Airplane tickets

[Traveler101 16]

Hi all,

 

My mother was approved with her Green Card and planning to come in April. I was thinking to buy her tickets for a round trip because it comes out cheaper than one way. However,  someone just told me that when you come here with a green card you need to buy only one way ticket, otherwise it will cause troubles with immigration at the airport.

 

Does anyone have any idea about it?

 

 

[Crazy Cat 41,836]

No......You were misinformed...........CBP does not care whether a new immigrant arrives via a one way ticket or a round trip....Just buy the least expensinve option......

[Ortolan 381]

Just go ahead and buy the cheaper round-trip ticket. Here's a thing, though: if she ISN'T going to use that return ticket, call the airline before the return date and tell them she's not going to use it. And save the confirmation paperwork.

[Crazy Cat 41,836]

1 minute ago, Ortolan said:

Just go ahead and buy the cheaper round-trip ticket. Here's a thing, though: if she ISN'T going to use that return ticket, call the airline before the return date and tell them she's not going to use it. And save the confirmation paperwork.

I would save the return trip and use it later......as a Green Card holder, she can leave and re-enter the US immediately or later if she wishes.

[Traveler101 16]

Thank you everyone for the replies.

 

Thats great, because it's cheaper to buy 2 ways and I can always change the date with the airline and like pay the difference. It doesn't make sense to buy one way for a higher price.

 

I only got a bit worried when heard that it could cause trouble.

 

Also its her first time coming here, so she is coming with that visa and will get the GC in the mail here.

[SusieQQQ 11,586]

It won’t cause trouble for her situation 

(if she keeps on leaving and coming back every 5 or 6 months for a couple weeks with a return ticket out...that’s when it can cause trouble - that is, obviously actually living elsewhere)

In the unlikely event that they ask she just tells them the truth - it was cheaper 

[Crazy Cat 41,836]

3 hours ago, Traveler101 said:

Thank you everyone for the replies.

 

Thats great, because it's cheaper to buy 2 ways and I can always change the date with the airline and like pay the difference. It doesn't make sense to buy one way for a higher price.

 

I only got a bit worried when heard that it could cause trouble.

 

Also its her first time coming here, so she is coming with that visa and will get the GC in the mail here.

Her stamped passport will be her green card until the plastic one arrives.....with full rights as a legal resident.

[Ortolan 381]

A call and a confirmation that you're not going to use the return ticket is just a sort of 'good housekeeping' paperwork thing to do, and helps you retain some value for that return portion, because the airline can sell that seat to somebody else. 

 

Most airlines would probably let her retain the value of the flight not taken for a future flight, but maybe not, if she doesn't make them aware that she's not going to use that ticket and just lets the date slide by. I guess they might offer up the not-taken seat to a wait-list passenger; but I would think they'd be more likely to give her a credit if she lets them know ahead of time that she's not going to use it.

[JFH 12,190]

*~*~*moved from “bringing family members of USCs” to “moving to the US” where this question is regularly asked*~*~*

[Fr8dog 312]

The whole "don't use a roundtrip" started because there is no exit inspection in the US. The airline reports automatically who has departed by sending the manifest details and the I-94 database (for lack of the official name) gets purged. The problem is/was that sometimes a system would report a passenger, who had not checked in, as departed to immigration.  The best way to avoid this issue is to call the airline and cancel the return trip. That way the airline system cannot report you as departed. Make sure you get confirmation about cancelling.

It is less an issue for greencard holders but in the cases where it did happen, it was a huge pain for people entering on a K1 and than trying to adjust their status several months later.

The reporting systems have gotten a lot better over the years, but all systems still have weird little bugs in them that may do something like this because somebody never thought about it when they designed the system.

(I can tell you hundreds of stories about the time our airline implemented a system that would automatically report cargo manifests to custom systems we had to manually go over the data for months to make sure what we sent was correct and that the receiving system handled it correctly. But I won't).