Visa Waiver

Today I paid $14 to the US Government. This annoyed me, because it was the cost of entering the visa waiver programme to get into the US this summer, in order to fly to Canada. Now, I know that the US has a lot of debt troubles and needs all the cash it can get, but it's a bit odd that I don't have to pay anything to get into Thailand, or Taiwan, or Hong Kong, or Canada, and yet I do to go to the US.

I suppose we British did own Hong Kong and Canada for a while, but then we owned America for a while too¹ so you'd think it would be a common courtesy to let us in gratis.

But no: I'm being charged $14: four dollars to process the application, and $10 to go to a fund to promote the US as a tourism destination. I work for a fairly large e-commerce company. If it took us $4 to process a transaction then somebody would be yelling. But then governments can be inefficient, that's their right. What's more annoying is the ten dollars to pay for somebody to promote the idea that visiting the States is a Good Idea. I'm already visiting - who are they trying to convince?

That's like me going to the shops, buying a meat pie, and after I've paid for it, having the butcher decide he's going to demand another five pounds to pay for the advert for meat pies in his window. If all the butchers hadn't been driven out of business by the large supermarkets, that is. And if butchers sold meat pies, traditionally the preserve of bakers. Preserve being a kind of jam. And I'm a vegetarian, so I don't even eat meat pies. No wonder I'm aggravated by the breakdown of this analogy.

I suppose really I'm annoyed because it seems like an unfair imposition. The visa waiver means I get into the US without applying for a visa, but it never used to cost anything to get the visa waiver, so effectively I'm paying for something I used to get for free, and contributing to a vaguely ludicrous way to promote tourism.

Hey, here's an idea: if you want more people to go on holiday in the US, why not remove some fees? You could make it at least fourteen dollars cheaper per person, if my arithmetic is right.

Or you could try and plead incompetence, like the time I rolled up to Hong Kong airport without a visa for Australia (that old "we used to own you" tactic doesn't work there either) and the exasperated check-in woman went off and sorted it out for me, Qantas paying the fee rather than me to have the visa added to my passport. Although somehow I'm assuming this might not be something I'll get lucky at twice in my life.

I've had it easy, I suppose. Personally I've travelled to the US for the last decade without having to pay anything. (Apart from my flights, the hotels I stayed in, the various contributions I made to the economy...) Whereas if you weren't lucky to be born in one of the visa waiver countries (like my Hong Kong chums) there are a lot more administrative hoops to clamber through. So there's that to be thankful for, but it's hardly the welcome mat, is it?

(And that's before we start going on about grumpy customs officials...)

The worst bit had to be when I started reading the fine print, and discovered that if you get the visa waiver, you'll be allowed in for up to 90 days (fine, I'm only there for a week) but if you leave and go into Canada, that doesn't count as leaving and you can't start 90 days all over again.

I beg your pardon? Doesn't that display just a tiny bit of arrogance? Or did you get so confused that you thought those jolly people up there with the maple syrup and the moose and all were just your 51st state? It's not like in Hong Kong anyone is that bothered if you come in for three months, pop out to Macau for the day, and then come back for three months more.

But then they're not worrying about losing out on $14, I suppose.

I'm sure when I get to the States, I'll be happy to meet the friendly Americans and all this will be forgiven. After all, I'm going to the famously unabrasive, cheerful, even overfriendly city of... New York.

Oh.

¹ Yes, I know, one was a lease from a country we did a good job of blowing up, and it's questionable whether you "owned" a continent if you just put some religious nutters on a boat and sent them across the Atlantic for a laugh, but I'm only saying this to annoy people anyway...