Need to get a visa for your trip? you will need to make a hotel reservation in advance to as proof of accommodation . While this might make sense for the visa officers, it is too risky to make these bookings before you have your visa sticker stamped on your passport. This article will show you how to make hotel reservation for visa application in just under 30 seconds.
Let me introduce to our swiss army knife for visa processing, FlightGen App, which allows us to make flight itinerary & hotel bookings for visa purposes.
The FlightGen App allows you to book both hotels and temporary flights (thus the name).
- Instantly generate travel itinerary and hotel reservations for visa purposes.
- Choose your own flight and accommodation, and receive prices in your preferred currency (essential!).
- The lowest option, when compared to other sites that charge about $20 each booking (just $10 for unlimited flight and hotel itineraries).
- No additional cost is required to add co-applicants.
What is the difference between hotel booking & hotel reservation of visa application ?
While a hotel booking is fully paid confirmation, hotel reservation need not be fully paid. You can reserve a seat but if you do not visit, this might be given away to someone else. Though in spoken speech these might be used interchangeably.
For visa purposes, the consulate expects you to make fully paid hotel bookings, but in most cases if you show that you has sufficient money to take care of yourself via bank statements or outstanding balance in your credit card. You might be ok with making reservations and converting them to bookings once your visa is approved.
The most important thing is to mention what you are submitting in your cover letter. For example, if you are submitting actual hotel bookings for your visa application, then you need to write that you are submitting “Fully paid hotel bookings for the duration of the trip” and if you are providing itinerary or a temporary. “Probable Hotel itinerary for the duration of stay from travel booking agent . The same will be converted to fully paid bookings once visa is approved.“
Can I make hotel reservation on sites like booking.com or agoda ?
Yes. you can make “pay at hotel” bookings and use it for visa. But there are two problems associated with this. It is not possible for you to get hotels of your choice in this option and for most of the bookings you will need to submit a credit card and the hotel put a hold on the whole amount that is owed for the booking.
If this is a hotel that you dont want to stay, then it will take you over 60 days to get your money back from this booking. Here is an example of a customer who faced these issues.
Even booking.com confirms the same.
The best part about using the FlightGen App for our hotel bookings for visa is that we can choose the hotel and currency as we want.
What this allows us to do is choose a hotel and make a booking as if our visa is approved. And once my visa is approved I can make the actual booking for the same hotel.
For instance, let us say I would like to make a booking at Bravo Hostel. I can use the FlightGen app to make a hotel itinerary for this hotel, and when my visa is approved, I can go on to make the actual confirmed booking for Bravo Hostel. This way, I can make sure that I have no unforseen trouble at the immigration counter.
What are the other documents that can be used in place of hotel reservation for visa application ?
No. There are many other documents that can be submitted as proof of accommodation (sometimes called proof of stay) such as :
- Hostel bookings
- Invitation letter from the host (Applicable for vistor visa)
- Rental agreement (For long-stay visas such as student visa)
- Rental of a caravan or motorhome
- Organized group or holiday tours
As you can see above, the type of visa determines the kind of proof you will need to submit. For many other countries, you can just show means of subsistence, which means you have to provide proofs such as bank
