ESTA - point of contact?

October 1, 2019 2:05 PM

I'll be travelling to the US soon and while my ESTA is still valid, my friend who I originally stated as my point of contact no longer has an address in the US (he's just travelling around the country at the moment) and his visa expired recently.

He claims he's in the US legally until the end of this year and that he also plans to renew his visa. Could this be problematic however? Also this time I'll be travelling to a different state than the point of entry in my ESTA (but I think that should be okay). Can anyone help? Unfortunately I don't have enough time to apply for ESTA again using a different point of contact. Thanks!

posted by U.N.Owen to Travel & Transportation (3 answers total)

They’d probably only ever try to contact your friend if you went missing or something. I’ve never been questioned about those sorts of details in entering. It might be different if you’re on the wrong side of an agent’s prejudice
posted by moorooka at 2:19 PM on October 1, 2019

You can go into your existing ESTA online and update your destination/address. It is expected that a tool that is valid for two years, I.e. can cover multiple trips, has to accommodate a traveller staying in more than one location. Also, they are interested in the street address, you can even enter a hotel, you don’t need a personal contact. So if you feel the need to make changes, just change the destination. I have done that a couple of times. Other times I just left the historical destination in the ESTA and provided the current address in the API for the airlines and it was always fine.
posted by koahiatamadl at 12:48 AM on October 2, 2019 [2 favorites]

Response by poster: Thank you both! I have updated the address in my ESTA and hopefully it'll be okay.
posted by U.N.Owen at 2:48 PM on October 2, 2019