one way tickets

since i plan to move to the dr..... i really don't need a round trip ticket.... but as i have been told.... you cannot enter the country with a one way ticket....but... when i.... (just out of curiosity) put in the request for a one way ticket with several different airlines they were ready and willing to sell me the ticket... eh! what's the deal?!

Nicole,
Unless you can show residency (i.e., a residency visa) in the DR, the people at the airline check-in counter will still make you buy a return ticket (even if an open one), no matter what the friendly phone agent told you to the contrary. They're required to, unless things have changed radically since I was last in the DR. So be prepared for it. Maybe you'll get lucky and slip through with just the one-way ticket, but don't count on it. Even my mother-in-law, who is as Dominican as can be but carries a US passport, has been forced to buy a round-trip before!
Regards,
Keith

Just curious, but do they have any other applicable rules which would apply if you arrived by boat?

Thanks.

If you are coming from Canada, you can't buy a one way ticket for cheaper than a charter with a return ticket included. Looks like you are coming from the US, I am not sure what kind of charter deals come out of there....we had to come on a charter and just burn the return ticket.

marc

I have heard, but never been able to confirm, that you don't necessarily need a "return" ticket, but need to show that you will be leaving this country. Could that be a ticket to Miami? Puerto Rico? Haiti (God forbid)? May be worth looking into.

marc

I believe that's true, Marc. The point, from the DR's vantage (it's they who impose the rule on the airlines), is for the passenger to demonstrate that he/she's in the DR temporarily. A ticket showing "onward travel" (travel to another country, such as Jamaica, Mexico, Netherlands Antilles, etc.) would satisfy the requirement. It doesn't have to be a straightforward round trip. That said, however, round trip tickets are often cheaper to buy because of the way airlines price them.
Regards,
Keith

I wasn't thinking of a charter, Marc. I'm actually in Europe, not the states. I would like to come to the DR on a small sailboat. Of course if required I can buy a ticket somewhere (Like Keith, I'm hoping that I can buy it to somewhere besides the country named on my passport.) But if the law was created to make sure that you wouldn't stay, then I assume that they require some sort of proof that you're leaving. It does seem strange that they require an airplane ticket out of the country when it is possible for you to leave through Haiti.

Immigration stopped asking for a return ticket when the E-Ticket came out. With an E-Ticket, you will not have proof, because you just show up with your ID and they issue you a boarding pass. The last time I was asked (about 30 or 40 trips ago), I just said I was travelling on an E-ticket and had no proof. I was waved on. I haven't been asked for proof of return since.

The whole "proof of return" checking lasted about 3 months a couple years ago or so. It was enforcement of an old law. It isn't that they are worried about you staying too long. They are worried about you spending all your money and then not having the money live or to get back home, thus becoming a burden to the DR.

This has been my personal experience, regardless of what the law requires.

Jim,

I recall you saying this before, and I've had some others say the same. But my own personal experience is that I've been asked nearly every time I've purchased an airline ticket to the DR since 1986. While I lived there I just smiled and told them or showed them my visa, and that took care of that.

I'm not sure why I was asked and others aren't, but if it's still the law, she does run a risk of being asked and being forced to buy the departure ticket. The probability may be diminished these days, but the possibility remains. As a I said, my suegra, a Dominican born & raised, still gets asked sometimes just because she holds an American passport.

That's why I said
>>Maybe you'll get lucky and slip through with just the one-way ticket, but don't count on it.<<

Regards,
Keith

What is an E-Ticket? May be some other folks want to know too!

Henry