i'm going to visit my lady in simferopol on febuary the 8th to the 16th for the first time. my question is she found me an apartment but because it's valentines day the owner wants me to pay in advance for 3-4 days of my stay.is this normal and if so how do i go about paying for it?another question, i was told i don't need a visa to enter ukraine but my flight stops in moscow with a 6 hour wait for my next one. do i need a visa to go to moscow if i don't leave the airport.sorry if this question sounds dumb but i've never even flown before let alone been international.thanks for any help
My first question is where are you flying from? Why the stop over in Moscow?
As far as renting apartments I have never had to pay in advance for an apartment in Ukraine. Standard is you are charged one day via credit card for your reservation. Then you pay for your stay on check out.
A modern day scam is for ladies to have a friend who has an apartment blah. blah. blah. and of course they want payment in advance, Valentines day, what bullsh1t, it ain't a national holiday or anything.
Just do a google search for 'simferopol apartment' and see what comes up, as has already been mentioned, a one day deposit is normal, no more.
Polock,
Are you sure this lady is legit, it is not customary to pay in advance and I'd like to bet she damn well knows that.
Try this website www.travel2sevastopol.com . They don't advertise apartments in Simferopol but the guy that runs it, Chris, is a regular in this forum and if he can't assist himself then perhaps he can point you in the right direction.
Gotta admit - the pay in advance thing for Valentines Day is really really fishy. The women over their ARE familiar with Valentines Day (its not like Thanksgiving for instance, which is only celebrated in the US and FSU ladies haven't got a clue about).
Have to agree with Martin on this one - sounds like someone is about to be scammed.
Left an entire line out - agreeing that, though Valentines Day certainly IS celebrated in FSU it ISN'T a holiday and there is NO REASON you should be expected to pay in advance. I cannot imagine that flocks of guys come in to rent apartments for days the weekend before Valentines Day.
SOMEBODY - is looking for an excuse to get you to part with a few days of rent and this is a pretty lame excuse.
if I had never meet the girl the laast thing I would do would be to let her organise things,
better book apartment throught one of the bigger marrage agencys,
in Simferopol Athena is the better ones,
and if things dont work out or she is not as genuine as you first thought, you can turn to them and maybe meet someone else who you like,I seen this happen many times here,
Even if the girl is genuine but she does not live up to the letter she writes or maybe she thinks the same about you !
but either way if you are in a city or even a Country that you Know very little about and have know one to turn to yo will feel very isolated,
its always best to keep your options open !
nasfan6,or anyone who can help, i'm leaving from jfk and then i go to heathrow london ,then moscow,then finally to simferopol. my whole situation started of like this, about a month ago when i decided to go visit my lady i was going to stay in a hotel because i knew nothing about the apartment thing. she looked for about a week then she found one about a 10 minutes from her house.i asked her if i had to pay for it in advance and she said no way.then about 5 days ago she said the lady wanted me to pay for 4-5 days of my stay in advance.she never mentioned anything about knowing the person who owns the apartment.when i asked her how i would pay for it shesaid i could use western union but the people at her agency said that would be expensive so she gave me 3 bank accounts i could use.they have the so called addresse of the apartment with it but i'm not to sure what to do.i told her i would pay for 1-2 days of the stay but i wanted to use a credit card.i'm only going to she just her and if when i get there if she's a no show does anyone know how hard it is to get something last minute.i don't really want to pay for something else now if i don't know if i'm goingto need it or not and i also don't want to hurt her feelins and tell her i don't trust her with this hole thing. joe
Joe,
In my experience a bank transfer takes about a week before it arrives in the recipients Ukrainian bank account and my bank charge me GBP25 for the transfer and they use a less than favourable exchange rate.
If you are to pay approx USD50 in bank charges for such a small amount then it makes the apartment quite expensive. This Valentines day excuse is simple crap, yes apartment owners can be greedy but this one is being plain stupid, and greedy.
I would probably use the excuse that because you have not seen the apartment you do not know if you will be happy in it, be able to live & sleep in it, thus you do not want to commit to more than 1 night without seeing it.
Just do a google.com search and there seem plently of apartments, just as an example this site http://apartmentsincrimea.com/list/ only ask for a 1 night deposit and can be achieved by credit card. Suggest you politely tell her to tell the owner a 1 night deposit via credit card, if they can't take credit card then you will pay on arrival and if they insist on more than 1 night then tell them, not her, to take a hike and you'll source another apartment off the internet.
Joe,
I have been through this with my fiance. Bank transfers from the US are generally more expensive for amounts less than $500. Also the money will usually not be available for one week to ten days if a bank transfer is used. You will be far better off using Western Union for most transfers. I do hope you know someone at the agency before you send any money. My advice would be to go to a site like www.russianinternetguide.com. This is the site for Kiev Rent. They manage apartments throughout Ukraine, in fact I see three listings for Simferopol. Just an aside Joe, you could have flown Aerosvit Airlines direct from JFK to Kyiv non stop.
yes i found some flights that flew to kiev and then to simferopol but this flight only cost me 700usd. so in order to save a few bucks i'll switch planes a few times.
To be honest Joe I have been through customs in Kyiv four times now and have not had my bags opened yet. I have brought two neclaces in and not claimed them. Now that I have said that I am sure the next time I go I will probably be stripped searched. lol.
Polock,
Whenever you enter Ukraine, I never been via Russia so I don't know how you'll get on there, you are asked how much money you have and if you have any gifts.
Now if you arrive and clear customs in Kiev Borispol, providing you say 'no' or 'net' with a straight face then they tend not to bother any further. My personal experience with police at the regional airports is that they are still looking to scam the foreigners.
If you are routing via Kiev then just be careful, if you are flying direct from Moscow to Simferopol then be very bl00dy careful.
At the moment they are big on the presents in kiev,never a big problem before, it might have been because it was coming up to Christmas ?,
If they see Jewlery that is not yours they will try to take a lot of tax off you,if you stand up to them you might get away without paying , but they know how to imtimadte !!!
I have never had a problem, they searched me once for 1 hour once, but they found nothing , I had 3 big bags and not declared much money,and once some idiot did not like my passport, its a little worn ,but I have sean far worse, again kept me for a hour and did nothing, just told me to get a new pasport,
I still use it now without any problems !, but its something to consider if you have a connecting flight ! always alow plenty of time,, but thats twice in maybe 20 visits so its not a regular thing,
if you are coming via Moscow you will be in transit and not leave the airport so it wont affect you
Google search for you local Russian Consulate and then go to the consulate section, there should be instructions & procedures there. Don't forget, you will need a doble entry visa, I would presume you are returning back to JFK via Moscow also.