ARAFAT: Some American Haj operators were almost forced to turn back after airport authorities initially refused to accept banker drafts as payment for transport and accommodation costs, it has emerged.
They needed to pay around $275 per pilgrim in order to secure their visas and pass through immigration. Arab News spoke to a number of tour operators and found most of them had faced the same problem.
Syad Hyder Ali, a representative of Sara International Travel, said the company had taken around 130 pilgrims with them this year. He added that they had secured bankers’ drafts to pay the outstanding visa costs at Prince Muhammad International Airport in Madinah, which had initially been accepted by the Saudi Embassy in New York.
“When we came to the immigration department in Madinah they told us, ‘no, we’re not accepting the drafts.’ So that’s a little bit tricky,” Hyder Ali told Arab News.
He said the problem was resolved when immigration officials relented and let them through because of the company’s exemplary track record.
Yusuf Abu Bakr, the son of the owner of California-based tour group Taiba Tours, said their delegation had experienced the same problem, also in Madinah.
Despite the initial problems at immigration American pilgrims were in high spirits on a blazing day in Arafat.
All of them had been in Mina when severe storms struck Makkah on Wednesday.
“We were actually very scared, because behind us is the mountain, so the water was gushing off of there. You could actually see little waterfalls forming,” said Hyder Ali.
He added despite the Saudi government’s focus on minimizing the impact of swine flu, the availability of H1N1 vaccines in the US had been extremely limited. Many pilgrims in the tour group, Hyder Ali included, did not have the jab, also due to skepticism about the effectiveness of the drug.
