Yes, Dummy flight tickets are officially accepted for Schengen visa application, however, some countries within Schengen zone where you are applying your visa, may require you to furnish actual flight confirmed reservation, so it is very important to select the right itinerary and right embassy at the same time.
There are many fears and doubts for people concerning the authenticity of these dummy tickets and how and where to actually validate this? as mostly everyone they come across have different answers. Also, there are people who simply get lucky using wrong dummy tickets and they then advise others to simply follow the process what they did. But what is the correct process then to buy or arrange such tickets?
In order to understand this, we need to first understand the concept of dummy flight tickets.
A dummy flight tickets is simply a flight ticket showing actual details of flight journey which is confirmed but not yet issued to the customer. Unlike a fake ticket, a dummy flight ticket holds a valid PNR & Reservation code which are verifiable directly on Airline websites & Embassies for which you have hold the booking.
A dummy flight ticket is basically a temporary hold ticket with a valid PNR & Reservation code (which can be verified by embassy) while a fake flight ticket does not have either nor an e-ticket number.
Yes, Dummy flight tickets are officially accepted for Schengen visa application, however, some countries within Schengen zone where you are applying your visa, may require you to furnish actual flight confirmed reservation, so it is very important to select the right itinerary and right embassy at the same time.
1. Finland: officially ask for Travel plan/Itinerary, so a dummy ticket would suffice that.
2. France: officially ask for Reservation of a return ticket or Travel Itinerary, dummy tickets work here.
3. Estonia: officially mentions that tickets should be bought only after visa has been issued.
4. Luxembourg: officially mentions either reservation or tickets. (So, hold ticket reservation works)
5. Netherlands: specifically mentions they don’t need a ticket (dummy flight ticket works)
These are just few examples of embassies which already accepts dummy flight ticket options, however, depending on your itinerary, you may have to find if the respective embassy you are putting your application, ask for only reservation or an actual flight booking! (As it may differ from country to country within Schengen states).
Now, we know that dummy flight tickets are widely accepted for visa applications, let’s find out how to find and look for while buying these dummy tickets.
Before I explain you soon from where you get these dummy tickets, you have to first know how these tickets hold period works. These dummy tickets are basically reserved and hold by the authorized travel agents. The official processing time for a Schengen visa is usually 14-15 business days, so ideally the hold time for these tickets should minimum of 2 weeks from the date they are processed in the system.
However, there could be many agents who can hold it for a small period only such as 1 -2 days or sometimes 3 and they automatically get cancel within the system. You must have seen this while booking air tickets online by airlines (SchengenVisaItinerary). In this we have Hotel Reservation, Travel Insurance and Flight Itinerary services are there. Most of such customer buying these tickets have little or no idea about the impact it may cause on their visa application and by the time a visa officer checks their applications and wishes to check the validity of the reservation, the PNR or the Reservation Code may not work by that time and can cause suspicion especially for first time travelers.
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