Has anyone done this before? When you apply for a visa you show one ticket but fly on a different one. Is that okay or could it cause problems?
The itinerary for the consulate must show departures from Russia and returns to Russia — that’s a requirement for the application documents, not for how you actually travel. A visa grants the right to visit the Schengen area, but it doesn’t oblige you to take the exact flight you showed. The only important thing, if it’s a multiple-entry visa, is that the first entry and exit should preferably be into and out of the country that issued it.
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There was a round‑trip itinerary to Russia; I requested the Italian one. Thanks, that’s clearer now. And later, when I apply for the extension, won’t they question that I flew on different flights than the ones I showed?
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The biggest problem with an extension is proving that you used the visa the way you claimed. Did you apply for an Italian one? Under Schengen rules, a visa must be applied for in the country where you’ll spend the most days on your first trip — and they check exactly that at your next application.
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I received a Spanish Schengen visa and want to enter through Italy — the visa manager says that if I don’t enter Spain, next time they’ll refuse. I will spend more days in Italy, so formally I should have applied through the Italian consulate in the first place. So I’m wondering: can I apply through Italy next time, or will they also refuse because there won’t be a Spanish entry stamp?
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Entering Italy for the first time via other countries is possible — I know, for example, that you can travel that way; some people drove through several countries by car and everything went fine. If your next trip is mainly to Italy, apply through the Italian consulate and submit everything correctly — the passport stamps will show where you actually were. The absence of a Spanish entry stamp isn’t a problem if you spent fewer days in Spain.
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When reapplying, they check the entry stamps, not the booking from the first application.
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If you’re flying from outside the Schengen area with a connection inside it, you clear border control at the first Schengen airport, not at your final destination. Intra‑Schengen flights have no border checks, so you can go into the city as soon as you’ve picked up your luggage. The entry stamp will be from the transit country, not the one you ultimately flew to — and that will be taken into account at your next application.
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