Super Visa Flight Itinerary: What IRCC Expects from Visiting Parents

Use a flight reservation for the flight part of a Super Visa application, not a ticket you have paid for. IRCC asks your parent to state the dates they plan to stay in Canada, and the same department recommends delaying travel until the application has been finalised. An unticketed reservation with a real six-character PNR answers the first point without exposing you to the second.

This guide is written for the person in Canada doing the paperwork, usually the son or daughter who is hosting. It covers the flight itinerary, and the surrounding requirements that officers do check line by line.

What does IRCC expect for the flight part of a Super Visa file?

IRCC does not publish a rule saying a Super Visa application must contain a flight booking. The official forms and documents list covers the letter of invitation, proof of the host's income, private medical insurance and an immigration medical exam, and nothing on that page asks for a ticket.

What the application does ask for is a travel plan. The visitor visa form asks your parent to enter the dates they plan to stay in Canada, and an officer is deciding whether the visit looks genuine and temporary. Dated flights make the plan specific instead of vague.

That is the whole job of the itinerary. It shows an arrival date, a return date, real flight numbers and a route that matches the story in the invitation letter. It does not need to be paid for to do that.

Should you buy your parent's ticket before the Super Visa is approved?

No, and IRCC says so in its own words. Its guidance on visitor visa applications states that, if possible, it recommends delaying travel until the application has been finalised, and adds that having pre-booked travel plans does not guarantee approval and that IRCC will not give refunds for lost travel expenses.

Processing times vary by visa office, and the application fee is not refundable either. So a family that books first is betting a long-haul fare on a date nobody can promise.

The trap is that the form still wants dates. You cannot leave the travel plan blank because the decision has not arrived, and you should not buy a ticket because the decision has not arrived. We wrote about that bind in more detail in should you buy a flight ticket before visa approval.

How does a flight reservation solve that?

A flight reservation is a real booking that has not been paid for. It is created in one of the global distribution systems, Amadeus, Sabre or Travelport, and it holds your parent's name, the flight numbers, the dates, the route and a six-character PNR, which is the booking reference airlines and officers use to look a booking up.

Because no fare has been paid, there is nothing to lose if the decision is slow or the dates shift. You get a document that looks like an itinerary because it is one, and you keep the fare decision for after the visa is in the passport.

This is the only thing we sell. Dummy Ticket 365 issues the reservation and emails it within minutes, and you can see how it works on our dummy ticket for Canada visa page.

What are the real Super Visa requirements your parent has to meet?

The Super Visa rules are specific and checkable, so get them right before you worry about flights. According to IRCC's eligibility page, the host must be the applicant's biological or adopted child or grandchild, be a Canadian citizen, permanent resident or registered Indian, be at least 18, live in Canada and meet the minimum income requirement.

Your parent must be outside Canada when the application is submitted, must take an immigration medical exam, and must have a letter of invitation written and signed by you. IRCC asks that the letter include proof you meet or exceed the minimum necessary income, the list and number of people you counted in your family size, and the name and date of birth of each of them.

The insurance requirement is the one families get wrong most often. IRCC requires private health insurance valid for a minimum of one year from the date of entry, providing a minimum emergency coverage of 100,000 dollars, issued by a Canadian insurance company or by a foreign insurer authorised by the Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions. Your parent needs proof of that policy on each entry to Canada, and the after you apply page says to be ready to show proof of paid health insurance at the border.

We do not sell insurance policies and we do not sell hotel bookings. We issue flight reservations, and the insurance has to come from a provider that meets the rule above.

How much does the sponsoring child need to earn?

The host income threshold is published as a table by family size, and the figures were updated on 29 July 2025. They are 30,526 dollars for a family of one, 38,002 for two, 46,720 for three, 56,724 for four, 64,336 for five, 72,560 for six and 80,784 for seven, with 8,224 added for each additional family member.

Family size is bigger than most people expect. You count the applicants, yourself, your spouse or common-law partner, your dependent children including any in shared custody, anyone you are still hosting on a previously approved Super Visa, and anyone you previously sponsored whose undertaking is still in effect.

There are two ways to meet it, set out on IRCC's proof of financial support page. Either your income, plus a co-signer's if you have one, met the minimum in one of the two tax years before you submit, proved with your notice of assessment from the Canada Revenue Agency, or it reached at least 75 per cent of the minimum in the year before you submit and your parent's own income closes the gap.

Does your status in Canada decide what your parent needs, or their passport?

Your parent's passport decides. Your citizenship or permanent residence is what makes you an eligible host, and it does nothing to change the entry requirements that apply to them.

Those requirements follow the travel document they will travel with, which is why IRCC sorts its entry requirements by exactly that. A visa-required passport means a Super Visa printed by a visa office outside Canada, and IRCC states that if your parent needs a visa they must travel with the passport that contains it.

If your parent holds more than one passport, settle which one they are applying with before anything else. The reservation, the application and the passport all need to carry the same name in the same spelling.

How long should the flight reservation stay valid?

Match the validity to the window where somebody will actually look at the document. A reservation is a held booking and it expires, so the aim is for it to be live when the file is reviewed, not for it to survive the entire processing time.

For a visa application centre appointment you already have a date for, the two day option at USD 13 is enough. For an online submission where the file sits for a while before a review, the seven day option at USD 19 or the 14 day reservation at USD 21 gives a wider margin.

If the decision drags past the hold, you do not need to panic and buy a ticket. Issue a fresh reservation with updated dates, which is the cheapest fix available, and we covered the whole situation in what to do when a reservation expires before visa approval.

Can a visa officer actually verify the reservation?

Yes, through the GDS, which is where verification happens in practice. The PNR is a live record in Amadeus, Sabre or Travelport, and that is what an officer, a visa application centre or an airline agent queries when they want to confirm a booking exists.

One detail trips people up. Most airlines show only ticketed bookings on their own websites, so a live unticketed reservation often will not appear when your parent types the PNR into the airline's site, with Emirates and Etihad as the usual exceptions. The booking is still real and still visible in the system that counts, and we explain the mechanics in do embassies verify flight reservations through the GDS.

Tell your parent this in advance. Otherwise they check the airline site, see nothing and assume something has gone wrong.

The same point applies at check-in and at the border. Airline staff at the counter work from the booking record, and a border officer in Canada is looking at your parent's passport, the visa and the supporting documents they carry rather than an airline web page.

IRCC also notes that a valid Super Visa does not guarantee entry to Canada, which is worth saying out loud to a parent travelling for the first time. The documents they used in the application are the documents to keep in the hand luggage, including the insurance proof.

What dates should go on the itinerary?

Use the same dates everywhere. The arrival and departure dates on the reservation should match the dates on the application form and the visit described in your invitation letter, because an officer reading three documents will notice if they disagree.

A Super Visa allows a long stay, and IRCC says applications submitted on or after 22 June 2023 make your parent eligible to stay for five years at a time. That does not mean the itinerary has to show a five year gap between flights. Show the visit you have actually planned, and your parent can extend the stay later through the normal route.

If the visa is issued for dates that do not line up with the reservation you already filed, that is a fixable problem rather than a refusal. Read what to do when visa dates do not match your flight reservation before you change anything.

What does a Super Visa flight itinerary cost?

Ours costs USD 13 for the two day reservation, USD 19 for seven days and USD 21 for 14 days. If you are paying from Canada, the same three options are CAD 18, CAD 28 and CAD 30 on our Canada pricing page.

Each one is a single unticketed reservation with a real six-character PNR built on Amadeus, Sabre or Travelport, delivered to your email in minutes. Compare that with a long-haul fare bought before a decision that IRCC will not reimburse if plans change.

What do families get wrong on the flight part?

The expensive mistake is buying early. The common small mistakes are a name on the reservation that does not match the passport exactly, dates that contradict the invitation letter, and an insurance document that is a quote rather than proof of a paid policy.

The other one is treating the itinerary as the heavy lifting. It is not. The host income, the invitation letter, the insurance that meets the one year and 100,000 dollar rule and the medical exam carry the application, and the flight reservation is the piece that stops the travel plan question from costing you a fare.

Get the rest of the file in order, then order the reservation in the days before you submit, so it is live when somebody opens it.