Athens, Greece - student visa question re. change in travel itinerary
 

Daughter will be in Italy and needs to travel to Athens on a US student visa. If she changes her flight itinerary and flies from a different airport in Italy into Athens rather than the one she was scheduled to fly from, does anyone know if that will present a problem?

If your daughter is in Europe on a student visa for a set amount of time (say 6 months), then she shouldn't have any problems traveling around Europe while her visa is still good. I'm not sure what you mean by a US student visa. If she gets a visa it will be an Italian or Greece visa allowing her to study in that country for x number of months. She won't be getting a visa from the US. She will have to apply for a visa through either the Italian or Greek embassies in the US before she leaves. This can take a couple of months and usually will require an appearance in person.

Sorry, I meant she was a US student. She will be with us on a family vacation in Italy and then is entering Greece from Italy. She was originally scheduled to fly from Milan to Athens, but may need to change her plans and fly from Rome. Before we change the ticket, I wanted to be sure it doesn't present a problem since her original itinerary had her flying from Milan.

Thanks for your advice.

I'm still not clear on what your daughter's situation is. Will she be in possession of a student visa issued by Italy or is she just travelling from the States using her passport like a 'normal' American tourist? Schengen rules allow for 3 months of travel within the Schengen States. If she's just travelling using her passport it will make no difference if she changes the itinerary once she's entered the Schengen States. But I'm wondering, should she be travelling with an Italian student visa, if the Schengen rules are suspended or extended to allow her to travel over the full duration of her Italian student visa.

She will be traveling from the US and is headed to Greece for a year for fellowship. She is getting a student visa to study in Greece and then when she gets there, I think she applies for something else to stay for longer than 3 months since she will be there for a year.

My question is if the information she submitted for her visa is different than her revised flight arrival info., will that affect her ability to enter Greece?

So does she have a one year Greek student visa? (Not sure how you can change one visa into another one you get there - every student I know had a visa for the full term of their studying before they left the US.)

If she is just vacationing for a short time in Italy that shouldn't be a problem - but the student visa for Greece needs to cover all the time she will be there.

She can travel as an American tourist on her passport and when she gets to Greece she can validate her Greek student visa there for the time allotted, and renew that visa as needed.

If she is getting a Greek student visa before she leaves the US, then she shouldn't have a problem entering Greece unless her visa has expired before she gets there. She many get some extra screening leaving the US if she doesn't have a return ticket. I would think she should be applying for her visa for the number of months she plans to be in Greece before she departs the US. Usually you have to give them dates when you apply and proof from the school, proof of insurance that will cover her in that country, etc. Greece may be more flexible than some of the other European countries.

Thank for all the replies, but I am not concerned about the visa - that is all taken care of.

What I am concerned about is whether a change in the location of the departure of her flight going into Greece will cause any problems in her being admitted to the country. If anyone has any insight into this, that would be great.

I can't imagine that her point of departure would have any bearing on her admission into Greece unless the visa specifically states that she will be entering from Milan. Does it?

In heaven's name, why don't you consult her college about this??? My daughter is dean of an art college where students go abroad constantly to study, and she has to know all about this. Most respondents on this forum are pleasure travelers who aren't visa experts.

Or even call the nearest office of the US Govt. that handles Visa matters.

Thanks, we are going to call the Greek Embassy, but it is often very difficult to get through to someone and to get an answer. I realize most people on this forum are pleasure travelers, but thought perhaps someone might have had a similar experience with a change in itinerary for a student studying abroad.

Re. contacting her school - she is post grad, this is a fellowship through a Greek college and they are away until the end of August.

Appreciate all the help.

Actually, many of us have children that have studied in other countries on student visas.

They are not going to track any flights. DD was questioned about flights once when leaving an airport in the US (she was home for a week while spending 6 months in Madrid), but it was really because the guy was reading the dates on her visa wrong (European format).

Thanks!

familet - don't know if this helps, but our daughter studied in Greece last year. Got her visa before leaving US, which only had info about when it started and expired. To the best of my recollection there was nothing about specific flights or points of entry/departure.

At the time she got her visa, she was planning to take CO through EWR with nonstop to ATH. Later, CO cancelled the flight and she ended up flying on LH through FRA with connecting flight to ATH. She had no problems upon her arrival in ATH and was never questioned about the "change".

Maybe this doesn't answer your question, but thought it might give you some info.

BTW - know all about difficulty in getting through to the Greek Embassy. Fortunately, we have a Greek Consulate in our city so we just plopped our fannies in their office and accomplished what we needed.