Best country for Shengen visa?

[DaveAndAnastasia 2,092]

13 hours ago, millefleur said:

Single entry means you can enter any country but if you enter from a different country than the issuer (i.e. Greece gave you the visa but you enter via Italy first) then the consulate that issued the visa frowns upon that and if they don't see any of their country's stamps in your passport, they may not issue you a second visa.

Now, I was aware of the latter; that's why when Anastasia and I met in October 2018 (last time before she got her K-1 and came here) we spent a couple nights in Riga (she'd gotten a Schengen visa from Latvia because at the time Latvia would issue one without having to go to a consulate in person if you'd had a Schengen visa previously) before going on to Vienna.

[rikko 84]

On 10/6/2023 at 7:47 AM, millefleur said:

Yes exactly, that is what the Schengen zone is: border-free travel once you are inside. Single entry vs multiple entry should not change that, I'm not sure why @rikko thought otherwise. Unless Poland is forcing Russians to go through customs again?

when you apply for your schengen, you have to list your itinerary, places of stay (which must be pre-arranged), etc. 
back when we did this, we avoided mentioning needing to go to poland for a visa interview due to suggestions we read on visajourney (schengens are primarily for tourism and if you mention any work or study you could be denied and told to apply for the respective country's visa) 

if you were to get a single-entry schengen visa for spain then cancel all plans and go to poland, it would be extremely harmful if you were to reapply to visit the EU or schengen zone in the future, or potentially any country if they deem you misrepresenting the purpose of your trip as cause for concern. if you were to get a multi-entry schengen visa, you could safely carry out the first visit then legally enter again for whatever purpose in the future, which we were denied.

regardless, even if not "illegal" it is "breaking the rules" and we were not willing to do that (and i don't distinguish between the two if it could have lasting consequences for my fiance's future travels)

this would all be fixed if they just moved the dang interview location from warsaw to anywhere russians can enter easily. i'd suggest jerusalem, but israel has just declared war for the first time formally since the 1970's! god knows what this means for people who transferred their cases to israel, and for the people of israel/palestine! 

as if life for russian applicants couldn't get worse, first covid, then russia/ukraine war, now one of the few countries accepting transfers is at war! 

[barbieland 8]

On 10/5/2023 at 3:48 PM, Pirozhok said:

Open question to anyone trying the Schengen route to Poland: I haven't seen Hungary mentioned in these threads at all. Is there a reason that I've missed that's ruling them out as a potential entry point?

I would also like to know this? Our plan was to get a tourist visa to Hungary after we get the invitation letter. Hungary still gives tourist visas and is physically closer to Poland. I don't see any downside? Maybe we are missing something?

[BenNomad 88]

6 minutes ago, barbieland said:

I would also like to know this? Our plan was to get a tourist visa to Hungary after we get the invitation letter. Hungary still gives tourist visas and is physically closer to Poland. I don't see any downside? Maybe we are missing something?

Check out Forum Vinskogo and discussion/statistics about getting visas to Hungary. Seems like a logical choice to me but I didn't read much about Russians flocking to Hungary for some reason. Maybe Hungary has a high rejection rate? Maybe it's an issue of showing a believable travel plan? After all, how many people go to Hungary on a two-week vacation? Forum Vinskogo is the place to get that info.

[barbieland 8]

2 minutes ago, BenNomad said:

Check out Forum Vinskogo and discussion/statistics about getting visas to Hungary. Seems like a logical choice to me but I didn't read much about Russians flocking to Hungary for some reason. Maybe Hungary has a high rejection rate? Maybe it's an issue of showing a believable travel plan? After all, how many people go to Hungary on a two-week vacation? Forum Vinskogo is the place to get that info.

The travel itinerary can have other countries on it, not just Hungary, I thought? Hungary just has to be the longest/main destination. Or maybe I have it wrong? When I checked Vinskogo for Hungary, there were a lot of acceptances from the past few months.

[BenNomad 88]

29 minutes ago, barbieland said:

The travel itinerary can have other countries on it, not just Hungary, I thought? Hungary just has to be the longest/main destination. Or maybe I have it wrong? When I checked Vinskogo for Hungary, there were a lot of acceptances from the past few months.

That's right, you can request multiple countries. We applied for 14 days in Greece and 3 in Italy and got approved. Take into consideration how long the consulate takes to make a decision and return the passport.

[millefleur 5,046]

2 hours ago, rikko said:

if you were to get a single-entry schengen visa for spain then cancel all plans and go to poland, it would be extremely harmful if you were to reapply to visit the EU or schengen zone in the future, or potentially any country if they deem you misrepresenting the purpose of your trip as cause for concern. if you were to get a multi-entry schengen visa, you could safely carry out the first visit then legally enter again for whatever purpose in the future, which we were denied.

Why can't you got to Spain, stay there 1-2 days and then go to Poland on a single entry Schengen visa?

 

You will have an entry stamp in your passport from Spain so there's no issue there that you did not use the Spanish visa as intended. Visitng Poland is merely moving around the Schengen zone, which is allowed hence "Schengen visa". 

 

There's no reason you can't enter to Spain and then get a fight to Poland. Once you are in the Schengen zone, your passport doesn't get stamped or checked again until you exit the Schengen zone. I don't understand the purpose of hiding plans to visit Poland, there's no "work" or "study" connected to visiting Poland for the interview, so hiding that seems weird to me. Is the concern that if you told them you also want to visit Poland that they would decline you and tell you to apply for a Polish visa? 

[ah-no 27]

2 hours ago, BenNomad said:

That's right, you can request multiple countries. We applied for 14 days in Greece and 3 in Italy and got approved. Take into consideration how long the consulate takes to make a decision and return the passport.

So, 17 days total? I guess we're going to go this route, too, if we can get assigned away from Moscow... is there some guide to making an application like this so I can help my wife? Like, what the booking and tickets need to be, where the tickets must originate, etc.

if you know, that is

And yes, if you have a single entry visa, you can still travel to another country in the EU. there are no border checks. you could drive a car into Poland from Greece if you really wanted to.

[millefleur 5,046]

7 hours ago, ah-no said:

And yes, if you have a single entry visa, you can still travel to another country in the EU. there are no border checks. you could drive a car into Poland from Greece if you really wanted to.

 

Even if you fly between airports after entering the Schengen, they don't check. Schengen to Schengen flight transfers are open apart from going through security. There's no immigration/border control once you are in the zone except for when you are taking a flight outside the Schengen area. Thus, flight between Greece and Poland has no immigration control. But a flight from Greece to Turkey or the US would (final destination is leaving the Schengen area.)

[BenNomad 88]

7 hours ago, ah-no said:

And yes, if you have a single entry visa, you can still travel to another country in the EU. there are no border checks. you could drive a car into Poland from Greece if you really wanted to.

You'd have to leave and re-enter the Schengen zone in order to drive from Greece to Poland, but you could drive from Hungary, Germany. etc. 

 

My wife says she read posts from people trying to get to Warsaw in the past year that there have been random checks at airports and even someone not being allowed to board a flight to Poland, but that is probably extremely rare. 

[millefleur 5,046]

59 minutes ago, BenNomad said:

My wife says she read posts from people trying to get to Warsaw in the past year that there have been random checks at airports and even someone not being allowed to board a flight to Poland, but that is probably extremely rare. 

My only concern now is that intraborder checks are popping up due to the new migrant crisis. I saw some news articles that countries have been checking but not sure how regular, or if it's only at the land border and not at airports etc. You can do a quick search and recent articles will pop up:

 

https://www.barrons.com/news/germany-tightens-polish-czech-border-checks-as-migrant-numbers-rise-33d47f5a

 

That said, a single entry Schengen visa should mean you are fine even if they do check so long as you did not leave the zone and try to re-enter.

[Mauricio & Iuliia 0]

Off topic question, but did any of you have to write a sponsorship letter for the shengen visa supporting your fiancee financially? And if so how to format it?

[BenNomad 88]

1 hour ago, Mauricio & Iuliia said:

Off topic question, but did any of you have to write a sponsorship letter for the shengen visa supporting your fiancee financially? And if so how to format it?

Yes, they required a sponsor letter. Here's the one we submitted. We didn't know in advance, so I had to do it very quickly and send it to my wife while she was still at the window. It's very simple but they accepted it. They said the letter had to be in Russian, while the application itself had to be only in English.

[Mauricio & Iuliia 0]

8 hours ago, BenNomad said:

Yes, they required a sponsor letter. Here's the one we submitted. We didn't know in advance, so I had to do it very quickly and send it to my wife while she was still at the window. It's very simple but they accepted it. They said the letter had to be in Russian, while the application itself had to be only in English.

What country was this for?

[BenNomad 88]

16 hours ago, Mauricio & Iuliia said:

What country was this for?

Greece