K1 Travel Requirements

[Caboose29 172]

Can my fiancee travel to the US on her K1 visa through (transit) another country, or will she need to fly to US directly from Russia?

[Dashinka 23,301]

I thought all travel restrictions were lifted if the traveler has proof of Covid19 vaccination.  That being said, there are direct flights from Moscow to both NYC and Miami that are fairly reasonable on Aeroflot.  What part of Russia is she coming from?

Edited November 22, 2021 by Dashinka

[Caboose29 172]

8 minutes ago, Dashinka said:

I thought all travel restrictions were lifted if the traveler has proof of Covid19 vaccination.  That being said, there are direct flights from Moscow to both NYC and Miami that are fairly reasonable on Aeroflot.  What part of Russia is she coming from?

She's traveling from Vladikavkaz.  She can fly from Grozny to Istanbul, then direct to Dallas.  It's fewer hops, and a shorter trip overall, but if she travels through Moscow, she can depart directly from Vladikavkaz, and fly to JFK, or MIA, as you mentioned, then she'd need another leg to get to Dallas.

 

The drawback to flying through Istanbul, she'd have to change airports AND spend the night there.  In Moscow, she'd have to spend the night at the hotel in the airport since her arrival into SVO will be the same airport she departs to the US from.  So no stress or taxi fees from transiting across town going through Moscow.

Edited November 23, 2021 by Caboose29

[Dashinka 23,301]

28 minutes ago, Caboose29 said:

She's traveling from Vladikavkaz.  She can fly from Grozny to Istanbul, then direct to Dallas.  It's fewer hops, and a shorter trip overall, but if she travels through Moscow, she can depart directly from Vladikavkaz, and fly to JFK, or MIA, as you mentioned, then she'd need another leg to get to Dallas.

 

The drawback to flying through Istanbul, she'd have to change airports AND spend the night there.  In Moscow, she'd have to spend the night at the hotel in the airport since her arrival into SVO will be the same airport she departs to the US from.  So no stress or taxi fees from transiting across town going through Moscow.

Always tough for those not from Moscow.  Back when my then fiancé (now my wife) from Krasnoyarsk, came over, we found a route through Beijing that allowed her to enter the US in Detroit so no need to connect in the US for another flight.  She did have to spend the night, but she did not have to change airports, just terminals.  It all depends on how confident your fiancé is traveling, but I would suggest the route through Istanbul as going through US Customs and Immigration is headache enough let alone having to deal with connecting to a flight to Dallas.  It was much nicer for my now wife to go through CBP and then exit locally for a car ride home.  Just research the airports in Istanbul and see about hotels near the departure airport to the US.

 

Good Luck!

Edited November 23, 2021 by Dashinka

[Caboose29 172]

3 minutes ago, Dashinka said:

Always tough for those not from Moscow.  Back when my then fiancé (now my wife) came over, we found a route through Beijing that allowed her to enter the US in Detroit so no need to connect in the US for another flight.  She did have to spend the night, but she did not have to change airports, just terminals.  It all depends on how confident your fiancé is traveling, but I would suggest the route through Istanbul as going through US Customs and Immigration is headache enough let alone having to deal with connecting to a flight from Dallas.  It was much nicer for my now wife to go through CBP and then exit locally for a car ride home.  Just research the airports in Istanbul and see about hotels near the departure airport to the US.

 

Good Luck!

There is a hotel inside IST.  It has access on land AND air side.  I would encourage her to just take a taxi from SAW to IST, and spend the night at that hotel at the airport.

[Mike E 11,723]

55 minutes ago, Caboose29 said:

Can my fiancee travel to the US on her K1 visa through (transit) another country, or will she need to fly to US directly from Russia?

The USA doesn’t care how many countries she transits.  
 

My fiancée transited two. 
 

Understand that each transit she is likely to go through extra vetting. 

[igoyougoduke 1,609]

1 hour ago, Caboose29 said:

Can my fiancee travel to the US on her K1 visa through (transit) another country, or will she need to fly to US directly from Russia?

K1 visa is for united states. where she. travels before arriving in US is dependent on her passport and her ability to enter those countries. K1 visa is only for USA 

[DaveAndAnastasia 2,079]

16 hours ago, Dashinka said:

Always tough for those not from Moscow.

Anastasia's from Kirov, which doesn't have much of a commercial airport and the one or two flights from Moscow each day are both not from SVO and don't line up well with connections to the US.

 

But her sister's in Moscow, so she took an overnight train to Moscow (which she did every time we met before she came here; even when I came to Russia she met me at SVO) and stayed there before flying direct to LAX (and then spending over two hours getting through customs & immigration, and then leaving LAX at 5pm on a somehow rainy weekday so traffic was not great until we got to the southern end of Orange County). Flying into San Diego with a connection would have taken longer overall and she would have had to deal with the hassle of connecting in the US after an international flight (timing and airline alliances meant going Moscow->London->San Diego doesn't really work, and Moscow->Frankfurt->San Diego would have had a really short layover in Frankfurt).

[millefleur 5,038]

15 minutes ago, DaveAndAnastasia said:

before flying direct to LAX

The good old days prior to the vaccine requirements!

[Dashinka 23,301]

1 hour ago, DaveAndAnastasia said:

Anastasia's from Kirov, which doesn't have much of a commercial airport and the one or two flights from Moscow each day are both not from SVO and don't line up well with connections to the US.

 

But her sister's in Moscow, so she took an overnight train to Moscow (which she did every time we met before she came here; even when I came to Russia she met me at SVO) and stayed there before flying direct to LAX (and then spending over two hours getting through customs & immigration, and then leaving LAX at 5pm on a somehow rainy weekday so traffic was not great until we got to the southern end of Orange County). Flying into San Diego with a connection would have taken longer overall and she would have had to deal with the hassle of connecting in the US after an international flight (timing and airline alliances meant going Moscow->London->San Diego doesn't really work, and Moscow->Frankfurt->San Diego would have had a really short layover in Frankfurt).

We used to regularly take the Detroit/Beijing/Krasnoyarsk route when we went back and forth to visit family.  Krasnoyarsk had direct flights into and out of Beijing Capitol airport twice a week.  I always got funny looks by the Russian border services people working at Krasnoyarsk when I would arrive with my US passport and visitor visa.  Lately we are looking at the Detroit to Incheon to Novosibirsk to Krasnoyarsk route, it adds another short flight of course, but with the Beijing dual airport situation now, it is actually a little easier, plus I like the airport at Incheon a lot better than the old one in Beijing (I haven’t been in the new one yet).  Right now we are planning to head back in March, we shall see how the flights work out then.  Katya went back last June and she had to go through Moscow, but we chose the Miami flight, I truly detest JFK.

[Caboose29 172]

I had my first experience with JFK in September flying to/from Russia. It only took me one time to truly detest that airport. The next time I or we go back, it’ll be through Miami or DC. 

[DaveAndAnastasia 2,079]

2 hours ago, Caboose29 said:

I had my first experience with JFK in September flying to/from Russia. It only took me one time to truly detest that airport. The next time I or we go back, it’ll be through Miami or DC. 

It looks like DFW has a decent number of direct flights to Europe, so I wonder if connecting on the other side of the Atlantic would work better (especially when coming back, as having to pick up and recheck bags is a pain)?

 

I'm basically on the fence on driving to LAX for a direct flight vs trying to make a relatively quick connection in Frankfurt work for the next time we head back to Russia. When it was just me I took a rideshare (not much more expensive than parking near LAX for a week) but that doesn't work so well when you need a car seat for the kid too.

[Dashinka 23,301]

On 11/23/2021 at 4:38 PM, DaveAndAnastasia said:

It looks like DFW has a decent number of direct flights to Europe, so I wonder if connecting on the other side of the Atlantic would work better (especially when coming back, as having to pick up and recheck bags is a pain)?

 

I'm basically on the fence on driving to LAX for a direct flight vs trying to make a relatively quick connection in Frankfurt work for the next time we head back to Russia. When it was just me I took a rideshare (not much more expensive than parking near LAX for a week) but that doesn't work so well when you need a car seat for the kid too.

I have been through Paris, Amsterdam and NYC, every time my luggage was delayed (twice when going and one when coming back).  Of course if heading to the Western side of Russia, this is probably the best route, but I will take the airports in Asia over Europe any day.  That being said, the wife went through DC (not sure that flight from Moscow has resumed yet) coming home last year, and through Miami this year with no issues.

[slavaskii 885]

Seconding that JFK is an absolute mess to transit through, after clearing immigration on a flight from Warsaw once I waited over an hour for an agent to saunter by and direct me to where my bag was waiting, just so I could pick it up and put it elsewhere. IAD is a great airport. Don't recommend ORD or MIA, ORD because they have a really strange security process for departing international that can heavily delay you and MIA because it just strikes me as super nasty. I'm from Florida, so I can say such things.

 

If you can't go direct Aeroflot, Turkish is very reliable now because their flights remained largely operational throughout the pandemic. I'm not a huge fan of their new airport, but I spent 10 hours waiting there for a midnight flight to Miami and thought it was pretty okay. Only issue is that for some reason only 1 hour of WiFi is free, so you have to buy a full pass to be able to use it for any reasonable amount of time. They also are really desperate to give you their Turkish monopoly money as change when you pay for anything. Paris is pretty good to transit through as well, as is Munich and Amsterdam. Vienna is by far my favorite though because it's very streamlined and you never talk to a single official so long as you never enter the EU. Frankfurt is downright awful, wouldn't wish that upon my worst enemy. 

 

I always found it fun to plan layovers, sad there's no reason for me to do so anytime soon  

Edited December 1, 2021 by slavaskii

[millefleur 5,038]

4 minutes ago, slavaskii said:

Don't recommend ORD

Heyyy ORD is local to me and I never had any issues? Might depend on which terminal and airline you fly from. It was really easy when I flew out of there just a few weeks ago.

 

I've heard really good things about Turkish and I regret not flying with them last time. I personally despise Paris-CDG because of the shuttle-bus-between-terminals system, which Frankfurt also suffers from. If you have a tight connecting time and you accidentally get off at the wrong terminal, forget it, you will miss your flight. Speaking from experience here. Amsterdam is a dream, easiest international terminal in Europe that I've transited through. Also, it's only 15 minutes to Amsterdam downtown, so you can actually go hang out in the city if you have a long layover!

 

Vienna is also great but barely any flights connect there in my experience? I've only ever been through Vienna when I was going there as a destination. Helsinki and Prague also have great airports but again they don't really make sense unless it's your destination. Amsterdam for me is by far Europe's best "hub" airport.