On Thu, 24 Nov 2005 23:51:11 +1100, "Michael Kilpatrick"
wrote:

I have visited South Africa 4 times since 1999, most recently in July 2004
and Aug 2005.
I'm an Australian and I have never been asked for my flight ticket or been
asked any questions. The Immigration stuff has been over in less than a
minute every time.
Maybe they treat Americans differently, but the info you were given by SAA
certainly doesn't match my experiences with entering Sth Africa.

Marc Lurie wrote:
I couldn't answer from experience previously, but Michael has
confirmed that it is unlikely that they will ask to look at your
ticket. It's only if you're an illegal immigration risk that they might get
difficult.


Many thanks both to you, Marc, and to Michael, for the encouraging
posts. I have trouble understanding how the authorities might think
that I might be an illegal immigration risk -- I am old and retired,
and traveling with my wife, and we are both US citizens of Northern
European extraction. But officials with power are known to do
illogical things sometimes. They have their rules and procedures.

We didn't plan to spend any time in Jo'burg (but thanks for the offer
of suggestions for that city) as we have paid flight tickets on to
Cape Town, and confirmed paid reservations at a B&B on False Bay near
Capetown. We also have tickets from Cape Town to Nelspruit (near
Kruger National Park), a paid reservation at a lodge there, with paid
return tickets back Joburg, then to the United States. That doesn't
sound like an illegal immigration risk to me. But what do I know...

Perhaps the airline is being overly cautious here, and your note about
their responsibility to insure that arriving passengers have the
required documentation probably explains that. SAA has actually been
quite reasonable to talk with so far -- unlike the US airlines who
route their calls to India; or Orbitz, which makes incoming customer
service calls slow and difficult (and when you do get through they are
quite nasty and unhelpful, in my experience).

I'll try calling SAA again after the Thanksgiving holiday rush here.
They said that it was the responsibility of the travel agent to
correct a ticket error, but since that isn't possible I will try the
airline again. The letter-from-the-police-department suggestion is
another possibility *if* SAA will let me flow with an abbreviation of
my first name on their ticket. (It just seems odd that this issue
never came up in our past travels through 30 or so countries.)

Again, thanks for the input. On the assumption that I will be admitted
upon arrival in South Africa, that now leaves us with a second
question which I'll pose in a new thread. Nice group you have here.

Regards,


Caveat