Dummy ticket (flight reservation) for Argentina visa: what “only reservations” means

What the Argentina checklist asks for

• Round-trip flight reservations in every traveller’s name; the embassy specifies reservations only.
• Internal flight or bus tickets, and any cruise booking, for travel inside Argentina.
• Hotel reservations that correspond to the flights and to your travel itinerary.
• A written travel itinerary that matches those bookings.
• If you stay with a host: an invitation letter, notarised or issued through the TAD system.
• Six months of bank-attested statements, three years of ITRs, three months of pay slips, and an employer letter translated into Spanish.

Two routes: the free visa, or your US visa

Since 28 August 2025, Indian passport holders with a valid US visa of a similar category can enter Argentina as tourists without a consular visa or the electronic travel authorisation (AVE). Resolución 353/2025 of the Ministry of the Interior sets the stay at up to 90 days, allows one extension for a similar period, and rules out a change of status once you are in the country.

The embassy’s list of qualifying US visas is specific: B1/B2, B2, B1, J, O, P (P1, P2 and P3), E and H-1B, plus the Green Card. You do not need to have used the US visa before, and the embassy notes that 90 days of validity from your entry date “might be required”. Any other US category, such as a student visa, does not qualify. If you hold none of these, apply for the consular tourist visa instead, which costs Indians nothing under a bilateral agreement.

What the New Delhi list says about bookings

Item 6 of the embassy’s tourist visa list reads “Round trip flight tickets” followed by “(Only reservations)”. It also says “internal flight or bus tickets and/or cruise booking must also be included”, and it asks for a travel itinerary that those bookings support. Item 7 asks for hotel reservations that correspond to the flights and the itinerary, again with the note “(Must be reservations)”.

That wording settles the usual worry about buying a fare before the decision. The desk’s flight reservation is genuine, held in the airline’s own system in your name, and its confirmed hotel booking names the property, the dates and the guests; neither one pays for the flight or the stay. What no consulate can accept is a ticket made up or edited on a computer. A fabricated PDF is document fraud, and it would put this application and later ones at risk.

An itinerary the consulate can follow

Argentina is a big country, and most first trips from India pair Buenos Aires with at least one long internal journey: north to the Iguazú falls, south to El Calafate and Patagonia, or west to Mendoza. Because the list asks for internal flights, buses or cruises as well, the officer expects to see how you get from one hotel to the next. A Buenos Aires hotel followed by an Iguazú hotel with nothing in between is the kind of gap an itinerary review notices.

Write the day-by-day itinerary first, then make every booking agree with it: arrival date, each hotel’s check-in and check-out, each internal leg, and the departure. Mention internal legs when you order, so the desk can reflect the whole route where the airline allows it. The same dates belong in the cover letter in Spanish that the embassy also asks for.

Timing the application in Delhi or Mumbai

The embassy does not publish a processing time, and it warns that “Additional documentation might be required by the Consular authority”. Gather the slow items first: bank-attested statements, three years of income tax returns and the employer letter translated into Spanish. Order the flight reservation and hotel booking last, for the day you hand in the file at the Visa Section in New Delhi or the Consulate-General in Mumbai, and check both the moment they arrive.

No unpaid hold lasts while a consulate works through a file. The airline sets how long the reservation is held and may drop it without warning, so by the time an officer looks it may well be gone. That is expected: the reservation shows the trip you applied with, and the dates in your itinerary are the ones the consulate reads.

Flying to Buenos Aires from India

No non-stop service between India and Buenos Aires (EZE) is known, so every itinerary connects. The usual choices are a Gulf hub such as Dubai or Doha, Istanbul, a European hub such as Madrid, Frankfurt or Paris, or a US hub. A US routing needs a US visa for the connection, and if yours is in a qualifying category it may also spare you the Argentine visa. Whichever hub you pick, check its transit rules for Indian passport holders before you fix the route on the reservation.

Flying from India to Argentina

Your reservation should follow a route you could realistically fly. These are common options; schedules change, so the desk confirms what is bookable for your dates.

Mistakes to avoid with a Argentina application

• Buying non-refundable fares because the list says “tickets”. The embassy adds “(Only reservations)”.
• Leaving out the internal flights or buses that link your hotels; the list asks for them too.
• Hotel dates that do not match the flights and the itinerary, night for night.
• Skipping the Spanish translation of the employer letter, or writing the cover letter in English.
• Applying for a visa you do not need when a valid US B1/B2 visa already lets you enter for 90 days.
• Counting on a US student visa or another unlisted category; the exemption covers only the ones the embassy names.

Dummy ticket and hotel bookings, matched to your itinerary

We do not send one loose document. The desk matches the flight reservation and every hotel booking to your itinerary: the same dates, the same cities, and no night left uncovered. These are the real documents of one order for a Switzerland visa file, issued on 5 November 2026: one flight reservation and four hotel bookings that cover all 9 nights between the two flights. Personal details are blacked out; everything else is as issued.

• Flight reservationEtihad, Hyderabad (HYD) to Zurich (ZRH), status Confirmed
• Hotel booking, ZurichMEININGER Hotel Zürich Greencity, 3 nights
• Hotel booking, GenevaB&B HOTEL Geneva Airport, 3 nights
• Hotel booking, LucerneSeminarhotel Romerohaus, 2 nights
• Hotel booking, Zurich AirportLeonardo Hotel Zurich Airport, 1 night

Open the full documents and the day-by-day table: flight and hotels matched date by date

How to get your Argentina flight reservation

Argentina questions, answered