In continuation of our series of articles on visa requirements, this article is about booking a flight ticket before you get your visa. Or alternatively how to get a flight itinerary for visa application, if you do not want to book a flight ticket and risk losing money if visa is rejected.

At Blinkvisa, we process close to 4,000 Schengen visas monthly and as a result we are always updated about the latest visa requirements and based on our experience, a flight itinerary for visa is the best way to go

Should you submit a flight ticket? What about a dummy flight ticket with temporary PNR ? All your questions will be answered here.

TLDR : We use FlightGen app to create flight itinerary because it works just like booking a plane ticket. This way, we can pick the flight we’ll most likely take if our visa is approved, which keeps things smooth at immigration, and we can also pick our own currency, which makes us feel more trusting.

Add the line “A flight itinerary from a visa agent. The same will be ticketed once my visa is approved” when creating your cover letter and you are good to go (We use BlinkDocs App to create cover letter)

UPDATE : As of Jan 2023, It is ok to submit flight itinerary for visa purposes(by mentioning the same on the cover letter), but you should avoid dummy ticket for visa (temporary PNR) as the embassies are rejecting your visa application on the basis of FORGED DOCUMENTS.

So as of now, only three documents can be submitted for visa purposes:


The following documents SHOULD NOT be submitted for visa application:

  • Temporary fake Flight reservation (Even with PNR, unless you are using the same flight for your trip)
  • Dummy ticket for the purpose of visa
  • Fake Flight itinerary prepared by editing an existing ticket.
  • Dummy Flight tickets for visa.
  • Fake Flight Tickets ( with Fake PNR)

What does a flight itinerary for visa Application Mean ?

A flight itinerary for visa is a detailed document usually generated by a flight booking GDS system that shows the most likely flight that a visa applicant intends to take once their visa is approved. A flight itinerary will contain details such as flight names, routes, cost of the flight & passenger details. It will not contain a PNR like a regular flight ticket.

In general, if you are submitting a flight itinerary for visa application, you must mention the same in your cover letter for visa in the documents submitted section. You can use the below line if you want to.

A flight itinerary from a travel agent. The itinerary will be ticketed once my visa is approved.

What is the difference between Flight itinerary and a flight reservation for a visa application?

The main difference would be a flight itinerary will NOT contain a PNR whereas a flight reservation will contain a PNR number to confirm a booking that can be verified online, if the visa officer needs to.

In earlier days, to get a flight itinerary you will need to visit a local travel agency and get a flight itinerary from them. But nowadays you can get it online itself. For our customers we use FlightGen App to make flight itinerary for visa purposes.

The reason why we use FlightGen App are:

  • Instant flight itinerary: Generate your flight itinerary in just 30 seconds  
  • Your Native Currency : Create flight itinerary in your native currency not in USD which increases trustworthiness & chances of visa approval. 
  • Unlimited Itinerary : You can create unlimited flight itinerary for $10 . Others charge over $50 !.
  • Excellent customer support: Available on WhatsApp if you need to.

For Visa Applications, the main difference between a flight itinerary & flight reservation is honesty . When you submit a flight itinerary for visa purpose & declare it in your cover letter, you are being honest and the worst that could happen is your may receive a call from the visa consulate asking you to submit a flight ticket (If you do not have sufficient proof of sustenance (money) shown in your bank statement).

Whereas a Flight Reservation made solely for the purpose of visa approval will be treated as a forged document and your visa may be rejected on those grounds.

You should also know that all the documents submitted for your visa will be available at the immigration point and if you are taking a different flight than the one you submitted for your visa, a strict visa officer may take offence to that.

Sample flight itinerary

What is the difference between travel itinerary and flight itinerary or flight ticket?

A flight itinerary is a document containing the probable route of a flight, with travel dates and other info. Here is a sample Flight itinerary for visa purposes. It contains details such as Airline no, travel time, passenger information .

This is our recommended document for applying for a visa, especially when you mention in your cover letter that you are giving an itinerary and once visa is approved you will buy this ticket.

A flight ticket is a fully paid itinerary that has also generated a PNR number for you. It is generally not recommended for visa by the consulates (proofs given in next sections) as you stand to loose money if your visa was rejected.

A flight reservation for visa is a verifiable flight itinerary without paying the full fare of the flight but having paid a reservation fee. If you fail to convert a flight reservation to a fully paid flight ticket within the specified amount of time, your reservation will be cancelled.

This is generally not recommended for visa as the reservation may be cancelled by the airline and if the consulate checks the PNR your visa may be rejected for providing false documents. We have seen plenty of cases of this among our visa applicants, the embassy contacting the visa applicant and asking them to give a flight ticket to cross verify the PNR but once it is created, it is impossible to get the same PNR back.

A travel itinerary for visa is your day-wise plan that you intend to pursue once your visa is approved. A travel itinerary is usually part of a cover letter for either a tourist or business visa. Here is a sample cover letter for Austria visa travel itinerary depicting what I intend to do once my visa is approved.

  • Jan 16, 2023 : visit palace and attend the concert
  • Jan 15, 2023 : land in vienna and check into my hotel
  • Jan 17, 2023 : Hallstatt and alps day trip
  • Jan 18, 2023 : visit Belvedere and Klimt kiss
  • Jan 19, 2023 : go to Munich and take part in Oktoberfest
  • Jan 20, 2023 : fly back to delhi

Is is necessary to buy a flight ticket before applying for visa ?

No. It is not necessary to pay full price and buy a flight ticket before your visa is approved, especially after COVID. Doing so will put you in risk of losing either partial or the entire flight ticket cost which was paid towards a flight ticket. To avoid this many visa applicants purchase a fully refundable flight ticket which can be over 20% more expensive than a regular flight ticket.

Also on average, you must at least show proof of sustenance (ex. money in the bank) of 100 EUR per day of stay in Europe. What if you do not have more money? If you buy the whole flight ticket now, you stand the chance of diluting your sustenance which could negatively affect your visa process.

Does the embassy accept a flight itinerary for visa ?

Yes. Embassies do accept flight itinerary for visa application, in some cases they also recommend the visa applicants to buy a flight ticket only after their visa has been approved. This is not the case if you are applying for transit visas as you must have a fully paid flight ticket for your onward journey.

Please provide an email confirmation or website screenshot print out
of your intended flight itinerary either direct from the airline clearly showing you
intended date of departure and route. We highly recommend not purchasing your flight tickets until your visa has
been approved.

Spain Consulate

Round trip reservation or itinerary with dates and flight numbers specifying entry and exit from Schengen
state. Some Schengen authorities accept the itinerary when applying for the visa but request the original air ticket when visa is collected.

VFS Global

5 ways to get a Flight Itinerary for a Visa Purposes

There are generally 5 ways in which you can get a flight Itinerary for visa purposes. We are not adding buying a fully paid flight ticket here because that is obvious and the recommended way.

Around 40% of our customers have booked their flight ticket before their visa approval and if you are one among them, then no need to read further.

Using FlightGen App to make your flight Itinerary

For our customers who has not yet brought a flight ticket, we ask them to create their their Flight itinerary using FlightGen App and for cover letter we recommend BlinkDocs cover letter App.

You can download flight itinerary app here

Download FlightGen – Create Flight Itinerary for Visa
Download FlightGen – Android – Flight itinerary for Visa

The main benefit of using FlightGen over other services online who provide temporary bookings for visa are:

  • Choose your own flight Route : You can create your itinerary for the most probable flight that you will take once your visa is approved. So at the immigration too, your submitted itinerary for visa will match your actual flight itinerary and we think this is very important.
  • Unlimited Flight Itinerary : You can create unlimited flight itinerary for visa for 24 hours for under $10. You can also add co applicants for free whereas other services charge you $25 per additional applicant.
  • Your native currency : Does it look good when you as a Indian and your flight ticket is in USD ? That is not the case with FlightGen as you can choose your own itinerary.
  • Instant Flight Itinerary : Just download the app, make a search and your itinerary is available for download within 30 seconds.

Get Flight Itinerary for visa with FlightGen App

Buy full Flight, hotel & Insurance Package

When you apply for a visa, you will need to provide flight bookings, proof of accommodation (hotel, Airbnb, hostels etc) and travel Insurance. You can buy this as a complete package as well from many suppliers online. We have worked earlier with travelvisabookings.com for our customers who had requested for this package, you can try them too if you want

They have been in this industry from 2015 & they even prepare your cover letter for you.

Use Yatra.com for free flight reservations

Yatra.com allow you to hold onto your booking for 3 to 4 days before you can pay for your flight ticket. This service is free although it does not work for visas which take more than 3 to 4 days to get as by the time the visa officer checks your documents, your ticket could expire and your visa can be for giving fake PNR.

flight itinerary for visa

Buy a fully refundable ticket

This is the best option when it comes to flight bookings for visa purpose as there is nothing better than a flight ticket itself !!. If your visa is rejected for some reason, you can always cancel your ticket and get a full refund. But the refund is not instant and it would take about 20 to 30 days for the refund to be processed.

Also in general a refundable ticket, just like a refundable hotel tend to be more expensive when compared to a regular ticket.

If you are thinking you could just book a refundable ticket & just cancel it after you get your visa, then it is not recommended to do so it could be an issue raised at the immigration.

Although you would not be sent back home you may be questioned about the same.

7. Use ticket holding feature for a fee on Airlines website

If you are sure that you will get your visa approved in 3 to 4 days, you can hold tickets directly on the airline’s website and you are not paying exorbitant prices like on a fully refundable ticket.

Once your visa is approved, you can take a call if you want to keep the flight ticket or not.  

But there is a service fee when you use hold feature and sometimes it costs too much as with Lufthansa it cost almost $40 to hold one flight, what if you need two of these?

Some of the options that we have used in the past are as mentioned below:

How to Get flight itinerary for Free ?

Earlier it was possible to get 1 free flight itinerary on FlightGen App, they seem to have stopped it for now. You can hold a flight ticket for free on Yatra.com or use any of the below options for a flight itinerary without payment.

Copa Airlines | Free hold for 48 hours
American Airlines | Free hold for 24 hours
United Airlines | Free hold for 24 hours with pay-in-person option
Turkish Airlines | Free hold for 24 hours or more
Aeroflot | Free hold for 24 hours with cash option

Use any of the above options to get flight itinerary for visa for free. If you do not mind paying $10 for unlimited itineraries then you can use FlightGen App.

Can you use flight itinerary for Schengen visa ?

Yes. A flight itinerary can be used as part of Schengen visa documentation. But you need to declare the same in the cover letter. Add the below line or you can create your coverletter using blinkdocs app.

A flight itinerary from a travel agent. The itinerary will be ticketed once my visa is approved.

Over 50,000 of our customers have used flight itineraries for their Schengen visa application.

How and where to book a flight itinerary ?

You can book a flight itinerary for about $10 on FlightGen app. if there are any co-passengers, you can add them too for free on FlightGen app.
As of 2023, they are now giving unlimited flight itineraries for 24 hours at $10 which is an amazing deal.

Where to get KLM flight itinerary ?

If you have booked your flight with KLM airlines, then you get your flight itinerary at https://www.klm.com/information

Where to book a flight itinerary for Schengen visa ?

You can book your flight itinerary using FlightGen App. You will get an unlimited flight itinerary for under $11.

Where to get emirates flight itinerary for visa application ?


If you had booked a flight itinerary or ticket with emirates airlines, you can get your flight itinerary at https://www.emirates.com/in/english/manage-booking/