Schengen Visas - Spain and Portugal Only

I would not have booked the tickets in and out 6 months apart without already having a visa secure. As you note, it is hard to know whether you will get the extension or not. I have only received student long-term visas, have never tried to get a tourist one, and I don't think many on here have. In my opinion, I would cancel your return flight. Either book one that is within the 90 day period, or leave it open to see if you can get an extension.

When you say the Spanish Consulate has not responded. Have you called them? Maybe you need to visit them. We have found the consulate in Chicago to be very help but was not dealing with visa questions. These are very technical matters that need to be addressed carefully. I doubt if anyone on this site has the knowledge that you need. We obtain a student visa for our son through the Spanish consulate in SF. It was straight forward but required a lot of documentation and time (about 8 weeks) and this is with the Study Abroad Office on his campus doing a lot of the work. Also, I am surprised that you would book a trip without this tiny matter being resolved.

Thanks for the responses so far, but I am already well aware now that the flights should not have been booked in advance of getting a Visa. My last trip to Europe was before the 90 day requirement was effective for all 25 Countries and all of my travel for the last 10 years has been in Central and South America where the 90 day limit is easily over come. My need for information and input is related to the possibility raised by Portugal's Consulate of being able to extend my Visa. Thanks for any insight you can provide.

This topic stretches the limit of what we know. Unless someone has specific experience with this in Portugal or Spain, you are best to just work with the Portuguese Embassy and hope for the best. Make sure you know all the details of what they will require so you can have the documents with you before you leave. Also make sure that a Portuguese Estada Temporaria allows you to exceed your 90 days not just in Portugal but the rest of Schengen too. As to your flights, you're best to have an open date return that you schedule a few weeks in advance. Most travel abroad students work that way, you get some of the benefit of a round-trip ticket without the set date of return. But if it will cost you to change now, you might just leave it as is and pay to change it if things don't work out.

In the worst case, short of changing the tickets, you could utilize budget airfares to spend 3 months in other locales not in the Schengen Zone. It is getting harder with recent additions, but Ireland, Great Britain, Croatia, Turkey, and even Morocco might be an option.

Thanks for the responses. I've decided I'm going to plan a new trip that will include three months in Spain/Portugal and three months in England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland. I'm going to keep my original flights and just book a hopper to London. It's much cheaper than rebooking my original flights. It will still be a great trip, just not the one I originally planned.

Debra; Since you will be flying to and from GB it should be easy, but make sure you keep your boarding passes or other evidence of your time outside the Schengen Zone. It is possible that an agent on exit from the EU will see your arrival 6 months prior and ask about your time in the EU. Having good evidence handy (I left this date, here's my boarding pass, returned this date, here's my boarding pass,etc.) will help greatly. You may well have some additional stamps in your passport to show movement, but it seems they stamp less and less. While they do scan your passport, that trail is always not available to the customs agent, or not at least immediately if there is a question.

that trail is always not available to the customs agent At the risk of sounding like some of the more pedantic members of our little club, can I point out that Customs have nothing to do with immigration, they deal with stuff. Immigration agents deal with people, therefore it is they who will be concerned. Most people traveling in or out of a country may be observed by both, but they do have separate roles.

'that trail is always not available to the customs agent' Maybe not, but it's immediately available to the immigration agent - - it's on the screen he's looking at right after he scans your passport. And it's in amazing detail - - what he does with the info might be discretionary, but it's there - - computations and all. (I get a chuckle every time I read the posts about saving hotel records, boarding passes, and stuff - - complete balyhoo/urban myth/wild guess.) The customs guy probably has a terminal somewhere where he could look at the same screen, but as Nigel says, he's interested in your junk.

My bad for using "customs" instead of "immigration", but the point being, regardless of technology involved, given the average professionalism of staff involved; having a couple boarding passes is only a prudent measure to answer questions at exit that otherwise would require a delay to settle, which, if you miss your flight I somehow think they would not pay for the ticket change fee. As I noted, flying to a non schengen country is a little more cut and dry, but many cross on borders and ferries where there may not be a trail. My general rule of thumb is in a case where the burden of proof is on you, have proof.