Maldives via India – experiences?

[masaccio]

I’ve started looking at hotels for what was meant to be a Jordan trip next Easter and they’re 3x normal prices so I am thinking of ditching our reward flights and switching to the Maldives and doing LHR-BLR-MLE and MLE-DEL-LHR which has reward availability for the BA segments.

The Delhi bit may mean overnight in the transit hotel which gets mixed reviews but connections don’t seem terrible and I don’t think on that basis we’d need to enter India which saves faff and visas.

Has anyone done this? OH was supportive to say the least when I said ‘Maldives’. It’s been a while since we last went.

[BuildBackBetter]

BLR (& HYD) are small and efficient airports, well maintained and should be easy for transit with a reasonable connection time. They also had good lounges, but there have been changes recently.
DEL (& BOM) are large airports and connections take longer. Flip side, more options for food and lounges.
Not sure what you mean by “don’t think on that basis we’d need to enter India”.

[strickers]

If you’re not on a single ticket you’ll need a visa to enter India. E-visas are suspended for UK citizens so you’ll need to visit a consulate and pay £148 each.

[masaccio]

strickers wrote:

If you’re not on a single ticket you’ll need a visa to enter India. E-visas are suspended for UK citizens so you’ll need to visit a consulate and pay £148 each.

Urgh that is something I was looking to miss. We have both had Indian visas before but even so. Thanks for the warning.

[masaccio]

strickers wrote:

If you’re not on a single ticket you’ll need a visa to enter India. E-visas are suspended for UK citizens so you’ll need to visit a consulate and pay £148 each.

@strickers trying to confirm this in the case of hand luggage only. This indicates it ‘may’ be possible. The trick appears to be you need your onward boarding pass. I’d need to check if I can get that as last time it wasn’t possible.

[TJones]

No point looking for a “trick” or loophole. If you don’t have a visa, you’ll be denied boarding at LHR.

[JDB]

undefined wrote:

strickers wrote:

If you’re not on a single ticket you’ll need a visa to enter India. E-visas are suspended for UK citizens so you’ll need to visit a consulate and pay £148 each.

@strickers trying to confirm this in the case of hand luggage only. This indicates it ‘may’ be possible. The trick appears to be you need your onward boarding pass. I’d need to check if I can get that as last time it wasn’t possible.

Even if you can theoretically bypass the visa issue, it seems rather high risk if either it turns out at the last minute you can’t print your boarding pass or your onward flight were heavily delayed or cancelled, you are either not allowed to board or stuck inside the Indian airport.

[strickers]

Yes, £148 each for visas is expensive and I do wish the respective governments would sort this out so that e-visas come back. But is it really worth risking a trip to the Maldives for les than £300? We are doing similar, travelling via Chennai and Sri Lanka and taking the opportunity for a week at the IC Chennai at the end. FCDO advice still says don’t travel to Sri Lanka but it also mentions a state of emergency which ended on the 18th. I’m fairly certain we would still go if the advice doesn’t change and just take out additional insurance through Battleface.

[masaccio]

Thanks all. Skyping BA!