{"id":1254,"date":"2017-05-08T09:02:47","date_gmt":"2017-05-08T16:02:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ambriente.com\/blog\/?p=1254"},"modified":"2017-05-08T09:02:47","modified_gmt":"2017-05-08T16:02:47","slug":"cuba-visa-services-scam","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ambriente.com\/blog\/2017\/05\/08\/cuba-visa-services-scam\/","title":{"rendered":"Cuba Visa Services Scam"},"content":{"rendered":"

Last month I travelled to Cuba to present an art installation at the 7th International Video Art Festival of Camaguey. Ahead of my visit to Cuba, I wanted to make sure that I entered the country with the correct visa. As I’d be traveling with equipment, I did not think it would be appropriate to travel with a tourist visa which is available from the airline that I used for $50. <\/p>\n

So I searched online and immediately found the Cuba Travel Services<\/a> site (which has ads on Google, so it comes up immediately). I used their site to apply for the “Educational People to People” visa category as that seemed the most appropriate visa for my participation in the art festival based on my research. (The Department of Treasury\u2019s Office of Foreign Assets Control<\/a> – OFAC – specifies 12 different categories for travel to Cuba which do not include tourism.) I fill out the Cuba Travel Services<\/a> form and pay them $110 and a week or so later, my visa promptly arrives. However, what they sent me was a tourist visa, the same exact visa I could have purchased at the gate on the day of travel for $50! I call Cuba Travel Services<\/a> to tell me that they’ve sent me the wrong visa as I had applied for the “Educational People to People”. They respond that they only sell the tourist visa and that my money would not be refunded.<\/p>\n

I was outraged at the fact that I had paid more than twice the amount $110 for a $50 visa. So if you are traveling to Cuba, do not purchase a tourist visa from Cuba Travel Services<\/a>! They will send you a tourist visa, but it’s a scam as you can purchase the same visa for less than half the price from your airline.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Last month I travelled to Cuba to present an art installation at the 7th International Video Art Festival of Camaguey. Ahead of my visit to Cuba, I wanted to make sure that I entered the country with the correct visa. As I’d be traveling with equipment, I did not think it would be appropriate to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[458,2],"tags":[638,1017,1015,1016,1018],"class_list":["post-1254","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-art-intervention","category-critical_perspectives","tag-cuba","tag-cuba-travel","tag-cuba-travel-services","tag-cuba-visa","tag-visa"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ambriente.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1254","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ambriente.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ambriente.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ambriente.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ambriente.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1254"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.ambriente.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1254\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1255,"href":"https:\/\/www.ambriente.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1254\/revisions\/1255"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ambriente.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1254"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ambriente.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1254"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ambriente.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1254"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}