Extortionate Visa Increase!!

[AMRWM]

I will be making my 4th trip to Algeria in August to spend some much needed time with my amazing husband. I checked the Algerian consulate website to print off my visa application form and noticed a flashing sign announcing new visa fees. So i opened the link and was horrified by what I found. A single-entry visa used to cost £28 which I thought was perfectly reasonable. It now costs £85!!!!!! How can they justify a 300% increase? I almost don't believe it. Has anybody else applied for a visa from the UK recently? Have they changed the length of the visas so I can use this one again? I am going to call the embassy on Tuesday just to check again - the whole situation is beyond ludicrous.

[Felicity]

That is a big increase... but to be fair the UK charges far more for people to visit (though at least the visa is automatically valid for 6 months, not just the MAXIMUM of three)

[AMRWM]

It is not the amount in itself, mainly the huge increase. I also have a major issue that someone with an Irish passport pays £25 less for exactly the same visa - why?? At least the British government is equally horrible to everyone. Plus, if Algeria wants to increase its tourism, this is no way to go about it. I could travel to Tunisia and Morocco with no visa and to Turkey for a nominal fee. I will be interested to see what they have to say tomorrow.

Plus I know I am a primary school teacher, but it took my mum to point out to me that £28 to £85 is a 200% increase - not 300%! Oops...

[Sassy]

Sorry to say put i used to pay 14 euros for my visa single entry to algeria, it will be my 15th visit there since 2000 im planning on going for buisness reasons this time andit will cost me 100 euro how can they justify that

[Felicity]

my husband enquired about this when he phoned the embassy, and they told him that if you are married to an Algerian you can get a residence permit at your local Wilaya that will last something like 2 years, meaning you wont need to keep applying (and paying) for visas during that period.

[Sassy]

i am married to an algerian so yeah i suppose its worth looking into thanks for the tip but you know yourself if they can make it complicated they will....A few years back my husband and i were in france and decided to go to algeria, we went to the consulate in paris and were told you need to fly to london for the visa...were like WHAT so anyway in the end (only cos my husband knew someone from his neighbourhood) we got the visa for 30 days but when we got there we decided we wanted to stay for the summer (we were in paris in june) every 21 days i had to go to this office and pay nearly 50 euro for a longer visa it was so bloody stupid plus the guy was a sleaze bag dropping hints to my husband (oh i would love a pair of armani shades etc) seriously anyway thats my rant over with thanks again for the tip

[jellybee]

I can't believe it either! I'm pretty disgusted too! £85? You at least think that it would be processed efficiently for this price wouldn't you? But the paper mountain behind the counter at the office (probably all the photocopies of blank passport pages that their website fails to warn you that you need to provide yourself, meaning that if you are not lucky enough to have had someone else in the know passes this on, you end up having to go off and find somewhere that does photocopying (which cost us over £5 as well!) and queue again) ,suggests otherwise. Then told it will be 3 weeks to process! God knows what would happen if we didn't do it in person.

Also confused why a British one costs more than an Irish one? Whilst I do think that the UK charges are quite high for an Algerian we do have a high amount of Algerians wanting to come in to the UK illegally to stay and there are a lot of checks to be done but not really sure that the same can be said the other way round. I do understand that Algeria is very concerned still about potential terrorists but then surely that wouldn't be more expensive to check out us Brits than anyone else?

and what about how much it costs to fly there! Considering how close we are and the amount of passengers that fly there from the UK and back throughout the year! I've noticed Monarch do flights to the Sahara (one of the oil bases) but it's not from the UK.

As for them not helping to encourage tourism, well I don't really think the authorities are really bothered. Algieria is actually rich enough from its oil that they don't need it. Which is a crying shame.

I like to see my husbands family more really but the price is getting more prohibitive all the time!

Arghhh!