URGENT - UK Flight Tickets - before Schengen visa?

Hi all,
My parents are coming to visit me in the UK. They will be visiting Europe while they are here. They now have their UK visa and will be applying for Schengen visa shortly. My question is, should I buy their India-UK flight tickets BEFORE applying for schengen visa?

Their Europe trip is fully booked via star tours - starting and returning to London.

Thanks
Tulipz

Reservations of bokoings are sufficient for regular Schengen applications. Many embassies explicitly mention not to make any definitive bookings/payments to make sure you don't waste money incase of a visa refusal.

Ofcourse I'd make sure that it's very clear that your parents will continue on to the UK to visit you and then go back to the UK. If they have a UK visa be sure to point this out too so the embassy can see 1) they can indeed continue on to the UK as planned 2) earns them more credit as genuine travelers who will not plan on doing something silly such as illegal settlement.

Thank you Donutz.

To clarify, their return tickets for London-Europe-London are booked and paid for. Their accomodation in Europe is booked.

My intention is to bring them to UK as soon as they get their Schengen visa. So, is it okay if I book Bangalore to London flight tickets AFTER they get the schengen visa? Or is it mandatory to show return tickets to Home country (India) ?

According to the Visacode (visa rules) a reservation of return transport is sufficient:

1. When applying for a uniform visa, the applicant shall present:

(a)documents indicating the purpose of the journey;

(b) documents in relation to accommodation, or proof of sufficient means to cover his accommodation;

(c) documents indicating that the applicant possesses sufficient means of subsistence both for the duration of the intended stay and for the return to his country of origin or residence, or for the transit to a third country into which he is certain to be admitted, or that he is in a position to acquire such means lawfully, in accordance with Article 5(1)(c) and (3) of the Schengen Borders Code;

(d)information enabling an assessment of the applicant’s intention to leave the territory of the Member States before the expiry of the visa applied for.



(...)


B. DOCUMENTATION ALLOWING FOR THE ASSESSMENT OF THE APPLICANT’S INTENTION TO LEAVE THE TERRITORY OF THE MEMBER STATES

1.reservation of or return or round ticket;
2. ....

Source: http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/ ... 32009R0810

As far as a Schengenvisa is concerned a reservation from the UK (or India) into the Shengenareaa (France) and then into the UK should be sufficient. And as far as I know the UK visa rules also do not demand that you buy tickets but that less relevant for the French, they simply wish to see reservations for tickets that show that they will enter and leave France/Schengen-zone to any other area where they will be sure to have access to.

Just incase an embassy has some made up rules, double check on the embassy's website in question what they say. Or check with the optional service provider (TLS, VFS) which is more and more used but officially can be bypassed in favour of direct applications at the embassy (saving yourself a service fee).

Donutz wrote: And as far as I know the UK visa rules also do not demand that you buy tickets

Thats correct. They applied for UK Family visitor visa and got it approved without flight tickets.

I will check with the embassy tomorrow.

tulipz wrote: To clarify, their return tickets for London-Europe-London are booked and paid for. Their accomodation in Europe is booked.

My intention is to bring them to UK as soon as they get their Schengen visa. So, is it okay if I book Bangalore to London flight tickets AFTER they get the schengen visa? Or is it mandatory to show return tickets to Home country (India) ?

It's not mandatory the show return tickets to india as they would not be returning to India from Schengen. London - Europe - London ticket is sufficient along with multiple entry UK visa.
If you are planning to bring them soon after schengen visa, you can book the ticket in advance anyway - usually schegen visas are granted within couple of days in India.
If you are not purchasing India -UK tickets in advance, include a letter explaining your plan (just to make things clear) and provisional travel dates.