Tourist visa requirements for South Americans travelling to UK?

I'm trying to organise a holiday to England for my Peruvian friend. I'm
a British citizen living in England, and she's in Lima. She's never
been to Europe before, although I've been over there.

There are a couple of things that I'm not sure about regarding visas:

(1) What are the general criteria for being accepted for a UK tourist
visa? She already has a 10 year US one, will that count in her favour?

(2) If she can get the visa then the plan is for her to first fly from
Lima to Amsterdam on KLM, and then change to Easyjet to fly from
Amsterdam to my local airport in England. Would she need a Schengen
visa just for passing through Schiphol airport in Amsterdam?

I did try finding out about the second point from the Dutch Embassy in
Lima, but they didn't reply yet. From what I can remember of the layout
of Schiphol, she wouldn't need to go through passport control or go to
the Schengen side there, hopefully she'd just need to go to the
transfers desk.

"John" wrote in message
oups.com...
I'm trying to organise a holiday to England for my Peruvian friend. I'm
a British citizen living in England, and she's in Lima. She's never
been to Europe before, although I've been over there.

There are a couple of things that I'm not sure about regarding visas:

(1) What are the general criteria for being accepted for a UK tourist
visa? She already has a 10 year US one, will that count in her favour?


A belief that she is a genuine tourist not someone planning to work or study
or get married to a friend and stay permanently.

(2) If she can get the visa then the plan is for her to first fly from
Lima to Amsterdam on KLM, and then change to Easyjet to fly from
Amsterdam to my local airport in England. Would she need a Schengen
visa just for passing through Schiphol airport in Amsterdam?

I did try finding out about the second point from the Dutch Embassy in
Lima, but they didn't reply yet. From what I can remember of the layout
of Schiphol, she wouldn't need to go through passport control or go to
the Schengen side there, hopefully she'd just need to go to the
transfers desk.


I believe that she will need to go through passport control to get to
baggage reclaim to collect her luggage. Do KLM do connecting flights to the
UK - they should be able to check the baggage through.

Martin wrote:
snip
I believe that she will need to go through passport control to get to
baggage reclaim to collect her luggage.

Why can't she check it right through? She is never going to see it
again anyway. :-)

If she is flying Easyjet then yes she will need to go through passport
control, collect her baggage and check in again. Easyjet do not do
connecting baggage, even between two of their own flights.

Martin wrote:
A belief that she is a genuine tourist not someone planning to work or study
or get married to a friend

or a total stranger

Well, she's not a stranger, we're not planning on getting married and
she's only going to be spending two weeks here, so hopefully should be
no problem.

There is a passport control between Schengen and none Schengen.

So I recall. She shouldn't have to go through there if she's getting
off a flight from Peru and getting onto another to the UK. Just
wondering whether she'll still need the Schengen visa, in the same way
that you now need a US visa if your flight stops at a US airport en
route to other countries (or so I've been told).

Do KLM do connecting flights to the
UK - they should be able to check the baggage through.

They do, and it seems to be only marginally more expensive than the
Easyjet option, so if everything goes OK with the visa(s) then I'll use
KLM all the way through (and keep my fingers crossed about the luggage!
:-))

Thanks for the responses.

Try the London Netherlands Embassy site - it looks quite helpful. From
what I can make out she will not need a Schengen visa if she stays
airside (ie KLM flight, not Easyjet) at Schipol.

http://www.minbuza.nl/en/welcome/com...re_a_visa.html
has a useful link

wrote:
Try the London Netherlands Embassy site - it looks quite helpful. From
what I can make out she will not need a Schengen visa if she stays
airside (ie KLM flight, not Easyjet) at Schipol.

http://www.minbuza.nl/en/welcome/com...re_a_visa.html
has a useful link

You're quite right, in section 3 it says "Countries whose nationals
need an airport transit visa", and Peru isn't among them.

Cheers for the link!

In message ews.net,
at 11:12:19 on Fri, 20 Oct 2006, Miss L. Toe
remarked:
(2) If she can get the visa then the plan is for her to first fly from
Lima to Amsterdam on KLM, and then change to Easyjet to fly from
Amsterdam to my local airport in England. Would she need a Schengen
visa just for passing through Schiphol airport in Amsterdam?

I did try finding out about the second point from the Dutch Embassy in
Lima, but they didn't reply yet. From what I can remember of the layout
of Schiphol, she wouldn't need to go through passport control or go to
the Schengen side there, hopefully she'd just need to go to the
transfers desk.

If travelling hand baggage only on a major airline. However, do Easyjet
even have a transfer desk at Amsterdam - or do they require everyone to
check in landside? Another possibility (but still only for hand baggage
travellers) would be to try online check-in before departing Lima.

I believe that she will need to go through passport control to get to
baggage reclaim to collect her luggage.

Yes, because you can't transfer baggage from KLM [or indeed anyone else]
to Easyjet.

Do KLM do connecting flights to the UK - they should be able to check
the baggage through.

Yes, to Birmingham for sure.
--
Roland Perry

Miss L. Toe wrote:
"John" wrote in message
oups.com...
I'm trying to organise a holiday to England for my Peruvian friend. I'm
a British citizen living in England, and she's in Lima. She's never
been to Europe before, although I've been over there.

(2) If she can get the visa then the plan is for her to first fly from
Lima to Amsterdam on KLM, and then change to Easyjet to fly from
Amsterdam to my local airport in England. Would she need a Schengen
visa just for passing through Schiphol airport in Amsterdam?

I think this question is answered on the website of the Dutch Embassy
in the UK. Anyway, when I made a similar enquiry about my Chinese
girlfriend, the answer was that she would NOT need a visa for a transit
of up to 24 hours in Holland, and would even be allowed to leave the
airport during that period.

Miss L. Toe wrote:
"John" wrote in message
oups.com...
I'm trying to organise a holiday to England for my Peruvian friend. I'm
a British citizen living in England, and she's in Lima. She's never
been to Europe before, although I've been over there.

There are a couple of things that I'm not sure about regarding visas:

(1) What are the general criteria for being accepted for a UK tourist
visa? She already has a 10 year US one, will that count in her favour?

A belief that she is a genuine tourist not someone planning to work or study
or get married to a friend and stay permanently.


To substantiate this, she will need to demonstrate that she has a good
reason for returning home at the end of her holiday rather than
over-staying to work illegally in the UK. The most common way that
this can be established is to provide evidence of a job that pays more
than she would be likely to work as an illegal worker in Britain.

I cannot answer the visa questions, but you cannot connect to Easyjet
at Amsterdam. Your friend will probably find that a ticket on KLM via
Amsterdam to any of their ports in Britain costs the same as
Amsterdam only, baggage can be checked through, and no visa for
the Netherlands would be necessary, as she need never enter the
country.
Changing to Easyjet would necessitate entering the Netherlands and
re-checking, not to mention problems if the incoming flight were
delayed.