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Be careful who you believe. Last time I transited in North America (Vancouver, though, not USA), the check-in agent assured me that my bags would be checked to the final destination. Fortunately, I checked again in Vancouver. They weren’t.
Same happened to me via Toronto. When the bags eventually reached me, someone had carefully gone through them and carefully selected all the best bits of my property, which did not arrive. Air Canada then made a baggage claim impossible there were so many barriers. Haven’t touched Air Canada since.
@PeteM, this is MIA immigration for heaven’s sake, one of the busiest travel hubs in the world, not the flaming travellators at MAN 😂😂😂
Hahahahaha 🤣🤣
We travelled through Miami on the way to Peru on a BA booking last October and didn’t have to recheck bags. Immigration officers were the usual rude horrible people.
I have entered the USA through MIA and a great many other ports of entry many times. I have never encountered a rude or horrible CBP Officer.
I am always polite and respectful with Immigration Officers the world over, and that has always been reciprocated.
I have seen people being rude to Immigration Officers and approaching them with a sense of entitlement. That is simply asking for trouble.
It was 2018 – how absolutely ridiculous if they’re not being used now, it made such a difference to the entry process.
The APC kiosks were reaching the end of their life, and didn’t deal with biometric data. A handful of airports still use them, but they have largely been replaced by a biometric system “Simplified Arrival”.
https://www.ltf-law.com/the-immigration-observer/cbp-simplified-arrival-program
We travelled through Miami on the way to Peru on a BA booking last October and didn’t have to recheck bags. Immigration officers were the usual rude horrible people.
I have entered the USA through MIA and a great many other ports of entry many times. I have never encountered a rude or horrible CBP Officer.
I am always polite and respectful with Immigration Officers the world over, and that has always been reciprocated.
I have seen people being rude to Immigration Officers and approaching them with a sense of entitlement. That is simply asking for trouble.
I’m with you Alex. Being polite is the way to be. The border staff are only doing their job and if you’re rude to them why the surprise when they’re rude back.
Having said that way back in 2010 I flew BA CW to Orlando on a companion voucher (was ultimately headibg for Key West via Miami but couldn’t get seats directly to MIA) and forgot to print off my Esta and encountered a very hostile border officer. I thought I’d be ok as it is electronic after all (that’s what the E stands for) but I got told that Orlando didn’t have elwctronic access. I aldo got told off for only entering the hotel name and town instead of full street address on the green card that you still had to complete back then. I also confused the man when I told him I was hiring a car instead of renting one – in the USA a hire car is essentially a limousine with a driver. Plus stupidly OH and I went to separate kiosks on arrival as we were directed to do so by the airport staff and OH had all the hotel stuff so I couldn’t show anything to border man. It took some considerable persuasion skills and me being very polite in the face of adversity when I was carted off to a back room for a full interrogation a la Border Force on Sky Witness. i still maintain border officer was just being arsey because he could be. But I was politeness itself even though I wanted to swear at him. I think that just riled him as well as I think he was hoping to ultimately reject me for being rude to him. Took nearly 2 hours before I was granted permission to enter the USA.
Be careful who you believe. Last time I transited in North America (Vancouver, though, not USA), the check-in agent assured me that my bags would be checked to the final destination. Fortunately, I checked again in Vancouver. They weren’t.
Even if bags have been tagged through to your final destination that does not mean you don’t have to colelct them and clear customs at your port of entry.
I was clearly told that I would not need to touch my bags in Vancouver. I was sceptical, and I was right. That was BA in Heathrow T3 in February this year.
One of the first things we taught our son about travel – always be polite and cooperative with any US official!
If you’ve watched the series “What We Do in the Shadows”, there’s a very funny episode where the vampire Nandor goes to get his US citizenship and decides that the immigration agent is even more soulless than he is.
I just avoid the US on all itineraries.
Did you know that if you enter the US, then go directly to Canada or Mexico or the Caribbean, the US generally considers you to still be in the US?
French citizens can stay in France indefinitely. Guadeloupe is a part of France, but the US considers it to be part of its immigration zone for some purposes.
A French citizen travels from outside North America to the US on an ESTA, then goes to Guadeloupe (without leaving North America) and stays for 4 months. If they then try to re-enter the US (without having left North America) they are likely to be denied entry for “overstaying”, because the US VWP 90 day period started when they first entered the US and includes time spent in Guadeloupe.
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