Visa problems

[Ruth Suehle]

Hi, all. It's too late to solve this for this year, but I'm hoping to
crowdsource some answers for next year.

We have booked flights for people based on the itineraries they requested,
in some cases on the assumption that they knew better than we did how best
to get to Prague from their own countries and deal with getting visas.

Because some countries require you to (or at least strongly suggest that
you do) have a flight before you request a visa, we are now quite over
budget for travel due to denied and delayed visas requiring us to rebook
flights on different itineraries. It's not only India, although because we
have many contributors who want to attend Flock from India, it's the
primary problem country in this situation.

As those of us doing the flight bookings are American and rarely need visas
where we travel, this is unfamiliar territory. Can those of you who deal
with visa problems make any suggestions about how to avoid this next year?
Or is it simply unavoidable, and we need to budget in the equivalent of
several extra people's flights for these rebookings?

Thanks!
Ruth

[María Leandro]

Best procedure for next year would be that the host location provides a
list of countries that request a Visa. Every embassy should have this
information available.

This info has been provided with every FUDcon Proposal so my question is;
why was it different for Flock?

2014-07-18 10:50 GMT-04:30 Ruth Suehle :
> Hi, all. It's too late to solve this for this year, but I'm hoping to
> crowdsource some answers for next year.
>
> We have booked flights for people based on the itineraries they requested,
> in some cases on the assumption that they knew better than we did how best
> to get to Prague from their own countries and deal with getting visas.
>
> Because some countries require you to (or at least strongly suggest that
> you do) have a flight before you request a visa, we are now quite over
> budget for travel due to denied and delayed visas requiring us to rebook
> flights on different itineraries. It's not only India, although because we
> have many contributors who want to attend Flock from India, it's the
> primary problem country in this situation.
>
> As those of us doing the flight bookings are American and rarely need
> visas where we travel, this is unfamiliar territory. Can those of you who
> deal with visa problems make any suggestions about how to avoid this next
> year? Or is it simply unavoidable, and we need to budget in the equivalent
> of several extra people's flights for these rebookings?
>
> Thanks!
> Ruth
>
> flock-planning mailing list
> [e-mail]
> https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/flock-planning

[Ruth Suehle]

On Fri, Jul 18, 2014 at 11:24 AM, María Leandro 
wrote:
> Best procedure for next year would be that the host location provides a
> list of countries that request a Visa. Every embassy should have this
> information available.

It's not knowing that a visa is required that's a problem. It's this:

1. Purchase flight so that visa request can be made. (Some countries
require you to have the flight already.)
2. Visa request denied.
3. Flight rebooked through alternate itinerary that visa can be obtained
for.

[María Leandro]

Probably doing a list of reasons why a visa could be denied, so people
requesting for fundings can have more info. Saddly, there is no way to know
what an embassy will decide.

Maybe the organizers should contact the embassy prior the event with some
documentation so they contribute?

2014-07-18 10:56 GMT-04:30 Ruth Suehle :
> On Fri, Jul 18, 2014 at 11:24 AM, María Leandro 
> wrote:
> > Best procedure for next year would be that the host location provides a
> > list of countries that request a Visa. Every embassy should have this
> > information available.
>
> It's not knowing that a visa is required that's a problem. It's this:
> Purchase flight so that visa request can be made. (Some countries
>
> require you to have the flight already.)
> 2. Visa request denied.
> 3. Flight rebooked through alternate itinerary that visa can be obtained
> for.
>
> flock-planning mailing list
> [e-mail]
> https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/flock-planning

[Robyn Bergeron]

I know that for FUDCon in Tempe (ye olden days) - we only had one or two folks that were denied visas after we booked their tickets. I definitely remember that Hiemanshu's was denied. (There may have been others, but I specifically remember being pretty upset about that one since we had magical marketing things planned for FUDCon.) After looking into it I vaguely recall that the Very Big Picture reasoning for denials in the US (at least at that point in time; local politics and worldwide politics ever-changing) went something like this: "How likely do we think it is that you'll return home afterwards?"

So obviously having the flight ticket in hand helps with this, but apparently other factors - your age, degree of education, marriage/family status, where you are coming from all play into this. Basically, if you're a young male, still-in-or-just-out-of college, with no wife or children, potentially could make significantly more money in the US than where you are from, and there is a pattern of "not returning" with other folks from your country (as was the case with India, I guess), then... it's pretty high risk, at least in their eyes.

I also wonder if the type of visa being requested plays into it - I can't remember if folks are getting business travel visas or personal travel visas, but it could be that one or the other may affect it. Might be worth looking into.

In reading the mail though - is it not that people were denied, but perhaps the countries they were flying *through* made their visas be denied?

In any case: I guess the only real concrete suggestion would be... insurance? Maybe just getting some quotes and figuring out how much it would cost on an average ticket (I'm guessing the "visa was denied" insurance probably falls into the "cancel trip for any reason" insurance which is more than the regular "medical emergency/death/etc." insurance) - and then see if ... how many folks we'd need to have using that insurance x cost per ticket would be cheaper than just eating a few tickets.

----- Original Message -----
> From: "María Leandro" 
> To: "Planning discussion for Flock (Fedora Contributor Conference)" 
> Sent: Friday, July 18, 2014 8:35:09 AM
> Subject: Re: Visa problems
>
> Probably doing a list of reasons why a visa could be denied, so people
> requesting for fundings can have more info. Saddly, there is no way to know
> what an embassy will decide.
>
> Maybe the organizers should contact the embassy prior the event with some
> documentation so they contribute?
>
> 2014-07-18 10:56 GMT-04:30 Ruth Suehle < [e-mail] > :
>
> On Fri, Jul 18, 2014 at 11:24 AM, María Leandro < [e-mail] >
> wrote:
>
> Best procedure for next year would be that the host location provides a list
> of countries that request a Visa. Every embassy should have this information
> available.
>
> It's not knowing that a visa is required that's a problem. It's this:
> Purchase flight so that visa request can be made. (Some countries require
>
> you to have the flight already.)
> 2. Visa request denied.
> 3. Flight rebooked through alternate itinerary that visa can be obtained for.
>
> flock-planning mailing list
> [e-mail]
> https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/flock-planning
>
> --
> tatica
> Maria Gracia Leandro
> http://www.tatica.org
> http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/User:tatica
> LinuxUser= 440285 GPG Public Key: E1CDCC56
>
> flock-planning mailing list
> [e-mail]
> https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/flock-planning

[Jiri Eischmann]

Ruth Suehle píše v Pá 18. 07. 2014 v 11:26 -0400:
> On Fri, Jul 18, 2014 at 11:24 AM, María Leandro
>  wrote:
>         Best procedure for next year would be that the host location
>         provides a list of countries that request a Visa. Every
>         embassy should have this information available.
>
> It's not knowing that a visa is required that's a problem. It's this:
> Purchase flight so that visa request can be made. (Some countries
>
> require you to have the flight already.)
>
> Visa request denied.
>
> Flight rebooked through alternate itinerary that visa can be
>
> obtained for.

Was the problem with visas for entering the Schengen area? What was the
problem in particular? They applied for a visa of a different country
than the Czech Republic or applied for a Czech visa and planned to fly
to a different country?

I was in touch with the consul of the Czech embassy in New Delhi. We had
several calls last week to go through the list of applicants and confirm
that they're indeed invited by us because some of them had no history
traveling to the Schengen area. All applications seemed to be ok in the
end, but it stroke me a bit that he told me they'd only received 3-4
applications with our letters of invitation while we sent them out to 12
ppl in India.

Jiri

[Kushal Das]

On Fri, Jul 18, 2014 at 9:10 PM, Jiri Eischmann  wrote:
> Was the problem with visas for entering the Schengen area? What was the
> problem in particular? They applied for a visa of a different country
> than the Czech Republic or applied for a Czech visa and planned to fly
> to a different country?

Schengen visa is difficult to get, we got it only for the days of the
conference and
single entry mostly.
> I was in touch with the consul of the Czech embassy in New Delhi. We had
> several calls last week to go through the list of applicants and confirm
> that they're indeed invited by us because some of them had no history
> traveling to the Schengen area. All applications seemed to be ok in the
> end, but it stroke me a bit that he told me they'd only received 3-4
> applications with our letters of invitation while we sent them out to 12
> ppl in India.

May be because many of them are from Red Hat and as Red Hat is part of
conference organizer,
 it is easier to get the visa if you apply using that source.

Kushal

[Jiri Eischmann]

Kushal Das píše v Pá 18. 07. 2014 v 21:15 +0530:
> On Fri, Jul 18, 2014 at 9:10 PM, Jiri Eischmann  wrote:
> > Was the problem with visas for entering the Schengen area? What was the
> > problem in particular? They applied for a visa of a different country
> > than the Czech Republic or applied for a Czech visa and planned to fly
> > to a different country?
>
> Schengen visa is difficult to get, we got it only for the days of the
> conference and
> single entry mostly.
> > I was in touch with the consul of the Czech embassy in New Delhi. We had
> > several calls last week to go through the list of applicants and confirm
> > that they're indeed invited by us because some of them had no history
> > traveling to the Schengen area. All applications seemed to be ok in the
> > end, but it stroke me a bit that he told me they'd only received 3-4
> > applications with our letters of invitation while we sent them out to 12
> > ppl in India.
>
> May be because many of them are from Red Hat and as Red Hat is part of
> conference organizer,
>  it is easier to get the visa if you apply using that source.

I don't think it played a big role. The two persons I needed to confirm
particularly happened to be Red hat employees, but the consult treated
them the same way as others and it didn't seem to bring any plus points
for them.

Jiri

[Aditya Patawari]

On Fri, Jul 18, 2014 at 9:10 PM, Jiri Eischmann  wrote:
> Ruth Suehle píše v Pá 18. 07. 2014 v 11:26 -0400:
> > On Fri, Jul 18, 2014 at 11:24 AM, María Leandro
> >  wrote:
> >         Best procedure for next year would be that the host location
> >         provides a list of countries that request a Visa. Every
> >         embassy should have this information available.
> >
> > It's not knowing that a visa is required that's a problem. It's this:
> > Purchase flight so that visa request can be made. (Some countries
> >
> > require you to have the flight already.)
> >
> > Visa request denied.
> >
> > Flight rebooked through alternate itinerary that visa can be
> >
> > obtained for.
>
> Was the problem with visas for entering the Schengen area? What was the
> problem in particular? They applied for a visa of a different country
> than the Czech Republic or applied for a Czech visa and planned to fly
> to a different country?
>
> I was in touch with the consul of the Czech embassy in New Delhi. We had
> several calls last week to go through the list of applicants and confirm
> that they're indeed invited by us because some of them had no history
> traveling to the Schengen area. All applications seemed to be ok in the
> end, but it stroke me a bit that he told me they'd only received 3-4
> applications with our letters of invitation while we sent them out to 12
> ppl in India.

I applied for a tourist visa without using the letter. Several others
might have done the same.

[Sarup Banskota]

Hi everyone, I'm Indian and have applied for my Schengen Visa - yet to hear
from them.

If this isn't being done already, one thing I would suggest for next year:
booking tickets first for those who require a Visa, and then for
US/European citizen who don't require one. Visa applications need to be
supplemented with a lot of documents to back your case, which require time
to obtain.

Afaik, assuming proper documents have been submitted, Visa
acceptance/denial is in the hands of the Visa officer at the
Embassy/Consulate and cannot be predicted. A friend of mine who contributes
to the Gnome foundation put together this useful guide[1] I'd like to
share. Maybe we could expand on this on a wiki or somewhere similar.

[1] - http://sindhus.bitbucket.org/docs/gnome-visa/introduction.html

[Huzaifa Sidhpurwala]

----- Original Message -----
From: "Jiri Eischmann" 
To: "Planning discussion for Flock (Fedora Contributor Conference)" 
Sent: Friday, July 18, 2014 9:10:31 PM
Subject: Re: Visa problems
> I was in touch with the consul of the Czech embassy in New Delhi. We had
> several calls last week to go through the list of applicants and confirm
> that they're indeed invited by us because some of them had no history
> traveling to the Schengen area. All applications seemed to be ok in the
> end, but it stroke me a bit that he told me they'd only received 3-4
> applications with our letters of invitation while we sent them out to 12
> ppl in India.

Maybe because some of them did not need a visa for travel. You may still need to show
the invitation letter to customs officials.

I have a multiple entry schengen visa from my last travel and dont need a visa for flock, but
did ask for an invitation letter :)

_______________________________________________
flock-planning mailing list
[e-mail]
https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/flock-planning

[Jaroslav Reznik]

----- Original Message -----
> Best procedure for next year would be that the host location provides a list
> of countries that request a Visa. Every embassy should have this information
> available.
>
> This info has been provided with every FUDcon Proposal so my question is; why
> was it different for Flock?

It's not a bad idea but I'd prefer not do it - we are not ministry, visa 
requirements may change pretty often (*), so it's better to look it up on
official pages. And I expect Fedora guys are clever enough to Google it :).
On the other hand, as Flock is US and Europe (most of the countries are in
Schengen area), it's pretty simple to get such list.

I know all other conferences has issues with visa policies, even for FUDCon in
China many folks has issues. You can ask people to apply earlier but many
embassies refuse to do it, or visa are time limited etc. So really - there
are not many options. Just be prepared - like invitation letters in advance
(but again, different embassies of the same country could have different 
requirements even for invitation letters).

(*) for example our FUDCon China trip - I applied for visa on Friday, paid
50 euros, Jiri applied next Monday, he paid 30 euros (and probably less 
strict requirements). Our governments just signed an agreement with China...

Jaroslav
> 2014-07-18 10:50 GMT-04:30 Ruth Suehle < [e-mail] > :
>
> Hi, all. It's too late to solve this for this year, but I'm hoping to
> crowdsource some answers for next year.
>
> We have booked flights for people based on the itineraries they requested, in
> some cases on the assumption that they knew better than we did how best to
> get to Prague from their own countries and deal with getting visas.
>
> Because some countries require you to (or at least strongly suggest that you
> do) have a flight before you request a visa, we are now quite over budget
> for travel due to denied and delayed visas requiring us to rebook flights on
> different itineraries. It's not only India, although because we have many
> contributors who want to attend Flock from India, it's the primary problem
> country in this situation.
>
> As those of us doing the flight bookings are American and rarely need visas
> where we travel, this is unfamiliar territory. Can those of you who deal
> with visa problems make any suggestions about how to avoid this next year?
> Or is it simply unavoidable, and we need to budget in the equivalent of
> several extra people's flights for these rebookings?
>
> Thanks!
> Ruth
>
> flock-planning mailing list
> [e-mail]
> https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/flock-planning
>
> --
> tatica
> Maria Gracia Leandro
> http://www.tatica.org
> http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/User:tatica
> LinuxUser= 440285 GPG Public Key: E1CDCC56
>
> flock-planning mailing list
> [e-mail]
> https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/flock-planning

[Stephen John Smoogen]

On 18 July 2014 09:20, Ruth Suehle  wrote:
> Hi, all. It's too late to solve this for this year, but I'm hoping to
> crowdsource some answers for next year.
>
> We have booked flights for people based on the itineraries they requested,
> in some cases on the assumption that they knew better than we did how best
> to get to Prague from their own countries and deal with getting visas.
>
> Because some countries require you to (or at least strongly suggest that
> you do) have a flight before you request a visa, we are now quite over
> budget for travel due to denied and delayed visas requiring us to rebook
> flights on different itineraries. It's not only India, although because we
> have many contributors who want to attend Flock from India, it's the
> primary problem country in this situation.
>
> As those of us doing the flight bookings are American and rarely need
> visas where we travel, this is unfamiliar territory. Can those of you who
> deal with visa problems make any suggestions about how to avoid this next
> year? Or is it simply unavoidable, and we need to budget in the equivalent
> of several extra people's flights for these rebookings?

Heh, those of us who worked for the US government had to deal with
paperwork and procedures written before this 'no Visa needed' became
popular in the 1980s? :). [Which explains why I asked months ago because I
hadn't dealt with it.] In general, we were asked to find out if we needed a
visa, file a preliminary flight, then go through the process of getting a
visa (or similar paperwork for people who have a clearance and are
travelling overseas), get the visa, then file a permanent travel. Since
visas took 3-6 months to get (according to the paperwork clearly dating
from the 1960s ) we needed to plan 6-9 months in advance and budget extra
for flight rebookings.

With it being that my training was from a decade before I was born, I don't
know how relevant it is still today.
> Thanks!
> Ruth
>
> flock-planning mailing list
> [e-mail]
> https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/flock-planning

[Kushal Das]

On Fri, Jul 18, 2014 at 8:50 PM, Ruth Suehle  wrote:
> As those of us doing the flight bookings are American and rarely need visas
> where we travel, this is unfamiliar territory. Can those of you who deal
> with visa problems make any suggestions about how to avoid this next year?
> Or is it simply unavoidable, and we need to budget in the equivalent of
> several extra people's flights for these rebookings?

I am going to give my own example and try to get some points.

I am an Indian, that means I need visa for almost all the countries in
the world
and practically none of the countries we visit for conferences will
give electronic
visa or visa on arrival.

I was supposed to be in PyCon AU on 31st July and fly from there to Prague for
Flock, after I received my flock tickets I applied for Czech visa
which took much longer
and that means I can not receive my AU visa( as both the confs
confirmed tickets at almost
same time, I applied for flock visa first). PyCon reimburses the
ticket after I reach there, that means my  1.5k USD is gone
as the tickets were non-refundable.

Now the only way to make this easier are:

1. Buy flight tickets more than 2 months in advance and make sure
people apply for visa asap
after that.
2. If the conference is in US, it might be easier to get in as
USA/CANADA gives visa for longer
time (10 years).

Another pain point for a person from India is to show a good bank
balance for the visa approval.  That
is one big reason for visa denial.  Or else the invitation letter
should make it very prominent that all costs
will be taken care by the conference organizers.

Kushal

[Aditya Patawari]

Hello,

I am an Indian and have heard and dealt with these problems. First off, I
would state that most of these problems can be avoided if you have
carefully read the guidelines to obtain visa. Yes folks, RTFM is valid here
as well.

Next, make sure that you have proper documentation and you are applying for
the right kind of visa. For FUDCon Beijing, I got "F" visa easily. Someone
who applied for "L" was denied. Same is true with Schegen and with visa to
other countries. Best bet is to call up the consulate and talk to the folks
there beforehand telling your purpose and documents you have. They are
usually friendly and tell you what kind of visa to apply for and what
documents you are missing.

For India, in my personal experience, there is a role of your income in
getting visa. The exchange rates are not in our favor and mostly European
countries and US would want you to have sufficient funds in your bank
account and a travel-cum-health insurance. Get this done before you even
think of applying for the visa.

Aditya Patawari
http://blog.adityapatawari.com/
https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/User:Adimania
India

On Fri, Jul 18, 2014 at 8:50 PM, Ruth Suehle  wrote:
> Hi, all. It's too late to solve this for this year, but I'm hoping to
> crowdsource some answers for next year.
>
> We have booked flights for people based on the itineraries they requested,
> in some cases on the assumption that they knew better than we did how best
> to get to Prague from their own countries and deal with getting visas.
>
> Because some countries require you to (or at least strongly suggest that
> you do) have a flight before you request a visa, we are now quite over
> budget for travel due to denied and delayed visas requiring us to rebook
> flights on different itineraries. It's not only India, although because we
> have many contributors who want to attend Flock from India, it's the
> primary problem country in this situation.
>
> As those of us doing the flight bookings are American and rarely need
> visas where we travel, this is unfamiliar territory. Can those of you who
> deal with visa problems make any suggestions about how to avoid this next
> year? Or is it simply unavoidable, and we need to budget in the equivalent
> of several extra people's flights for these rebookings?
>
> Thanks!
> Ruth
>
> flock-planning mailing list
> [e-mail]
> https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/flock-planning

[Kashyap Chamarthy]

On Fri, Jul 18, 2014 at 11:20:54AM -0400, Ruth Suehle wrote:
> Hi, all. It's too late to solve this for this year, but I'm hoping to
> crowdsource some answers for next year.
>
> We have booked flights for people based on the itineraries they requested,
> in some cases on the assumption that they knew better than we did how best
> to get to Prague from their own countries and deal with getting visas.
>
> Because some countries require you to (or at least strongly suggest that
> you do) have a flight before you request a visa, we are now quite over
> budget for travel due to denied and delayed visas requiring us to rebook
> flights on different itineraries. It's not only India, although because we
> have many contributors who want to attend Flock from India, it's the
> primary problem country in this situation.
>
> As those of us doing the flight bookings are American and rarely need visas
> where we travel, this is unfamiliar territory. Can those of you who deal
> with visa problems make any suggestions about how to avoid this next year?

I'm not traveling to Flock (another colleague has kindly stepped in) due
to other personal commitments. That said, as a frequent (four times &
counting) Schengen (all western Europe) traveller from India for the
three or so years, a few points:

- Gathering all the documents needed for visa well _ahead_ of time
    instead of scrambling at the last moment is important. Most Eu
    embassies' websites have good details.
  - Ensure to not miss any important personal documentation (including
    income tax returns proofs and related docs).
  - Having sufficient personal funds (e.g. ablity to fund by yourself
    for 2-3 months or so stay+food expenses on your own) also helps.
  - A clear purpose document.
  - Ensure your dates are accurate, don't mangle them.

Just my experience.
> Or is it simply unavoidable, and we need to budget in the equivalent of
> several extra people's flights for these rebookings?

Diligent planning and having crystal clear documents will alleviate a
lot of these woes.

[Kushal Das]

On Fri, Jul 18, 2014 at 10:03 PM, Kashyap Chamarthy  wrote:
> > Or is it simply unavoidable, and we need to budget in the equivalent of
> > several extra people's flights for these rebookings?
>
> Diligent planning and having crystal clear documents will alleviate a
> lot of these woes.

Yes, but in a case like this year the tickets came in not too long ago.

Kushal

[Ruth Suehle]

I should add that I think some of the problem this year is Prague, which
surprised me in how difficult it is to get to from much of the world, which
resulted in some odd itineraries. So at least one visa issue (I think two;
I could go look it all up again) was because of an itinerary that involved
entering the Schengen area in another country and then traveling to Prague.
I believe in another case, it was duration; the trip was longer than the
approved visa.

We did prioritize those who needed visas to have their flights purchased
first. Those of you who were subsidized also know that this year we tried
two different methods. Paul and I booked some of your flights ourselves,
which is time consuming not only for us doing the booking, but also slow
because we can only go until we max out our credit cards (which isn't very
many), pay them off, and start over. Then we switched to having them booked
through Red Hat's travel agent, which in some cases resulted in cheaper
flights and definitely was much faster, but I believe overall in the end
cost us more money. As a result, I'm undecided on which is really the
better option.

I think there are a few things to consider next year:

- We'll be back in the US, and I think historically we've had less trouble
getting people to the US, so that should help.

- We'll move up the CFP, which will give us an agenda sooner, which will
let us book flights sooner.

- I suspect the ideal solution is to use blocked flights for people who
need them for visas. Unfortunately, I haven't had a lot of luck booking
these as a third party, so it means people need to do them themselves. I've
found people are reluctant to (or simply don't have credit cards and
cannot) book their own flights. And in at least one case in the past, it
resulted in the person booking a very expensive flight including upgrades
(which we did not reimburse). So there are pluses and minuses there too.

- I know several people think we should choose who receives subsidies in
entirely different ways. The past two years, we've fully subsidized any
speaker who requested it. This year, that turned out to be a mistake, as
with all these flight changes and the cost of getting more than a dozen
people from APAC to Prague has killed our budget. Suggestions I've heard
include:
          - Making the subsidy not necessarily for speakers, but for some
other criteria. I think this is the most challenging, as the appropriate
criteria will be different to everyone. To me, subsidizing speakers is the
most fair way.
          - Reconsidering which countries we subsidize first. Flock is a
NA/EMEA conference, and APAC and LATAM have their own FUDCons. For the two
years of Flock, the biggest parts of our budget have gone to getting LATAM
and APAC people there.
          - Subsidizing either hotel stays or flights but not both. I will
be honest... we've had a few people this year act like they thought this
was how they were getting a free trip to Prague. Yes, you get the benefit
of coming to a beautiful city. And I'm even willing to work with you on
when you come and go if you'd like to stay a while to visit Europe. But
we're not in the business of free vacations here.

[Jaroslav Reznik]

----- Original Message -----
> I should add that I think some of the problem this year is Prague, which
> surprised me in how difficult it is to get to from much of the world, which
> resulted in some odd itineraries. So at least one visa issue (I think two; I
> could go look it all up again) was because of an itinerary that involved
> entering the Schengen area in another country and then traveling to Prague.

Hmm, Schengen visa should cover it unless someone asked for limited Czech
only visa (but as I understand it, it's not offered by default). Could you
send me more details? For Flock, it already happened but I'd like to avoid
such issues for other events we organize in Prague/Brno. Thanks.
> I believe in another case, it was duration; the trip was longer than the
> approved visa.
>
> We did prioritize those who needed visas to have their flights purchased
> first. Those of you who were subsidized also know that this year we tried
> two different methods. Paul and I booked some of your flights ourselves,
> which is time consuming not only for us doing the booking, but also slow
> because we can only go until we max out our credit cards (which isn't very
> many), pay them off, and start over. Then we switched to having them booked
> through Red Hat's travel agent, which in some cases resulted in cheaper
> flights and definitely was much faster, but I believe overall in the end
> cost us more money. As a result, I'm undecided on which is really the better
> option.
>
> I think there are a few things to consider next year:
> We'll be back in the US, and I think historically we've had less trouble
>
> getting people to the US, so that should help.

EU <-> US travelling is easy. It gets much more complicated, if you travel
to/from non EU/US countries.
> We'll move up the CFP, which will give us an agenda sooner, which will let
>
> us book flights sooner.
> I suspect the ideal solution is to use blocked flights for people who need
>
> them for visas. Unfortunately, I haven't had a lot of luck booking these as
> a third party, so it means people need to do them themselves. I've found
> people are reluctant to (or simply don't have credit cards and cannot) book
> their own flights. And in at least one case in the past, it resulted in the
> person booking a very expensive flight including upgrades (which we did not
> reimburse). So there are pluses and minuses there too.

Blocking flights is also not very convenient - usually it's blocked only for
a few days, has to be renewed and visa application could take longer time.
But usually what matters is the day of blocking (I'm not sure they really
check it). Or as Marina suggested, buy tickets that can be changed, it's 
just more expensive - but for people we know issues can occur, it could be
better option.
> I know several people think we should choose who receives subsidies in
>
> entirely different ways. The past two years, we've fully subsidized any
> speaker who requested it. This year, that turned out to be a mistake, as
> with all these flight changes and the cost of getting more than a dozen
> people from APAC to Prague has killed our budget. Suggestions I've heard
> include:
> Making the subsidy not necessarily for speakers, but for some other
>
> criteria. I think this is the most challenging, as the appropriate criteria
> will be different to everyone. To me, subsidizing speakers is the most fair
> way.

Well, it worked pretty well in the past for FUDCons. Being speaker was one
part of criteria. The question was always what are you going to achieve
at FUDCon? The same would be for Flock - there could be folks not very
happy being speakers just to get money - but with other itinerary like team
meetings etc.
> Reconsidering which countries we subsidize first. Flock is a NA/EMEA
>
> conference, and APAC and LATAM have their own FUDCons. For the two years of
> Flock, the biggest parts of our budget have gone to getting LATAM and APAC
> people there.

It's Fedora contributors conference. I understand APAC/LATAM expenses are
huge but we shouldn't close this event to them. Yes, there has to be limit
but as I said above - team meetings etc., it's the main value of Flock. 
Maybe less talks (and so less sponsored folks) could lower the pressure on 
the budget...
> Subsidizing either hotel stays or flights but not both. I will be honest...
>
> we've had a few people this year act like they thought this was how they
> were getting a free trip to Prague. Yes, you get the benefit of coming to a
> beautiful city. And I'm even willing to work with you on when you come and
> go if you'd like to stay a while to visit Europe. But we're not in the
> business of free vacations here.

For FUDCons, there's question - is partial support ok for you... Maybe we
can try it for Flock too. For some people it's a blocker not to be paid
for everything, for some people it's nice to have paid at least something.

Jaroslav
> flock-planning mailing list
> [e-mail]
> https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/flock-planning

[Marina Zhurakhinskaya]

----- Original Message -----
> From: "Jaroslav Reznik" 
> To: "Planning discussion for Flock (Fedora Contributor Conference)" 
> Sent: Monday, July 21, 2014 4:45:29 AM
> Subject: Re: Visa problems
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> > I should add that I think some of the problem this year is Prague, which
> > surprised me in how difficult it is to get to from much of the world, which
> > resulted in some odd itineraries. So at least one visa issue (I think two;
> > I
> > could go look it all up again) was because of an itinerary that involved
> > entering the Schengen area in another country and then traveling to Prague.
>
> Hmm, Schengen visa should cover it unless someone asked for limited Czech
> only visa (but as I understand it, it's not offered by default). Could you
> send me more details? For Flock, it already happened but I'd like to avoid
> such issues for other events we organize in Prague/Brno. Thanks.
> > I believe in another case, it was duration; the trip was longer than the
> > approved visa.
> >
> > We did prioritize those who needed visas to have their flights purchased
> > first. Those of you who were subsidized also know that this year we tried
> > two different methods. Paul and I booked some of your flights ourselves,
> > which is time consuming not only for us doing the booking, but also slow
> > because we can only go until we max out our credit cards (which isn't very
> > many), pay them off, and start over. Then we switched to having them booked
> > through Red Hat's travel agent, which in some cases resulted in cheaper
> > flights and definitely was much faster, but I believe overall in the end
> > cost us more money. As a result, I'm undecided on which is really the
> > better
> > option.
> >
> > I think there are a few things to consider next year:
> > We'll be back in the US, and I think historically we've had less trouble
> >
> > getting people to the US, so that should help.
>
> EU <-> US travelling is easy. It gets much more complicated, if you travel
> to/from non EU/US countries.
> > We'll move up the CFP, which will give us an agenda sooner, which will
> >
> > let
> > us book flights sooner.
> > I suspect the ideal solution is to use blocked flights for people who
> >
> > need
> > them for visas. Unfortunately, I haven't had a lot of luck booking these as
> > a third party, so it means people need to do them themselves. I've found
> > people are reluctant to (or simply don't have credit cards and cannot) book
> > their own flights. And in at least one case in the past, it resulted in the
> > person booking a very expensive flight including upgrades (which we did not
> > reimburse). So there are pluses and minuses there too.
>
> Blocking flights is also not very convenient - usually it's blocked only for
> a few days, has to be renewed and visa application could take longer time.
> But usually what matters is the day of blocking (I'm not sure they really
> check it). Or as Marina suggested, buy tickets that can be changed, it's
> just more expensive - but for people we know issues can occur, it could be
> better option.

The way GNOME Foundation handles this is having people apply for sponsorship stating what their costs would be, and then the travel committee checks if there are better fares, and approves only the amount that it finds is reasonable for a fare. People have to book their own tickets and are only reimbursed after the event for up to the approved amount. It seems like that would be a better option for people who need to block tickets or buy refundable tickets, which is something local agencies are more adapt at dealing with.
> > I know several people think we should choose who receives subsidies in
> >
> > entirely different ways. The past two years, we've fully subsidized any
> > speaker who requested it. This year, that turned out to be a mistake, as
> > with all these flight changes and the cost of getting more than a dozen
> > people from APAC to Prague has killed our budget. Suggestions I've heard
> > include:
> > Making the subsidy not necessarily for speakers, but for some other
> >
> > criteria. I think this is the most challenging, as the appropriate criteria
> > will be different to everyone. To me, subsidizing speakers is the most fair
> > way.
>
> Well, it worked pretty well in the past for FUDCons. Being speaker was one
> part of criteria. The question was always what are you going to achieve
> at FUDCon? The same would be for Flock - there could be folks not very
> happy being speakers just to get money - but with other itinerary like team
> meetings etc.
> > Reconsidering which countries we subsidize first. Flock is a NA/EMEA
> >
> > conference, and APAC and LATAM have their own FUDCons. For the two years of
> > Flock, the biggest parts of our budget have gone to getting LATAM and APAC
> > people there.
>
> It's Fedora contributors conference. I understand APAC/LATAM expenses are
> huge but we shouldn't close this event to them. Yes, there has to be limit
> but as I said above - team meetings etc., it's the main value of Flock.
> Maybe less talks (and so less sponsored folks) could lower the pressure on
> the budget...

I agree that it's essential to have events where contributors from all parts of the world can meet and exchange experience. At the same time, due to financial constraints, how many contributors from further-away parts of the world are sponsored to attend can be limited.
> > Subsidizing either hotel stays or flights but not both. I will be
> >
> > honest...
> > we've had a few people this year act like they thought this was how they
> > were getting a free trip to Prague. Yes, you get the benefit of coming to a
> > beautiful city. And I'm even willing to work with you on when you come and
> > go if you'd like to stay a while to visit Europe. But we're not in the
> > business of free vacations here.
>
> For FUDCons, there's question - is partial support ok for you... Maybe we
> can try it for Flock too. For some people it's a blocker not to be paid
> for everything, for some people it's nice to have paid at least something.
>
> Jaroslav
> > flock-planning mailing list
> > [e-mail]
> > https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/flock-planning
>
> flock-planning mailing list
> [e-mail]
> https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/flock-planning

[Truong Anh Tuan]

----- Original Message -----
> From: "Jaroslav Reznik" 
> To: "Planning discussion for Flock (Fedora Contributor Conference)" 
> Sent: Monday, July 21, 2014 3:45:29 PM
> Subject: Re: Visa problems

I agree with Jaroslav with some additional comments:
> ----- Original Message -----
> > We did prioritize those who needed visas to have their flights purchased
> > first. Those of you who were subsidized also know that this year we tried
> > two different methods. Paul and I booked some of your flights ourselves,
> > which is time consuming not only for us doing the booking, but also slow
> > because we can only go until we max out our credit cards (which isn't very
> > many), pay them off, and start over. Then we switched to having them booked
> > through Red Hat's travel agent, which in some cases resulted in cheaper
> > flights and definitely was much faster, but I believe overall in the end
> > cost us more money. As a result, I'm undecided on which is really the
> > better option.
> >
> > I think there are a few things to consider next year:
> > We'll be back in the US, and I think historically we've had less trouble
> >
> > getting people to the US, so that should help.
>
> EU <-> US travelling is easy. It gets much more complicated, if you travel
> to/from non EU/US countries.
> > We'll move up the CFP, which will give us an agenda sooner, which will
> >
> > let us book flights sooner.
> > I suspect the ideal solution is to use blocked flights for people who
> >
> > need
> > them for visas. Unfortunately, I haven't had a lot of luck booking these as
> > a third party, so it means people need to do them themselves. I've found
> > people are reluctant to (or simply don't have credit cards and cannot) book
> > their own flights. And in at least one case in the past, it resulted in the
> > person booking a very expensive flight including upgrades (which we did not
> > reimburse). So there are pluses and minuses there too.
>
> Blocking flights is also not very convenient - usually it's blocked only for
> a few days, has to be renewed and visa application could take longer time.
> But usually what matters is the day of blocking (I'm not sure they really
> check it). Or as Marina suggested, buy tickets that can be changed, it's
> just more expensive - but for people we know issues can occur, it could be
> better option.

It is not a big deal here. I booked another flight first for applying visa
(just bookibg, not paid). The when I got the real flight, I can throw that
booking away.

I have applied for visa to Schengen, US, Japan, etc. without any problems.
In my experience, we should read all information on embassy website and
prepare all required documents well before (even they should be put in the
same priority as suggested on their website). Sometimes you should call to
consulates to make all information as clear as possible.
> > I know several people think we should choose who receives subsidies in
> >
> > entirely different ways. The past two years, we've fully subsidized any
> > speaker who requested it. This year, that turned out to be a mistake, as
> > with all these flight changes and the cost of getting more than a dozen
> > people from APAC to Prague has killed our budget. Suggestions I've heard
> > include:
> > Making the subsidy not necessarily for speakers, but for some other
> >
> > criteria. I think this is the most challenging, as the appropriate criteria
> > will be different to everyone. To me, subsidizing speakers is the most fair
> > way.
>
> Well, it worked pretty well in the past for FUDCons. Being speaker was one
> part of criteria. The question was always what are you going to achieve
> at FUDCon? The same would be for Flock - there could be folks not very
> happy being speakers just to get money - but with other itinerary like team
> meetings etc.

+1. Of course, we can have more criteria to give money to right persons. IIRC,
we also discuss this much before deciding sponsorship but finally, we just
keep that only one criteria. We can change this next time(s).
> > Reconsidering which countries we subsidize first. Flock is a NA/EMEA
> >
> > conference, and APAC and LATAM have their own FUDCons. For the two years of
> > Flock, the biggest parts of our budget have gone to getting LATAM and APAC
> > people there.
>
> It's Fedora contributors conference. I understand APAC/LATAM expenses are
> huge but we shouldn't close this event to them. Yes, there has to be limit
> but as I said above - team meetings etc., it's the main value of Flock.
> Maybe less talks (and so less sponsored folks) could lower the pressure on
> the budget...

Yes, why not. It would be much much better if we can bring some *most active*
contributors from other regions. We can connect all regions to improve
contributions both in quantity and quality.
IMHO, most people come back from those such events (where they can meet
experienced people) have more contributions to Fedora. That is also one of
the most important goals, isn't it?

We had a lot of discussion in FAmSCo to have support for other people
(non-speakers, who do not receive sponsorship from Flock budget) to Flock.
In fact, we decided to have a small fund (about $4k) from regional budget
to support 7-8 EMEA people and a guy from LATAM to Flock (APAC has no one
due to expensive travel cost).
> > Subsidizing either hotel stays or flights but not both. I will be
> >
> > honest...
> > we've had a few people this year act like they thought this was how they
> > were getting a free trip to Prague. Yes, you get the benefit of coming to a
> > beautiful city. And I'm even willing to work with you on when you come and
> > go if you'd like to stay a while to visit Europe. But we're not in the
> > business of free vacations here.
>
> For FUDCons, there's question - is partial support ok for you... Maybe we
> can try it for Flock too. For some people it's a blocker not to be paid
> for everything, for some people it's nice to have paid at least something.

+1. It worked well in the past at all FUDCons.

Kind regards,
Tuan

[Zamir Sun]

Hi all. I helps with attendee affair during FUDCon Beijing. So I'd like 
to say something.

I think the most important thing is, figure out which is the best visa 
type for attendees(travel visa for FUDCon Beijing, since it is not hold 
by Red Hat Beijing or other companies so we can not offer invitation 
letter for business visa). Then how long it would take for most of the 
countries. Leave the attendees enough time. And whether flight 
ticket/hotel receipt is needed for applying visa.

Besides, as we talked in fudcon-planning list before, we now know that 
it is easy to get visa in some embassies while it is hard with the same 
documents(and even within the same country). So if one fails to get visa 
while others from the same country get the visa, we'd advise the lucky 
guy to offer some information to the one who fails or even ask the guy 
to try again in other embassy.

For flight ticket and hotel receipts, as the hotel for FUDCon Beijing is 
run by the university, it is hard to offer a hotel receipt in time 
before FUDCon. I know someone survived by booking his own hotel for 
FUDCon Beijing and use that receipt to apply for visa. After get the 
visa he just need to cancel the hotel. This maybe not a good way to do 
so, but it helps.

And at last, if the attendee failed in getting the visa, the last but 
usual better way maybe ask the attendee to find a local international 
travel agency to help. Usually it takes some more money but it would 
succeed with more opportunity.

[Marina Zhurakhinskaya]

Hi,

This page has some information: http://sindhus.bitbucket.org/docs/gnome-visa/booking-cancellation.html

People should try to get their tickets blocked, not booked, if that is ok with the embassy. Also, it might be possible to cancel tickets for a small fee if the visa is rejected, e.g. on Lufthansa.

You might also like to take a look at GNOME's invitation letter samples at https://wiki.gnome.org/Travel/Invitations - I assembled these after reviewing several examples.

Thanks,
Marina

----- Original Message -----
From: "Ruth Suehle" 
To: "Planning discussion for Flock (Fedora Contributor Conference)" 
Sent: Friday, July 18, 2014 11:20:54 AM
Subject: Visa problems

Hi, all. It's too late to solve this for this year, but I'm hoping to crowdsource some answers for next year.

We have booked flights for people based on the itineraries they requested, in some cases on the assumption that they knew better than we did how best to get to Prague from their own countries and deal with getting visas.

Because some countries require you to (or at least strongly suggest that you do) have a flight before you request a visa, we are now quite over budget for travel due to denied and delayed visas requiring us to rebook flights on different itineraries. It's not only India, although because we have many contributors who want to attend Flock from India, it's the primary problem country in this situation.

As those of us doing the flight bookings are American and rarely need visas where we travel, this is unfamiliar territory. Can those of you who deal with visa problems make any suggestions about how to avoid this next year? Or is it simply unavoidable, and we need to budget in the equivalent of several extra people's flights for these rebookings?

Thanks! 
Ruth

_______________________________________________
flock-planning mailing list
[e-mail]
https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/flock-planning

[Sarup Banskota]

Told this to Ruth off-list, thought I should share this here as well:

For the tickets, there's completely refundable tickets with most airlines.
So one way to go about it is to book them (slightly more expensive) and
cancel them once the Visa news is available. Then you could just book the
cheaper non-refundable/refundable-for-low-cost tickets if the Visa is in
place. Of course, this only works if you're booking the first set of
tickets well in advance, so it leaves you with enough time to apply for
Visa and then book the second set at a reasonable cost.

I got granted my Visa, valid for 6 months when I had asked for just 5 days.
Things that helped my case:
-  *Absolute reason for return*. I'm still in University, so I had them
write me a document that declares that I'm expected to return after the
conference is over if I want my degree. It also clearly mentions my period
of study.
-  *Direct Tickets*. My tickets from India are via Istanbul, such that
Prague (CZ) is the first Schengen region I enter. Although it's apparently
rare, I came across situations on the internet where people had problems
flying through a different Schengen country.
- *Proper funds*. Even though my bank balance was quite low, I made it
clear that my tickets and hotel were already paid for, and I had enough for
food and emergency. I also had my father write a letter declaring he'll
sponsor any expenses I incur.
- *History*. Of course, this is not in one's hands, but having a history of
travel on your passport seems to help.

So.. what conference organizers can do to help? If you're booking tickets,
book refundable ones really early and encourage the attendee to apply early.
What attendees can do to help? Research the Embassy site carefully, give
them a call, and make sure you emphasize that you have a proper reason to
return + enough funds for expenses.

Hope this helps! :)