I thought I would make a post on this as this is something we were concerned about when booking our trip to Peru. When I bought my ticket from Gatwick to Lima, stopping off at Madrid, the travel agent told me that technically you need a ticket for onward travel otherwise they won’t let you in to Peru.
I looked this up and this is accurate as you need to show evidence that you are leaving the country directly (not just a flight out from a different country to home). I had a flight back from Argentina to Gatwick, which can help show evidence you aren’t staying there, but you can still get a hard time.
Basically it almost seems down to luck if you get picked out and asked about this, but in London we didn’t have any issues, nor did we at Madrid or in Peru. Once you get to Peru they really are relaxed and more than happy to welcome you, so once you get onto the flight you really don’t have any issues.
One tip I will give, which is a bit shady but will help, make your own fake ticket. We got a ticket for a holiday we had booked previously and just edited and printed it out, showing a trip from Peru to Bolivia, therefore if they gave you a hard time, you could show the ticket and there not going to thoroughly investigate.
Obviously the safe route would be to buy your onward ticket and potentially cancel the ticket once you arrive and get a refund, which is definitely possible, however you may have to pay a few charges and is a lot of extra work.
If you have had any related experiences, do let me know as I would love to write about it. If so, write a comment or send me an email and I will feature it in this article.