together. Its an amazing feeling i can tell you that much!!! Hugs from camilla, Denmark!

[TravandLhen 23]

Interview over with and approved this morning❤️❤️ Thank you all for help and support! I hope you all get through it soon and get to go home and spend your lives together. Its an amazing feeling i can tell you that much!!! Hugs from camilla, Denmark!

Congrats Congrats, it's so nice to see everyone going from the beginning to the end.

[Farrieress 18]

Interview over with and approved this morning❤️❤️ Thank you all for help and support! I hope you all get through it soon and get to go home and spend your lives together. Its an amazing feeling i can tell you that much!!! Hugs from camilla, Denmark!

Congratulations!