Are there any hotels that include visa Invitation Letter and Visa Registration upon arrival in their price. Or is this service provided separately. Does the company that issue Invitation has to register visa also.

We are planning to visit Moscow and St. Petersburg in August with 2 kids. So far it appears in addition to $100 Russian consulate fees, there is addiitonal $30 for Letter and $25 for registration per person. So it's $220 for this service. This is on top of making hotel reservation with the same agency www.tourstorussia.com. Is that typical.

Are there any other agencies with reasonable prices that include visa services. Or is this just another legal, easy way of making money off the tourists with no other choices.

We need to send passport for visa this week. Any feedback is appreciated.

Most hotels will register your visa for free. You can get the Invitation Letter and Confirmation without booking hotels. See waytorussia.net for more information on visas, registration and invitation.

When I went to St Petersburg, I booked my hotel through something like Expedia and then contacted the hotel to ask about the invitation and whatever else I needed to get a Visa. They faxed (or emailed, I can't remember) the relevant paperwork to me to enable me to get a visa. This is standard practice and there was no additional fee from the hotel for sending us the paperwork.

I then went to the Russian Embassy in my home city (London) to get the Visa. In the end, the queue was huge and I needed to get back to work so ended up paying a local agent to get the visa for me, but if I'd had more time I could have saved myself the extra expense and done this myself at the embassy.

Thank you for the response. Don't know if the same type of visa Invitation letter is required for UK. Did you have to pay for visa registration at the hotel or was it free.

I just want to figure out if there are places that will include it if you are booking hotel with them or do they all charge. Since they charge per passport, not per room, it's multiplying by 4 very quickly for us!

Any other inputs.

Some hotels will give you invitation and registration at no cost for the days that you book with them, others will not.

There is no need to use agencies to book your hotels in Russia if you do not want to. However, they provide the service you describe for people who do not want the hassle of obtaining the documentation/visas themselves or if you are not staying in a hotel for the complete duration of your stay in Russia. If that's not you, then you can do it yourself.

All the hotels I've stayed in (and that's quite a number) have never charged either for the visa documentation nor the registration (I have heard about paying for registration at some hotels but not experienced it myself-maybe something to do with type of hotel) Once you book your hotels, via whatever means eg Travelocity, contact each hotel and ask for the visa support documents. They will send you a form by fax or email, for you to complete for each person requiring a visa. This form asks for name/dob/nationality/passport no, dates of entry/exit and a credit card number. The form will state that the credit card will only be charged if you decide to cancel the hotel after they've been to the trouble of providing the visa support docs.

Complete a visa application form and submit to consular with visa support docs from hotel, photos and whatever else is required. I would engage a visa company to do this as the lines can be very long to get in the consulate. And you need to repeat the process to collect the visas.

Upon arrival at your hotels, in each case, the hotel takes your passports and register you with the ministry of foreign affairs. You get your passport back with a post-it note stamped with arrival/departure dates and a registration number. Keep this.

The only fees you should pay are the consular fees and if you engage a visa company, their fees.

The London consulate is not recommended for personal applications unless you like spending your vacation time in line. They start at 5am (gates open at 9:30am), most people in line are clueless about visa requirements, the gates close at 12pm(closed all day Wednesday) and there's no guarantee you will get in. Once you are in, there's no guarantee your application will be accepted (if there is something wrong with your forms they throw it back at you or if you are unfortunate enough to stand behind a visa agent with 1000 applications/passports who gets priority over you). Visa agencies such as www.goldarrow.info are able to bypass lines and problems.

I used www.RussianVisaGuide.com, they charge $154 per visa plus return shipping and if you do not stay in hotel, you;ll have to pay $20 per registration. Therefore, the total fee for visa formalities is $174 per person.

I found their service very friendly and professional. Please use my name as reference. They offer $10 referral fee. I hope this helps.

Marco
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