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E-visa for Tanzania
Our safari is in July 2024 and I'm starting to look into how to obtain visas. The company suggested by Tauck, visacentral.com, has terrible online reviews, citing poor customer service, major rip-off tactics, etc. Has anyone obtained an e-visa using another method?
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We have used Visa Central for different visas in the past including Tanzania. You can now do them online. We are also going in July and our plan is to do that this time.
Cindy, what a date is your tour? You can PM me if you like.
You can do this online yourself. The major challenges are taking the photos and reducing the photo file to the size required. You can make your photos with an iPhone against a white background. I needed to research how to reduce the photo to the size required which took some time. Once you apply it takes a couple days to check back to see if your application cleared, if not you reapply. I emailed to request status and got a prompt reply. Using visa central seemed to require my doing the work then paying them a fee. It was a bit frustrating as I am not that computer savvy but if I can do it anyone can. We took copies but no one requested them on the trip; apparently it is all online.
This is a wonderful trip. Enjoy.
Thank you Augri! That makes me feel much better!
Thanks, British! I just sent you a PM. Hope it goes through!
I also figured out how to reduce the file size of a photo(s). It’s easy on a Apple computer using Preview. This was necessary to do with a photo of passports, another set of photos, itinerary and air flights. The pictures were actually easier than a paper with text on it. In that case, I screen shot the paper with text on it and then reduced the file size.
I’ve always done our K&T visas myself. I looked at visa central and filling out their forms is no easier than just doing the visa yourself … it just costs a lot more. The only problem I had was one time Kenya sent me an old visa from a past trip, and I did not notice until I got to the border. After a lot of hassle they just let me buy another visa. They were actually very nice and tried to help me solve the problem. I had the necessary info on my ipad but it was in the cloud and I did not have a Wifi connection.
We completed our own online for our upcoming Tanzania trip a month or so ago. Like Augrl said, sizing the photos was the hardest part. I scanned the extra copies of our passport photos and finally made it work. We had our visas within 3 days.
If you have an older version of MS Office you can resize photos in “Picture Manager”
I was able to get through the whole thing until the very end, when it wouldn't accept my Visa credit card. Has anyone else had this problem? .
According to another thread, yes they have. Maybe call Your credit card company to see if telling them to expect a charge from the site, incase it is them that is blocking, not the Tanzania site.
@Cindy Sommer Here was my recent experience: I have just gone through the eVisa process for Tanzania for an upcoming trip Tauck K&T trip in Sept 2024 and will pass on my experience navigating the epay section of that process. Once you have filled in all the eVisa details you will be passed to the Government of Tanzania Electronic Payment Gateway. (GePG). For me, that was where the fun began! For my personal visa, I had no problems. I used a Bank of America credit card. On entering the details and initiating payment, I received a text from B of A with a validation code. In it went to the transaction on GePG and two days later I had my visa. Using exactly the same process and credit card my wife's visa payment would not go through on GePG. Kept on getting a page saying check credit card details. I tried over the next two weeks using different cards (all B of A) and all failed at the same point in the process. I even went as far as generating a new Visa application for her, but with the same failure. Then this last Sunday I just tried the original file again with the original card and it went through no problem.So all this to tell you that you might have payment difficulties when you get that far. But it looks like if you keep at it, it will eventually go through. I am still not sure if the the problem is with GePG or the B of A banking interface. I would be interested in your experience when you get there. BTW GePG was totally unresponsive to multiple emails on the problem. So no help there. Good luck!!
I had a similar problem. The first payment went through, but the second did not. Two identical payments to a foreign country may be a trigger. You might want to call your CC company before making the payment to see if you can avoid this problem. I confirmed the payment with my CC company and it went through with no further problems.
Well, I have 4 applications pending... all submitted on 4/10 (4/11 in Tanzania). 2 went on my credit card. It was the second that flagged the fraud alert for me which then created an issue that I could not process the next 2 applications with my card. But they worked and cleared easily on my wife's card. I've checked the CC statement - all 4 charges cleared on 4/11. Now I'm in the waiting game. I sent them a quick, polite check in e-mail. Fingers crossed for no issues.
Wonder what’s taking so long! Ours came in 24 hours or less. Maybe they are getting busy or they are short staffed just now.Two out of the nine of us have been before and it’s clear that they know that which might explain the speed for those visas, but not the others. Maybe they think an elephant or lion doctor would be more use in the country than a Dogdoctor.😀
Most recent experience after my CC card debacle recorded above. Wife's payment accepted on Sunday 4/7/24. Visa approved Friday 4/12/24. But she did not get an email advising of approval. I had to go back onto the Tanzania eVisa site to check on the application status. That is where I found it it had been approved and was able to download it from the same location. The system does work, but it does have its foibles. Stick at it!!
@rwilso15 I'm having the identical experience as you. I submitted payment multiple times over several days and they were rejected due an unidentified problem, now today it went through. Now waiting for approval. Thanks for the encouragement!
Great news Cindy
On one of my visas I had to go on online ‘chat’ to get them to send the visa. They said they had emailed it three times. They finally texted me a link to get it online. If you have been approved but don’t have it, you should go the ‘chat’ route online. If there is not a problem it is very quick.
@Sealord - can you point or link to this chat feature you speak of? I have not seen that as an available option for communication regarding the visas.
Good news! All 4 of our visas cleared this morning... 5 business days later (same as @rwilso15).
😀
I don't see a chat feature either. For those who were successful, a couple questions: what did you folks use for "local host?" Is it Tauck or "self" (or something else?)? It asks for city of birth but the passport only gives the state - what did you use? Thank you!
It’s Kearsley
Put the state
I don’t remember where I found the ‘chat’ option. It may have been on the check visa application status page. I used it several times and they were very responsive.
As said before, there is not necessarily one right answer. For local host I used self, and that worked fine for me.
@Sealord - regarding the chat feature, I've searched the page as well as google searched for it and the only one that has a chat feature is another website that claims to also process visas and has a 24 hour chat service. Are you sure you are/were using the same site we are all talking about? https://visa.immigration.go.tz/ Feel free to look but I see ZERO chat feature and that certainly would have been helpful.
As an aside...my wife gave up on trying to help her parents work the visa system over the phone (they are in Iowa and we are in Massachusetts) and simply took it over and did it for them. After multiple LONG phone calls, files lost in folders they don't recall putting things in, the system crashing, etc... it was just simpler for us to do it for them. AND ironically my FIL's credit card took 4 tries over a span of 20 minutes before it worked. Sigh. AND then when she did her mother's application not 10 minutes later and tried the same credit card it failed. It failed on her mother's credit card too. She never did get it to work after several hours and she just put it on her credit card that worked for our last 2 visas and it instantly went through. Crazy! I love my in-laws, but I knew this was going to be a technical hurdle for them when I struggled with the applications!! I'm glad our hassle is over. Just waiting to hear how my Brother-in-Law is faring in Milwaukee but he seemed pretty confident he was doing OK with it this past weekend when they all spoke.
Sorry dogdoctor, my mistake. It was the Kenya eTA website that has the chat feature. They had approved my Kenya eTA, but after repeated attempts to email it to me, they finally sent a link to me via the chat line.
https://storage.crisp.chat/users/upload/session/c514459fcc9ed000/approvedtapdf …. This is the partial link.
Right now, I’m sitting in the new business class lounge at Doha airport…..the route we will be taking later in the year for our family safari. The lounge overlooks an indoor garden that reminds me of Gardens by the Bay in Singapore.
I feel so bad for everyone sorting those visas. I’m glad we got ours out of the way. I remembered some years ago, the INDIA visas were very complicated back then and my husband got so frustrated he was threatening to cancel the tour. I had to
beg him not to.
Beautiful photos, thank you @British! Have a wonderful time!
@Sealord - thanks for clarifying! I thought I was going mad!
@British - super jealous! how was the flight over? enjoy the lounge!! My option will be the Platinum & Gold North Lounge or the Gold South Lounge. Not nearly as fancy, but I won't care as much once my head hits the pillow in the Oryx Hotel! What is the date of your family tour? We are on the July 17th one.