Ans. When travelling to the USA , please be prepared to give full details of where you will be staying on your first night, including address and full zip code.
These details will also be required to give this information prior to your flight departure. In view of this please allow extra time to check in.
The details, which need to be provided to UK Customs, are termed ?Advanced Passenger Information? (or API for short) and must be provided before one enters the country.
The API details that need to be provided include:
1. The address of the place where the passenger is spending his/her first night in the UK
2. And the addresses of all the places the person plans to visit during that first day within the country.
If one is entering the country via a sea vessel, then UK regulations will accept a ?transit to? address followed by the Vessel Name and the U.K. City of cruise embarkation, as a destination address in this scenario.
Failure to provide this information on entering the country could cause severe delays to the immigration process and may lead to fines being imposed on the airlines. 'Transit passengers' (i.e. those passing through the country, spending less than 5 hours in the UK) are exempt.
Many of the major airlines are also making every effort to ensure that the API requirements are fulfilled in a timely fashion before entering the country and are assisting passengers in getting the details to UK customs in a timely fashioned.