Visa for India - dumb question
 

Hi All -

This may be a dumb question, but to get a Visa for India, you have to pay for return postage. Travisa says that you cannot provide a "handwritten airbill." Well, I was planning to use priority mail and print the label at home and include the envelope with my application. It's not handwritten, but technically, it isn't an airbill either - it's just a label with postage affixed that I'm going to tape to the priority mail envelope. Does anyone know if this will suffice????

I'd love to hear from anyone who has undergone the India visa "exam."

Thanks!
CJ

given my recent experiences with travisa (china visa), I would follow their instructions to the letter.

I agree with rhk. I just asked Mr. Crosscheck who handled our visas and he said he didn't include anything, that he just paid the return postage as part of the fee. The visa arrives very quickly (in ten days or so, I think by priority mail or FedEx), so there is no need to send your own envelope. If you have questions, call your consulate. Ours was San Francisco - Mr. C called several times and they were very helpful.

Since you are dealing with Travisa, call them (or email them) not the consulate.

One reason to use USPS is to have the passport delivered to a PO box with no signature required. I considered doing that but ended up just going with FedEx as Travisa recommended.

With FedEx you can have the package delivered and held at a FedEx store. That is free with FedEx (not free with UPS).

The FedEx guy cheated a bit. It was supposed to be delivered by 10:30. At about 10:40 I checked online to see that the package had been recorded as delivered at 10:27. So, I freaked out for about 20 min until the guy showed up at 11:00. Turned out that no signature was required which I probably should have known somehow.

Phone call protocol must vary by area. Our travisa site directed us to the SF Consulate phone number. Passports w/visas arrived by FedEx and we didn't have to sign anything.

You must be right, crosscheck. We were given very explicit instructions not to call the embassy about anything!

Thank you all...it sounds like it might be worth it just to pay the fee.