spicynujac

JAL is very nice but they don't fly to Cebu. China Airlines will ticket over the phone but it was $100 more... Had no luck this morning but tonight it worked! $1266 R/T to Cebu. Just gotta keep trying for a week or two... maybe the same guy programmed USTravelDocs? :D :D But I've had luck in the past calling the airline directly. Sometimes even with a nice surprise on the price.

Does anyone else consistently have ticketing issues booking international flights to the Philippines? I've been on Turkish Airlines and China (Taiwan state carrier) Airlines the most. I've also done EVA Air and Starlux (both Taiwanese), though the latter only flies regionally, or to the US west coast. I think I've done China Eastern once. Prices ranged from $1,000 to $1,250 R/T (if you know how to search--ITA Matrix and Skyscanner are your friend). However, recently the major carriers I use won't issue tickets for the quoted price. Turkish Airlines refuses to show itineraries from ATL to CEB, even though they still advertise that route. Flights From Istanbul to Cebu | Turkish Airlines EVA Air and China Airlines both give errors on checkout that the ticket cannot be booked (recurring over several days). I tried booking their flights through a third party site like Orbitz and the same thing. The flights and prices display but when you try to check out, it won't issue a ticket. (It's before entering credit card info. You can duplicate the error with bogus names on any computer and see it won't reserve the ticket. So it's a reservation or ticketing bug on their end. For example, EVA AIr says Some error occurred during the booking process. System is temporarily unavailable.) I've had this issue before, but usually if you tried again for several days, it would work, but not this time. I travel frequently internationally, and used to work in the industry, but for some reason these flights to Asia can be difficult to book. I flew to Tokyo 3 months ago through Canada's Westjet and had similar issues where the priced itinerary wouldn't ticket for several days, and then finally worked one day. By the way Turkish Airlines was by far my favorite. They offer a free tour of Istanbul or a free NICE hotel room on stopover, and you get to break up your trip into two 10 hour segments, making it much more manageable. The food both onboard and in Istanbul is excellent and the carrier experience is good, unless something goes wrong, in which case you'll wish you didn't fly Turkish, but overall it's generally better than using the American carriers. They have had extremely long check in lines in Cebu though. Like almost 2 hours standing in line. I don't even know how it's possible to check people in that slowly. I can always pay more and fly westward via Philippine Air, I guess (for more money and their domestic service makes me hesitate) but I'm curious if anyone else is having these issues. There are few choices of routes which have tolerable layovers, which are basically the Taiwanese carriers, so I'm down to the final option of considering using Spirit or Frontier to connect to the west coast (even if it goes well, you must pay for ALL luggage, and self-transfer through security at the connecting airport!). Has anyone gone this risky route? Oh, I should add I used to go via Qatar Airlines which also had nice service and a free stopover option in Doha, but for the past couple of years their pricing has not been competitive.

??? As I understand it, there is no difference in the married naming conventions in the Philippines and the USA. I see this question come up frequently as if it’s some type of culture barrier, but the norm in USA is for the wife to keep her maiden name and adopt the husband’s last name. Is that not the norm in the Philippines as well? https://guides.sll.texas.gov/marriage-in-texas/name-change @Crazy Catoutlined the options available to you above. If you are trying to copy what most Americans do, historically that is: Wife1st WifeMaiden HusbandLast If you personally prefer one of the other options, choose from the list above. But the “standard” or “norm,” particularly in Christian weddings, is to keep your maiden name and adopt your husbands last name. That’s what all my friends and family in the US have done, and what at least 95% of cases I saw working in our probate court reflected, though there is a growing trend of the wife keeping her own last name, particularly in non traditional or non religious weddings. I just don’t get why this notion of different naming conventions keeps popping up when the two systems are identical. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maiden_and_married_names In Massachusetts, a Harvard study in 2004 found that about 87% of college-educated women take their husbands' name on marriage, down from a peak before 1975 of over 90%

It's very country specific, as countries which are more prone to fraud get more scrutiny, but assuming Thailand and the Philippines have similar processes, I wouldn't worry at all if I were you. We have not yet passed our interview in PH, but from everything I've seen, records of prior trips, photos of meeting in person, and boarding passes for multiple visits should be sufficient. However, adding a name to a bank account is not very substantial proof. If you are truly concerned, think of it from a contrarian view--would it be difficult for someone perpetrating fraud to provide this type of evidence? Making an overseas flight and taking photos together --> Time intensive and expensive Making a 5 minute phone call and having a call center agent type a name into an account field --> Almost no effort. Not to mention it can be undone with another 5 minute phone call at any point in the future. Which paints a more convincing picture of a bona fide marriage to you?

If I'm reading your timeline correctly, @Nathan Alden, Sr. you are still waiting on your I-130 petition to be approved and thus haven't even completed form DS-260 yet, so this should be even easier for you. When your I-130 petition is approved, fill out the DS-260 visa application using your wife's new married name. Then you don't have to make any *changes* to any immigration documents at all. Just fill out everything based on her new PH passport. Your estimated timeline date is October 2025 for I-130 approval. You will easily have her new passport by then. It was a very simple and cheap process for us. But if she's trying to begin using a totally different name than the one she was born with, yes, that is more involved and really has nothing to do with marriage or immigration so it must go through the proper legal process as it involves issues of public safety and trust.

I always get confused with these PH name change threads because people act like the PH assigns marriage names in some unique way, but they handle them EXACTLY the same as the convention where I am from (American south) which is also the standard in Scotland / Ireland and I believe most English speaking nations, so it's pretty straightforward for me and I don't get the long explanations about it (the name change convention, not the process). Wife's maiden name (last name) becomes her new middle name, and she takes the husband's last name. Her old middle name is dropped. That's how all my friends and family back home are named, so it's nothing new for me. The only thing I've ever seen differently is if the wife doesn't want to change her name at all, which is what happens in either PH or USA if you don't bother to contact any government agencies to change your documents. Your marriage certificate serves as proof of the name change. (In the PH the Report of Marriage is the domestic version of a foreign marriage certificate). From what I've read here, it's very desirable to have the green card issued in your wife's married name, in other words, change her documents to reflect her new married name BEFORE the visa interview in Manila. I think it's already been answered in this thread, but what we've done is: 1) obtain the Report of Marriage from the local PSA office (we went in at 5 months, they said it wasn't ready yet, went back 6 weeks later and they gave us a copy). 2) obtain Advisory on Marriage from PSA (couple of bucks) and background check with both names/alias from National Bureau of Investigation. 3) Registered for a visa interview date in March in Manila 4) Took existing PH passport and ROM to Dept of Foreign Affairs and applied for a new passport in married name (about $15) 5) Within 3 weeks we got the new passport back. Uploaded new passport, along with ROM, police check, and PSA Advisory on Marriage to CEAC website. 5a) We called the embassy and they reopened the Form DS-260 that we could edit through the CEAC website. I logged in, changed 3 fields: Current name: new married name. Prior names: Yes / maiden name. Passport #: changed to new #. Saved. From what I've read this step is optional and the embassy officer can do it at the interview, but since we called and were told to do this, we did it ourselves. 6) Will bring both original passports and original of all the newly uploaded docs (ROM, Advisory on Marriage, police clearance) to the interview. This shouldn't cause any change to our scheduled interview as we have the same case # as before. Not exactly simple, but straight forward, unless you are trying to change your wifes name to something unconventional. Only if you are rejecting the normal name convention of accepting your last name and keeping her maiden name. Which also requires court approval in the USA in my state. We already have a PH passport with my wife's married name and it cost <$20 for the whole process, which is way cheaper than even getting a new driver license in the USA.

Over 3 years after the US withdrawal and Taliban victory, It's much more likely these are relatives of Afghanis already living in the USA, or what Americans informally call "chain migration." The linked article states there are many children, which would corroborate this. However, it also states the Afghans are receiving visas with a maximum stay of 59 days which makes little sense. Hundreds of women and children on holiday in America in January during record low freezes? Either there are some factual errors in the reporting or something else is going on. The news was reported in a number of places, including domestic media like the Washington Post, so I'd imagine these are permanent immigrant families. If they are indeed issued short term visas, it's probably just a formality or faster way of getting them permanent status once they are physically in the US. The choice of Manila is bizarre. One can only speculate. But it wouldn't surprise me if the BongoBongo regime has become the nearest "American friendly" territory to process the visas.

Thankfully the I-485 with the huge fee is for fiance visas only We are IR1.

Surprisingly I can't find this answer in the forums or elsewhere online. How does one sign on the spouse signature line of a joint US tax return? I am including a signed application for IRS tax number, signed statement by both spouses selecting US tax residency, and Form 2848 which authorizes me to sign for my wife but WHAT NAME do I write on the tax return? hers or mine? My tax preparer thought I should sign my name on both lines, but I wanted to make sure. Since we are approaching April 15, I don't really have time for mistakes!

Thanks all. We decided to just do 2 separate trips to Manila. With the insanely cheap airfares from Cebu to Manila ($64 round trip and even lower if we had planned more in advance), it's cheaper to do 2 trips there instead of spending a weekend in a hotel room waiting for the medical results to be issued. So we will have the medical tests done several weeks before the interview, and then she can focus on just doing the interview and maybe some sightseeing and celebration in Manila on the second trip (she is excited and has never been to Manila before--at least the Embassy is by Rizal Park with a lot of museums and attractions--I don't care for Manila one iota personally). I told her she could have the gross sugary Jollibee spaghetti that's right there in the park haha. Hard to believe we are this close! And also hard to believe St Lukes charges a tarsier hair's shy of $500 for a flippin medical exam! I thought US medical costs were insane! That's a very significant component of the whole visa cost (which I've been tabulating: FYI $1469 in fees only, excluding travel or costs obtaining documents, and I believe there is one final green card type payment (USCIS Immigrant Fee of $220?) to go. So any new applicants count on about $1,700 as a starting point for what you will have to cough up going forward. Thankfully my tax preparer called today and I should get at least that much back in a tax refund from filing an amended married joint return last year! Another big benefit of the IR1 visa IMHO. I honestly cannot see how someone could complete this process alone without the fantastic (not to mention prompt) help from the VJ community. I suppose I still could have done it but it may have taken an extra year and duplicative trips and hundreds more $$ as I figured things out on my own because the official instructions and documentation for the process are abysmally poor (and in some cases nonexistent!). Thanks to all, especially those who have successfully made it through and stick around to help others !!! Blessings on you all.

In looking at the St Luke calendar today, you could even book same day appointments for later this afternoon (though only 2 were available). So as long as you are scheduling a week or so in advance, you should have your choice of time slots.

We've found midnight Philippines time is the best time to schedule (it's worked 3 different times when there was nothing available at other times). Don't beat yourself up logging in multiple times per day. There are either free spots or there aren't. We checked once per day, waiting on them to open up March spots (February has been available but we wanted better scheduling with back-to-back biometrics and interview, while the February calendar didn't allow that. And March spots became available today. It's really annoying that they won't show you the more rare interview spots until after you already book the biometric time. Because this often leads you with huge gaps between them which I'm sure leads to a lot of cancellations like we did. And let me just add that forcing you to go to two different places on 2 different days is NOT helping (they sold the second facility as something to make the process go smoother lol) FYI We were just able to schedule for March a few hours ago (Midnight / morning of Jan 16th). Yes we have scheduled after cancelling. The site is very confusing but I believe you have to "CLOSE" your application, and then it gives you a scary message that kind of sounds like you are cancelling the whole visa process but you are supposed to answer yes and then you start over again. You have to re-enter a lot of your info like passport #, address to mail passport, etc. but it saved some of the info and then takes you to the scheduling screen. Or if you haven't yet cancelled your dates you may be able to select "reschedule" instead of "close" and then "start new." Then it is sort of Russian Roulette--sometimes it will allow you to complete the process after showing you the calendar of dates, other times it looks like you have picked a slot and then it pops up a window "you are not allowed to schedule now." Haha it's truly a ridiculous site. By the way I should probably post a new question but is doing the medical exam on day 1, interview on day 2 ok or do you need to allow more time? (Biometrics is on Monday AM, Medical exam Monday PM, Interview Tuesday AM). I think my spouse will need some vaccines as she can't find a vaccine card for anything other than Covid-19 so from what I've read that means you need to come back the following day for vaccines, so can that be done after the embassy interview or do you have to have all the medical checks done first? Hoping to avoid having to stay over a weekend but will do that if it's needed.

EDIT: The only proof of relationship we had to provide were some photos and boarding passes from time we spent together, which were uploaded at the very beginning of the process when we submitted our I-130 form. And then the original marriage certificate in person at the embassy interview. The next time we anticipate interacting with US immigration (after Port of Entry) is when we apply for citizenship. With the marital visa, the proving of the relationship is done on the front end, before entry to the USA. Once she's your wife, unless there are reasons to suspect fraud, that is not typically questioned again.

Correct. ??? No, they are not the same, as you indicated above. The Adjustment of Status process is indeed onerous and expensive, and it's one of the drawbacks of K1 vs CR1/IR1. Your question is confusing. You seem to understand that CR1 holders avoid Adjustment of Status but then ask if it is the same process you go through as a K1 fiance visa holder? That's why many are scratching their heads. If you have a friend and don't want him to go through the Adjustment of Status headache, advise him to marry and go the CR1/IR1 route. Wife gets green card upon entry, and can immediately travel out of the country if she wants. There is no "status" to "adjust." There *IS* an "AOS" related to a marital visa, but that is an Affadavit Of Support (one reason I dislike using acronyms). Maybe this is causing the confusion? Affadavit of Support is proof of income, showing that you can financially support increasing your family size. It is filed after your I-130 is approved before your visa interview at the embassy, along with a fee of $120. But there is no Adjustment Of Status.

Generally, one should not take relationship advice from strangers on the internet. However, in this case, it is not likely that many of your friends and family have been able to meet your foreign partner. I used to work for a rather popular men's publication. And what I say here is not from any sort of position of a relationship expert, but merely one who has heard countless stories from other men, far beyond what my personal life experiences have given me. It is often only in hindsight we can see red flags or relationship problems in the women we are emotionally attached to. Lying to obtain money from your partner is a big one. The Philippines is FULL of sweet, honest, loyal, trustworthy, Godfearing women. Go find one. Unless this girl is extremely young, this type of behavior is a moral failing that is going to cause you lots of problems in the future. (FYI The other recurring theme I noticed in my time at that publication is that men often failed to take good relationship advice when it was offered.)