The Turkish airline Turkish Airlines has begun requiring hotel reservations from passengers flying to Mexico. At the same time, the airline refers to the fact that the country's authorities may refuse entry if a number of requirements are not met. Control will be carried out during boarding.
Turkish Airlines now requires the following documentation and confirmation from passengers flying to Mexico:
1. Electronic Authorization (SAE) — applicable to citizens of Ukraine, Russia and Turkey. Citizens of other countries require a visa, or their citizenship or residency status should allow visa-free entry into Mexico.
2. Return ticket from Mexico. We would like to add that Turkish Airlines almost always require a return ticket only for their flights and most often in the same booking with a ticket to Mexico.
3. Hotel booking — paid and covering the entire period of travel.
4. In the case of a transit flight through Mexico City Airport — a transit visa, and in addition a ticket for the next flight. Since Mexico does not have transit visas, this is likely to refer to a visa suitable for entry into Mexico, if one is needed.
All these conditions are published onpageTurkish Airlines.
Turkish Airlines has the right to require passengers to provide a return ticket from Mexico, since this requirement is in Mexican immigration legislation. But as we wrote earlier, the airline’s requirement to have a return ticket from Mexico only for its own flights, and even in the same booking with a “there” ticket, is arbitrary, since Mexican immigration legislation does not indicate where exactly the return ticket should be.
Please note that Turkish Airlines currently requires that the hotel reservation 1) be paid for and 2) cover the entire duration of the trip. Mexican immigration law does require that the passenger have a hotel reservation, but does not specify whether this reservation must be paid for and cover the entire period of stay in Mexico. In one ofpublicationswe wrote that an employee of the Mexican migration service, when registering a passenger’s entry, has the opportunity to check a hotel reservation, for which he calls the hotel and asks if the reservation is valid. But such checks are extremely rare. And the migration service officer never checks whether the reservation has been paid for, since this is technically not allowed. In addition, many hotels accept payment upon arrival, meaning when you board the plane or go through passport control upon arrival in Mexico, the reservation may not be paid (but will still be valid).
We thought that Turkish Airlines' new requirement to pay for hotel reservations — just a scary story. But a reader told us that when boarding a flight to Mexico in Istanbul, he had to open the Booking.com app on his phone at the request of an airline employee and show that the hotel in Cancun had indeed been paid for.
The Mexican Migration Service never requires that a hotel reservation cover the entire period of stay. Enough reservation only for the first time. This is probably due to the fact that the migration officer has the opportunity to allow the passenger to stay in Mexico for less time than he expected on the return ticket. In addition, if a passenger plans to spend several months in Mexico, you can imagine how much he will have to pay immediately for a hotel, as required by the airline. If you plan to move around the country, paying for hotels in advance may not be part of your plans at all. We believe that the requirement of Turkish Airlines to have a paid reservation for the entire period of stay in Mexico is simply impossible in many cases.
In addition, we add that the Mexican Migration Service accepts bookings of any accommodation, not just hotels. In particular, booking through AirBnB will also work. Instead of a reservation, a letter from the host party is suitable, where it guarantees the provision of accommodation to a foreign traveler. We don’t yet know how Turkish Airlines staff will react if, when boarding a flight to Mexico, instead of a hotel reservation, they are offered a private apartment reservation or a letter from the host.