Is it a good idea to book flight tickets before getting a visa for a European Country to save money?

Question

I am going to Central Europe (Czechia) to start my PhD education from South Asia. Few years ago, I also went to France for my masters study and I got the visa on 3 September and book the flight of 6 September as my classes had already started in August last week. Ticket costed me 900 Euros to CDG Paris.

Now, I have applied for Czech visa 2 weeks ago (28 Nov). My father is saying that if it is possible that I can book flight tickets early for the date of 28 December so that I can get tickets cheap only if there is an option to change the actual dates of the flight for a small fee as compared to the actual cost of flight?

Are such options possible? Is this a good idea or I should book a flight only after I have gotten a visa?

Answer 1

We can't really decide that for you but what you need to take into account is that it seems very likely your visa won't be ready in time. I don't know about the Czech Republic but depending on the category, type D visas often take 3 to 6 months.

Then your choices are:

1. But a flexible ticket for the date you're hoping for, i.e. Nov 28 (your father's idea). That's definitely possible but may not be worth it, depending on the price difference.
2. Buy a cheap ticket for Nov 28 but be ready to ditch it. Even if you can't use it and have to buy another one later, buying two ticket might still be cheaper than buying a flexible ticket.
3. Buy a cheap ticket further in the future (March or April). Likely even cheaper than 2 and you're also less likely to have to rebook another ticket. Only drawback is that you and your employer have to be OK with the wait.
4. Buy a flexible ticket further in the future. Cheaper than 1, you will secure a fare and you still have the option of checking the fare difference and deciding if you want to rebook it earlier when the visa turns up.
5. Wait to get the visa to buy a ticket. The ticket is going to be more expensive than 2 or 3 but you won't risk having to buy two tickets and it might still be cheaper than 1 or even 4.

Besides the visa, the main source of uncertainty is the price gap between tickets. There is no guarantee they will be the same but you can check how much flexible and non-flexible tickets for tomorrow versus three months out to gauge what the difference might be and decide based on that.