Overseas travel during pending application but can't book return leg yet

[gofornaturalisation]

Hi all,

Just wanted to get some advice regarding travel abroad for a few weeks while my application is being reviewed. It's a reasonably long post so I apologise in advance.

I need to travel abroad in a few weeks and I will only be away for approx. 3 weeks, give or take a week. However, I can't yet book the return leg until quite close to the intended date of the outgoing leg and I'd like to book the outgoing leg ASAP, hence my predicament.

I know from the naturalisation booklet available online from UKVI (regarding how caseworkers should treat an appication) that caseworkers should treat my intention to have a principal home in the UK as valid if:

"- I have been, or intend to be, absent from the UK for not more than 6 months, OR
- the absence was, or will be, clearly temporary".

My issue is, will UKVI think my absence is not temporary if they can only see the outgoing leg booked in over the next couple of weeks (before i purchase the return leg), therefore calling into question my intention to remain? Secondly, how do they even check this, is it based on Advanced Passenger Information (API) or the actual booking/purchase of tickets itself?

I intend to fly Qatar Airways and on their website is the following:

"For your safety and security, and to conform to aviation regulations, we are required to collect information about passengers travelling to specific countries [they are referring to API here]. Please note that we are also compelled to give certain governments direct access to airline passenger bookings. However, we assure you that we only provide the precise information requested by customs and immigration authorities."

Does anyone know if UKVI retrieve actual booking details or just API? If just API, would it be sufficient to just delay inputting the API for the outgoing leg until I purchase the return leg and am able to input the API for this leg at the same time?

Perhaps I'm overthinking it but I want to avoid unnecessary scrutiny and I don't want to have to contact UKVI to tell them all of the above because it feels like a faff that also draws unnecessary attention to my travels.

If anyone is able to help out, I would really appreciate it. Thanks in advance all.

[Zerubbabel]

Authorities receive the Advance Passenger Information not the bookings. Companies are not dumping their bookings database to the Home Office. It's useless. So technically, if you leave the UK, nobody knows if you have a return ticket or not and with which airline. There are so many ways to come back. It happens that people leave with an airline and return with another.

[gofornaturalisation]

Hey mate thank you for your response. I agree in theory that bookings can't possibly go to HO, what threw me was that underlined passage from my first post. Who the heck are they sending booking details to and why?

As you said, i hope not HO!