Philippines: Return ticket / exit required. No exit ticket? Well, you’re not leaving
This morning I broke a world record: buying a plane ticket in 1 min 30.While we had just made the checkin at the airport of Hong Kong and that we were heading towards immigration, the hostess of the company sprints and catches us in flight.- “I forgot to ask for your exit ticket from the Philippines”.– “Uh… what?”- “Philippine immigration requires us to check that every visitor has an exit ticket, if you don’t have one, I will cancel your registration”.
The explanation
The return ticket trick was not a trick set up by Cebu Pacific or Air Asia to get us to buy a return ticket. A decree issued by the Philippine government threatens to make the airlines pay (very high) fees if they do not ensure that passengers have a ticket to leave the country. The airlines are afraid and apply it blindly, while immigration authorities upon arrival in the Philippines do not even ask for an exit ticket. Round-the-world tickets (if there are no flights from the Philippines) aren’t accepted.So, if you leave France for the Philippines and you don’t know how long you plan to stay there, get an exit ticket (within 30 days from your departure date), to any city in the neighboring countries (Hong Kong, Ho Chi Minh City, Taipei…), it will cost you between 30€ and 50€. Do not buy a return ticket Philippines – France in a hurry. Stay zen, buy a Manila – Hong Kong ticket. Come on, it will do you good to visit Hong Kong anyway.Otherwise, you can buy a fake ticket on Bestonwardticketor book a free cancellable ticket on Orbitz
For more information…
Here are the countries/locations where we did not have problems with registration or immigration, yet we did not have an exit ticket:
- Argentina (land border crossing)
- Burma (arrival by plane)
- Brazil (land border crossing from Paraguay)
- Bolivia (crossing land borders)
- Cambodia (arrival by plane)
- Canada
- Chile (arrival by plane via Easter Island)
- United States
- Guatemala (land border crossing)
- Hong Kong (arrival by plane)
- Honduras (land border crossing)
- India (but it depends on the companies apparently)
- Indonesia (arrival by boat)
- Laos (arrival by plane)
- Macau (arrival by boat)
- Morocco
- Mexico (arrival by plane): be careful if you are departing from France, or via the land crossing you will be asked for an exit ticket
- Nepal (arrival by plane)
- Nicaragua (arrival by plane)
- Paraguay (crossing land borders)
- Peru (land border crossing)
- El Salvador (land border crossing)
- Singapore (arrival by plane)
- Thailand (arrival by plane)
- Uruguay (land border crossing)
- Vietnam (arrival by plane)
Here are the countries where we were asked for the exit ticket:
- China
- Colombia
- South Korea
- Japan
- Philippines
- Panama
- Costa Rica