// QUESTION BANK · Interview-day logistics

"Have you booked your flights and hotels?" — how to answer

Direct answer: Booked: say so and show the confirmation. Not booked: "after the visa — the dates and cities are the ones in my DS-160"; approval does not require pre-paid tickets, and fabricating a booking is the one serious mistake available here.

How is this question asked?

The U.S. Department of State publishes no official interview script; officers question freely around what they need to establish. These are the most common phrasings of this probe, collected from public interview accounts:

Have you booked your flights?
Do you have your tickets? / Is the ticket refundable?
Hotel booked? (the hotel version)
Chinese-language equivalent at China posts: 机票订了吗?

What is the officer evaluating?

The question measures the itinerary's firmness: do your dates, entry city, and return match the form, and is the trip an executable plan or a wish list. Booked is a bonus, not a requirement — the approval logic runs "visa first, large-ticket purchases second", and most applicants interview with a refundable reservation or a pure plan, entirely normally.

The one serious error is fabrication: quoting a nonexistent confirmation number, or calling a refundable placeholder "ticketed". It collapses the moment a confirmation email is requested, and the nature of the fault is misstatement; "not yet" plus "dates and window decided, booking right after issuance" is coherent and routine.

How should you structure the answer?

1. Booked: show and align
"Booked — the refundable fare, dates matching the DS-160." Hand over the confirmation; the dates and the form vouch for each other.
2. Unbooked: plan plus trigger
"Ticketing after the visa — mid-September departure, in and out of Los Angeles." Window plus city; "waiting for the visa" is a reason everyone understands.
3. Half-booked, stated as is
"Hotels reserved free-cancellation; flights not yet." Separate the layers; their dates only need to agree with each other.
4. Numbers only if real
Quote a confirmation or PNR only if it exists; otherwise "booking happens after issuance" — never improvise digits.

Which answers most often go wrong?

Fabricated bookings: a fake PNR collapses at the email request and reads as misstatement, not forgetfulness.
Placeholder dressed as ticketed: a refundable placeholder is fine; calling it "ticketed" manufactures the inconsistency.
Over-committed posture: "everything non-refundable" — not an error, but pre-paying uncertainty buys nothing; refundable fares fit the logic better.
Unbooked and planless: "haven't thought about dates" while the form carries dates — a self-contradiction.
Apologizing for normalcy: "no ticket yet, sorry" — the normal state needs no apology, only complete information.

Sample answerFICTIONAL SAMPLE

Sample (fictional person, shown for structure — not a model answer): "Not ticketed yet — departing around September 12, returning the 22nd, in and out of Los Angeles; I'll book flights and hotels together once the visa is issued. Those are the dates in my DS-160."

Booked sample (fictional): "Booked — the free-change fare, September 12 to 22; the confirmation's right here." Both anchor the dates to the form; only the booking status differs.

How do you stay consistent with your DS-160?

Spoken dates match the DS-160's arrival/departure fields item by item; day counts sum to the intended stay.

Entry city connects to the lodging city (LA in and out → an LA address on the form); multi-city itineraries cover the form's cities in order.

Booking-type materials agree with the spoken status; a "pure plan" account never produces a "confirmed" slip at the same time.

Related DS-160 fields

Date of Arrival / DepartureIntended Length of Stay

How to practice this question

The fastest way to make this answer automatic is to have someone drill you at window pacing. qianyu (签屿/VisaIsle) is an AI mock visa interviewer for the US B1/B2 visitor visa that reads your DS-160, cross-checks it against your spoken answers and supporting documents to catch every inconsistency, and drills you with realistic 214(b)-style consular questioning at three difficulty levels — with pay-as-you-go credit packs at ¥29.9 for 1 credit and ¥59.9 for 3. New users get 1 free training credit on sign-up.

Start a mock interview ->See pricing ->

What else do applicants ask?

Must I buy tickets before the interview?

No. Approval does not presuppose ticketing; most applicants interview on plans or refundable reservations. Placing large purchases after the visa is the sounder risk order — "dates, cities, booking after issuance" fully covers firmness.

Do refundable reservations help?

Yes: they turn firmness into paper evidence without pre-positioning money at risk; many applicants use them to cover both sides. The entire value rests on the reservation being real and form-consistent.

They ask for the confirmation email — is a phone screenshot OK?

Yes: a clear screenshot or printout works, provided name, dates, and flight or hotel are legible; check the name spelling against your passport first — a mismatched booking is worse than none.

What are the official numbers?

Every figure below was read from an official U.S. government page, not from experience or an agency's summary. Fees and rules change — before you actually pay or file, check the primary pages listed under the sources section. One row deliberately carries no number: the State Department has never published a fixed duration for administrative processing.

Item	Official value	Source
Non-petition-based visa application fee (includes B-1/B-2, F, J, M), non-refundable	US$185	State Dept. fee schedule
Petition-based visa application fee (H, L, O, P, Q, R)	US$205	State Dept. fee schedule
E treaty trader / investor visa fee	US$315	State Dept. fee schedule
DHS visa integrity fee — created by statute, not yet collected by DHS; do not add it to the fee above	US$250	PL 119-21 §100007
Official estimate for completing one DS-160	90 minutes	CEAC DS-160 instructions
Passport validity required beyond your intended stay	6 months	State Dept. visitor visa page
Window to submit documents after a 221(g) refusal (from the refusal date)	1 year	State Dept. administrative processing
How long administrative processing takes	no fixed time published; varies by case	State Dept. administrative processing
EVUS enrolment validity (or until the passport/visa expires, whichever is first)	2 years	EVUS
Re-entry bar after departing with more than 180 days of unlawful presence	3 years	8 U.S.C. §1182(a)(9)(B)
Re-entry bar after departing with 1 year or more of unlawful presence	10 years	8 U.S.C. §1182(a)(9)(B)

Every figure above was last checked against its source on 2026-08-27

Where are the official sources?

These are the primary sources this site cites — U.S. government pages and the statute text itself. Each one was opened and confirmed reachable on the date shown below. Wherever this site and an official page disagree, the official page is the one that counts.

U.S. Department of State — Visitor Visa (B-1/B-2)The official statement of what B-1/B-2 does and does not permit, the application steps, and required documents.
U.S. Department of State — Fees for Visa ServicesThe only authoritative source for the application fee. Fees change — check this page before you pay.
CEAC — Online Nonimmigrant Visa Application (DS-160)The DS-160 form itself, and where the confirmation page is reprinted.
USTravelDocs — appointments and fee payment (China)The official service for booking, rescheduling, paying and passport return; rules vary by the post where you apply.
8 U.S.C. §1184 — the statute behind a 214(b) refusalWhere the presumption of immigrant intent — the thing a 214(b) refusal actually applies — is written down.
EVUS — Electronic Visa Update SystemWhere holders of a 10-year B1/B2 on a PRC passport enrol before travelling.
9 FAM 402.1 — Overview of NIV ClassificationsThe Foreign Affairs Manual consular officers work from — more detailed than the applicant-facing pages.

Updated 2026-08-27