TASK DEFINITION: Given a travel related situation, and given a specific question about the situation, summarize the question into a title
PROBLEM: The H1B visa is valid starting from the 21st of September. If I take a multistop flight from New Zealand that passes through Honolulu and LAX on its way to Seattle, will my visa validity be checked at Seattle, or when I enter the US (Honolulu), or will it vary?

The stops at Honolulu and LAX are on the 20th of September local time whereas the arrival in Seattle is on the morning of the 21st.

I was just wondering because I would like to arrive as early as possible.


SOLUTION: When is visa validity checked when entering US on a multistop flight?

PROBLEM: I have not flown for about ten years: I was terrified by the idea of trying to entertain small children cooped up in a plane. Now that everyone's grown up a bit, I'm trying to book some flights to Europe.

Booking flights has changed a lot since I last did it: there are a lot more options available. And now I'm booking four seats instead of one, I really need to keep the prices down so I'm looking at budget flights.

I was very surprised to find that the cheapest British Airways tickets seem to allow no hold luggage at all - just two small cabin bags. So surprised that I couldn't quite believe it was true. But that does indeed seem to be the case.

So I went back to budget airlines and found a good price going out on EasyJet and back on BMI. I presumed these would have hold luggage in the price but, scanning the terms and conditions for these airlines, I'm now to so sure.

The question then is: do budget tickets now commonly exclude any hold luggage at all? And does anyone know if EasyJet and BMI standard economy class tickets specifically do exclude hold luggage?


SOLUTION: Do budget flights normally charge extra for checked luggage

PROBLEM: my main two questions are:

Can I travel to Europe having a ticket from US to Mexico and then another one from Mexico back to US (with 2 weeks difference) but going to Europe in the middle of those 2 flights (specifically, to Amsterdam)? Like kind of a trip to Europe and back but with a one day layover each way. I wonder if I would be able to re-enter the US after this trip or if I would have some problems at customs.

If not, do I have other options for traveling to Europe and coming back while having my TN expired but my I-94 valid? I was thinking of using my B1/B2 visa to re-enter the us (if that's a possibility).

I checked other travel stackexchange questions and none of them are asking for the specifics of traveling to Europe with an expired TN and whether the trip is fine as long as I depart to and return from Mexico.

The whole background for my specific situation is:

I'm a Mexican citizen and I've been working in the US for a few years now (always legally), my latest TN visa expired more than a year ago and my current employer filled an I-797C form to extend my working period validity (the document is listed as a TN2 class request). After filling that form, I received an I-797A “approval notice” mentioning that the extension was approved and such document ha dan I-94 at the bottom valid until 2021.

I have already presented my expired TN visa together with the TN2 approval notice (which has the newest I-94) to re-enter the US after several short term (less than 30 days) trips to Mexico but I never left Mexico in any of those trips. This time I want to do the same but traveling outside of Mexico in the middle of my stay, I want to do this trip, I even bought my flight tickets already but after reading different sources I don't know if I will be able to re-enter the US to continue working normally.

Another thing to keep in mind is that, I'm planning on changing my employer in about 2 moths (after the trip) for which I would need to apply for a new TN visa with my new employer and it doesn't make sense for me to get another TN visa with my current employer (for being able to travel anywhere).

I was reading this official government site and it explicitly says that nonimmigrant visa holders may be admitted at CBP if they meet certain requirements like “Nonimmigrants who departed the United States for brief travel to Canada, Mexico”. I would technically be doing a brief travel to Mexico but not sure if I'm ok by leaving Mexico in the middle of such brief travel.

In the other hand, I was also reading this other official government site which makes me think I will actually face problems when re-entering because of the part that says “ The person did not visit any countries other than Mexico or Canada in that period.”.

So I'm really confused whether I should do this trip or not (again, the total trip is only 2 weeks) because I need to be able to re-enter the US after that.

If I can't do this trip, I also believe there might be other ways of being able to travel that I'm not even aware of (other than requesting a new TN visa).

Also, I don't know if using my B1/B2 for re-entering is valid (or even recommended).

So I'm asking for people expertise in here to know a real answer on whether I can or cannot proceed with my travel plans (and any alternatives, if not).

Thanks in advance for taking the time to read.


SOLUTION:
Options for traveling to Europe and re-entering the US with an expired TN visa but valid I94