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Has anyone done this before? I'm Vietnamese. Previously, I've used the Tourist in Transit program to enter South Korea for less than 24 hour period. My trip is SGN-ICN-LAX. I flew with one single airline so I already had a boarding pass for onward flight before landing.

Now I want to visit Korea longer because the visa is up to 30 days. I'm thinking of flying to Korea using two different airlines:

  • SGN-ICN : Vietnam Airlines
  • Stay in Korea for 5 days.
  • ICN-LAX : American Airlines

This means I won't have a boarding pass for the next flight when I get to ICN. Will they let me in?

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    You will have a confirmed ticket for the American Airlines flight, right? Commented Oct 18 at 20:57
  • Yeah, not the boarding pass. I wonder if they'll ask for it since people can book refundable tickets then cancel them to overstay their visa. Commented Oct 19 at 16:47
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    To be fair, you don't need refundable tickets to do that, having a boarding pass makes missing the flight somewhat more expensive but doesn't guarantee you will be on it. The thing that makes the risk acceptable for Korea is presumably that passengers with a US, Canadian, etc. visa are less likely to abandon that to stay illegally in Korea than people who are residents in a poorer country. Commented Oct 19 at 17:07
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    Some airlines seem to let you refund or change flights after getting a boarding pass, if your ticket is expensive enough. Others don't. There are lots of posts about this on travel forums. Commented Oct 20 at 9:51

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The description of the program from the Korean consulate in Houston says nothing about flying with the same airline or holding a boarding pass. Instead, what's required is simply a ticket.

This makes sense, especially considering the new length of the visa (30 days). Even flying with the same airline and on the same PNR, it's not always possible to get a boarding pass that long in advance.

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From personal experience (but not in Korea specifically), I have many times pulled out a confirmation email and they accepted it after a quick glance.

It's actually very easy to create a fake 'boarding pass' and add it to your wallet (it's a text file with a specific format and extension).

Without checking the veracity of each ticket directly with the respective airline, any government has no idea if you faked it or not, and they usually believe it if you simply show some email with a booking code.

In addition, you could always buy a fully refundable ticket and later cancel it.

The whole concept is based on trust, and that 99.9% of people don't know how to fake it or are not willing to go through the effort; it just makes it slightly harder to cheat.

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