Thanks for the link Rhoody. That's the good news. The bad news is that Annabelle and pretty everyone else resident in the Philippines Republic gets equally "hosed". Annabelle will need to dig deep for her 2K (or whatever it turns out to be) as welll. The object lesson for the OP and all the rest of us who reacted to this, is not to ASSUME that foreigners or a particular class of visa holders is being singled out for special treatment. That the fee is not buried in the ticket price and paid separately is indicative of the Filipino mistrust of everyone. Ever wonder why the airport terminal fee is not ticketed? Ever wonder again why there is another employee stationed about 20 feet from the terminal fee vendor? There is no trust. The traveller gets to pay the salaries of both redundant functionaries.
With all the fees and stops along the way, it is HIGHLY recommended to get to the airport a MINIMUM 2 hours before your flight!
Exit Fee If you think that's bad, I'm a permanent resident so I have to pay, my wife and daughter are dual citizens, and they also have to pay!!! Possibly the only country that charges their citizens to leave home.
I remember leaving the airport for the US happy to have a few thousand peso's still in my pocket, till I got to the departure gate. The PI goverment has learned how to extract every Peso from its visitors and temporary residents.
Since you are in Manila, why not go to the Bureau of Immigration in Manila, and get the correct info straight from them, and take your wife with you there so she will also know straight from the immigration people that you needed to pay to leave.
Having contributed to the confusion on this point earlier today, I'll now try to sort this out a bit. The OP and several others attempted, incorrectly, to make this a foreigner isue. It isn't! The Bureau of Immigration will likely be somewhat surprised by my Email to them. Maybe thery will politely answer it as a tax issue and put it aside. I now urge others NOT to write or visit on this issue, It's not theirs. The tax, in short, applies pretty well universally to residents of the Philippines Republic. Rhoody's post, above, spells this out fully. How the fee is collected is determined by ticket purchase. An airfare sold in and ticketed in the Philippines will have the tax embedded into it. A ticket sold elsewhere, likely will not. Hence the screams of foreigners. Relax folks, take a valium and chill out! If you have a beef at al (and you likely don't) it is with whoever sold you your ticket. Physically check your ticket. If you have already paid, it will say so! Now that We've returned home, I checked our Hong Kng tickets. Yes, Rhoody, Cebu Pacific managed to get it right. Now Annabelle and I only have to find PP750 each for the terminal fee.
Well, I know I never paid the "travel tax" when visiting the Philippines on a tourist visa, and only had to start paying it after getting the 13a. So I guess one could say that a particular class of visa holders, AND residents of the Philippines are indeed being singled out; not so much for what I'd call "special treatment", but for a travel tax. I want to give Rhoody a special thanks, for so kindly posting that link to the Philippine Toursim Authority, and also for his always polite and kind deMEANor toward Americans.
There was a young lady of Cebu Who filled her bilat with glue She said with a grin If they pay to get in They can pay to get out of it too
