General Info

[Dg8787]

When you write "I will be flying to Hong Kong with a Pinay friend", does that mean that.

- the both of you are leaving PH together and.

- the both of you are arriving into HK also together?

That is how I did it with my GF and there was no trouble at either end. Just have to show the HK hotel where you are stayng and also they may ask for her return flight.

Not sure of your nationality, but with my US passport there was no issues of us coming together.

Good luck.

Yes and yes.

Which airport did you fly out of?

Thanks.

[Wicked Roger]

I have a few questions regarding BI letting Pinay out of the country.

I will be flying to Hong Kong with a Pinay friend. She is single in her late 20's with 2 children, has had her passport for 4 years and never exit the Philippines. We will be in Hong Kong for a few days and returning.

I have read about some problems about BI letting girls out.

1. Is the Cebu airport worst or better than the Manila airport in going thru immigration for Pinays?

2. We will have some pictures proving our friendship going back 3 years. Anything else we might need?

3. What travel papers will she need?

Thanks in advance for your help in this.

Is said that Cebu is tougher DG but I never see that in practice. Best PM me as I have ideas and is long list to overcome issues as despite having a family and kids plus photos the passport person can be a prat or worse!

[Firebird]

I have a few questions regarding BI letting Pinay out of the country.

I will be flying to Hong Kong with a Pinay friend. She is single in her late 20's with 2 children, has had her passport for 4 years and never exit the Philippines. We will be in Hong Kong for a few days and returning.

I have read about some problems about BI letting girls out.

1. Is the Cebu airport worst or better than the Manila airport in going thru immigration for Pinays?

2. We will have some pictures proving our friendship going back 3 years. Anything else we might need?

3. What travel papers will she need?

Thanks in advance for your help in this.

When you write "I will be flying to Hong Kong with a Pinay friend", does that mean that.

- the both of you are leaving PH together and.

- the both of you are arriving into HK also together?

That is how I did it with my GF and there was no trouble at either end. Just have to show the HK hotel where you are stayng and also they may ask for her return flight.

Not sure of your nationality, but with my US passport there was no issues of us coming together.

Good luck.

[Bushes]

Think her passport must be valid at least 6-9 month from scheduled return date. If she was red flagged or denied on another passport, there could be problems.

her passport for 4 years and never exit the Philippines.

[Bushes]

IMHO, you with her and her having 2 kids and late 20's are good enough for both sides. Hotel reservation (you) and return ticket (hers) comes to mind. I have not tried, but I have been considering getting these prepaid Credit / Debit cards as show for pinay's wallet. Also as backup. There is a monthly charge and I assume can be cancelled without penalties. Used to use double signature travellers checks when I used to get them for free. Think they are still out there because I got one as payment. LOL

I have a few questions regarding BI letting Pinay out of the country.

I will be flying to Hong Kong with a Pinay friend. She is single in her late 20's with 2 children, has had her passport for 4 years and never exit the Philippines. We will be in Hong Kong for a few days and returning.

I have read about some problems about BI letting girls out.

[Dg8787]

I have a few questions regarding BI letting Pinay out of the country.

I will be flying to Hong Kong with a Pinay friend. She is single in her late 20's with 2 children, has had her passport for 4 years and never exit the Philippines. We will be in Hong Kong for a few days and returning.

I have read about some problems about BI letting girls out.

1. Is the Cebu airport worst or better than the Manila airport in going thru immigration for Pinays?

2. We will have some pictures proving our friendship going back 3 years. Anything else we might need?

3. What travel papers will she need?

Thanks in advance for your help in this.

[Bushes]

Not aimed at you specifically WC. I don't know where most of the posters hail from but I was asked those type of information for ID check by various financial institutions when doing telephone inquiries 20 plus years ago. They were asking information not supplied by me. They even dumbed it down further by making it multiple choice.

I think retinal scans are used by some countries. I am not sure. But those pictures US border control takes of you are not because you are so handsome. And there is not an option to opt out.

I think I mentioned it either here, or in the Mexico threads some years back. I walked back into the US from Mexico at a border crossing. A night of drinking and debauchery with a buddy, and somehow we got split up. I was coming thru when there was light foot traffic. The Immigration officer (a fat lady) swiped my passport. She asked some of the usual questions without taking her eyes from the computer screen. "Did you attend XXX XXXXXXXXX University?" Yes, yes I did. How did you know that? "What year did you graduate?" I told her. She asked a few more questions about the college. She had the information on her computer. She said the agents have access to a number of databases. Its a bit un-nerving what they have access to.

[Golfinho]

With the easy availability of refundable or extremely low cost tickets ( for example lots of flights on Expedia.com are fully refundable in 24 hours or low cost $35 tickets Manila to HK on Air Asia), it is becoming a requirement that is easy to get around?

Why go through that inconvenience? All I've been doing is booking reward travel with my United 1 k, and cancelling if or when I need to. Having been to 175 countries, and having boarded flights to the philippines from all continents, it's clear to me that airlines insist on the return or onward tickets from the philippines more consistently than anywhere else (except maybe the solomon islands).

[Kabul Guy]

...

It doesn't concern me too much because I never infringe visa or other travel requirements.

I also am not that concerned, as I too never mess with any travel requirements or lie to an immigration official. What does concern me is the fact that as the databases get more and more linked that someone could put together a very clear picture of what you have done, almost on a daily basis for the last few years.

Relational data bases can be linked by a lot of different things. For example if you ever entered your passport number, say on an airline booking site, then your passport number can become linked to the IMEI number on your phone, then you can be tracked to location anywhere in the world. Some even say that the tracking can occur if your phone is turned off and the battery installed. Your posts here could also be tracked by the IMEI number.

Pay for that flight with your credit card, then all your travels, both locally and internationally, can be tracked by anyone having your passport number.

So you enter a third country, they scan your passport and see that you were just on P. Burgos Street a few nights ago as he is reading your FR about your exploits. Some places and some people take a dim view of people doing that sort of thing. So he asks you in front of your wife how you liked your threesome.

I am also a little concerned about identity theft from all this linked info. Sometimes the links can include sufficient information to discern your security questions. What is your mother's maiden name? How often is that asked here? How often is it used as a security question?

I had my Canadian bank accounts hacked a few months ago. It took over a month to regain full control over my funds. I did not lose any money. I was lucky I had just transferred several months living to my Philippine account. Had I not done that I could have been hard up for ready funds here outside of cash advances on my credit cards with high interest rates.

With the loss of privacy that the internet can bring along with all the benefits, we can expect more and more of that sort of thing in the future.

[Goferring]

On my last trip into Australia the immigration guy, completely out of the blue, asked me how I enjoyed Mongolia (where I had been working some 2 months earlier). This was using a brand new replacement passport that had only my Philippines departure stamp showing in it.

Australia no longer issues physical arrival and departure stamps in passports and is a couple of years away from paperless entry amd exit. If you want proof of your prior travel, you contact the Immigration Dept for a printout of your Movement Report so yes, I have no doubt that arrival agents have a list of your movements on the screen in front of them. Exactly how they identify intermediate countries (eg PI via Singapore) I'm not sure but it would not surprise me to find that they can.

Quite obviously, my past travels popped up on the screen in front of him, so I would surmise that if an immigration agent is interested he or she can easily check where you have been from the records on the computer. Of course, I don't know if the Australian agent could also check USA or other countries' records. My guess would be that the whole system has tentacles everywhere now per Interpol or some other link.

It doesn't concern me too much because I never infringe visa or other travel requirements.

I once had a neighbour that worked for Customs and his job was to profile packages and people so that their resources would be best spent when "random" checks were performed. He never went into details but left me with the impression he had a wide range of information sources.

[WestCoast1]

Quite obviously, my past travels popped up on the screen in front of him, so I would surmise that if an immigration agent is interested he or she can easily check where you have been from the records on the computer. Of course, I don't know if the Australian agent could also check USA or other countries' records. My guess would be that the whole system has tentacles everywhere now per Interpol or some other link.

I think I mentioned it either here, or in the Mexico threads some years back. I walked back into the US from Mexico at a border crossing. A night of drinking and debauchery with a buddy, and somehow we got split up. I was coming thru when there was light foot traffic. The Immigration officer (a fat lady) swiped my passport. She asked some of the usual questions without taking her eyes from the computer screen. "Did you attend XXX XXXXXXXXX University?" Yes, yes I did. How did you know that? "What year did you graduate?" I told her. She asked a few more questions about the college. She had the information on her computer. She said the agents have access to a number of databases. Its a bit un-nerving what they have access to.

[Red Kilt]

I'd really like to know how interlocked it is. What can your home country, the country you are visiting and a third country see about your past travels? Can it be seen by non Customs and Immigration people, I. E. Other government departments like the tax man? How about non government people being able to hack it? I am active on other boards and on the travel ones this question comes up often with no straight answer only guesses.
<SNIP>

On my last trip into Australia the immigration guy, completely out of the blue, asked me how I enjoyed Mongolia (where I had been working some 2 months earlier). This was using a brand new replacement passport that had only my Philippines departure stamp showing in it.

Quite obviously, my past travels popped up on the screen in front of him, so I would surmise that if an immigration agent is interested he or she can easily check where you have been from the records on the computer. Of course, I don't know if the Australian agent could also check USA or other countries' records. My guess would be that the whole system has tentacles everywhere now per Interpol or some other link.

It doesn't concern me too much because I never infringe visa or other travel requirements.

[Kabul Guy]

I think that travel IT these days is so interlocked, that immigration people can check your past movements and forward bookings from your passport numbers. You are only likely to be "profiled" for interrogation if there are any suspicious activities in your history.

I'd really like to know how interlocked it is. What can your home country, the country you are visiting and a third country see about your past travels? Can it be seen by non Customs and Immigration people, I. E. Other government departments like the tax man? How about non government people being able to hack it? I am active on other boards and on the travel ones this question comes up often with no straight answer only guesses.

I know Canada and the US are tightly integrated and they share info on the shared border but what about my flying into the US from a third world country or be why land from Mexico? Does Canada know about it? (I an Canadian remember.) How about an American flying into Canada from a third country?

I spent 9 years in Afghanistan, with multiple trips into Dubai as well as a couple into Pakistan, Indonesia here and a few other places. On my old passport with all the stamps I was always hassled at US customs and usually asked a few additional questions at other places. All that stopped when that passport expired and I was issued a new one. I don't know if the questions came because of the physical evidence of my travels in my passport or something showed up on the computer. I think it was physical evidence otherwise the computer would have showed that I worked for the US government as a contractor and had a security clearance and lots of access to the military bases there. Lots of times they typed my responses into their computer so they could just have been confirming what was shown.

[Wicked Roger]

Which ports? I've always been told that an extension cannot be granted immediately upon arrival.

I haven't worried a lot about it as I always extend my visa at small regional Immigration offices which are surprisingly quick and painless when compared to the horror stories of using the head offices in Manila or Cebu.

I quite often fly to PI via Indonesia and stay there a couple of weeks on the way across. At home I'm often asked to show the Bali Manila flight (on another airline) at boarding time to prove that I won't be over staying. I don't know why but I'm never asked by airlines nor arriving immigration about onward tickets once I leave home. This is even when I'm techniclally in breach of entry requirements, intending to extend my visa once I'm in country. I'm guessing a passport full of visa stamps reassures them that I won't over stay.

Interestingly, I once planned to stay in Indonesia longer and pre paid for an extended visa. The check in girl obviously had this in the airline system as this time she didn't ask about my late return flight nor rifle through my passport looking for a preapproved visa. I tend to agree with the earlier poster about the immigration and airline systems sharing information.

Got mine at Manila but the hassle was a long wait etc and then to the queue to pass through passport control. Cebu in JMall was easy but then I get there at 830 am and I am one of first with my form prepared (no filling it in at the office etc) and I was out by 930 am somedays.

I have used fake return tickets at the check in other Asian airports (as have many others I know) - you an get them cheap from a web site. And just show the hard copy. No checks at all and was easy. Same at passport control in the Philippines (but only ever asked 2 times in my life).

[PinaLove]

They don't need to ask. The airline asks. If immigration happens to ask and you don't have one, then it is a big fine for the airline. I think they do have to type the reservation of your onward flight into the system before it will let them check you in.

If you are denied entry to a country then it is the airline's responsibility to bare the cost of your removal from the country. Pretty sure they then charge you for the problem.