The trip itselfQuestion 7 of 11
“When are you planning to travel?”
The short answer
Tell the officer your plan: roughly when, and for how long. Don’t buy the tickets yet. The State Department says plainly: "There is no guarantee you will be issued a visa. Do not make final travel plans or buy tickets until you have a visa."
The advice going around
Book the tickets to show you are serious
The reasoning is that a confirmed booking proves the trip is real. The State Department's published advice is the opposite, and it is about money rather than credibility: there is no guarantee a visa will be issued, so do not buy tickets until one has been.
At the window
The same question, answered two ways
What most people say
“December seventeen, sir! Tickets already booked. Non-refundable, so you have to give!”
What works
“Sir, December, for two months. And next time, tickets after the visa.”
A ticket doesn’t make the visa. Book after you have one.
His inner voice · episode 7
A non-refundable ticket won’t make the officer say yes. It only makes a no more expensive.
Check it yourself
What the embassy actually publishes
The State Department says not to buy tickets before the visa is issued
There is no guarantee you will be issued a visa. Do not make final travel plans or buy tickets until you have a visa.
Read 17 October 2026
The rule behind it
What the law actually says
A US visa application starts from the assumption that you intend to stay
The officer does not start from neutral. The law tells them to assume you intend to stay, and the burden is on you to show otherwise. That is why almost every question is a way of asking the same thing: what brings you back.
Every alien [ … ] shall be presumed to be an immigrant until he establishes to the satisfaction of the consular officer, at the time of application for a visa [ … ] that he is entitled to a nonimmigrant status.
What we can and cannot do
We are licensed for Canada (RCIC R710507). We help with US visitor visa applications, and for US legal advice a US-licensed immigration attorney is the person to ask.
Where this stops
What this page does not claim
This page does not say a booked ticket counts against an application. The point in the published advice is the money that gets spent on a trip that may not happen.
Keep going
The rest of the interview
Before the window
Send us the file before the interview, not after.
We read the DS-160 against what the officer will ask, tell you which answers are doing you harm, and say plainly where the gaps are. If the honest answer is that nothing is wrong, we say that too.
Three fields · about 30 seconds