Proof of Travel
Plain-English answers from people who've worked both sides of the border counter. Written daily by four travel-industry insiders.
A one-way Lagos-Istanbul-Baku booking shows why Turkish Airlines checks onward travel documents at three different points, and what proof actually clears each one.
A relocation coordinator learned the hard way that a cheap dummy ticket and a verifiable onward ticket are not the same purchase.
A transposed initial on Dorotea Kalnina's onward ticket PNR nearly stalled her boarding. Here is how airlines classify name mismatches and which ones need paperwork to fix.
An onward ticket accepted by a consulate can still be cancelled by the airline's own booking system long before departure, and knowing the difference is what fixes it.
A Japan visa applicant in Pretoria used a dummy ticket, also called an onward ticket, to satisfy her consulate file. Here is why the airline checks it again at boarding.
A Bali-Singapore visa run puts the same onward ticket through two separate border checks for two different reasons, and one mismatched date is enough to break the pattern.
A dummy ticket is safe only when the underlying booking is still live, genuinely issued, and consistent with the rest of your travel file.
Canada's eTA and visitor visa (TRV) pathways check onward ticket proof at different stages, and the documents that satisfy each differ.
United denied a passenger boarding at Newark for lacking proof of onward travel. Here is what her document file was missing and which compensation rules did not apply.
When an onward ticket won't verify on an airline's own site, the cause is usually one of five fixable issues, not a fundamentally invalid booking.
A case study on India's e-visa form contrasts the itinerary details it requests with what immigration officers verify on arrival.
Verifying an onward ticket PNR means checking its live status directly on the airline site, not trusting a printed itinerary.
A Manchester check-in desk flags a one-way Emirates booking to Bali, showing exactly what a dummy or onward ticket needs to prove and when.