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Original poster

Child’s passport only has 2 months on it. Flying to Spain on Saturday!

668 replies

olympicsrock · 15/02/2022 10:39

Help!!!
Just discovered that my 10 year old son’s passport only has 2 months left on it. We have flights booked to go to Spain on Saturday. .

Has anyone travelled to Spain on this situation recently? What happened?? Were you refused permission to board the plane?
I have phoned the passport office . There is absolutely no way to get a passport for him in the next 10 days as need to do face to face for child renewal , no appointments til next week abs then a week to deliver by post.

OP posts:
Thread gallery
6
PAFMO · 20/02/2022 18:24

The post was just about the job the OP does.
Not clear if she was posting from Barcelona or Bridlington. Wink

WouldIBeATwat · 20/02/2022 18:24

I meant that the OP was active today. Not that she’d given any indication of what had happened.

Namechangehereandnow · 20/02/2022 19:35

toanew no stress here .. just disbelief at idiotic responses to something so basic, that has now passed anyway.

Ellmau · 20/02/2022 19:53

What happened in the end, OP?

Original poster
olympicsrock · 20/02/2022 20:08

@Noangelbuthavingfun and @WouldIBeATwat . We changed the flights in the end to another school holiday. All too stressful to make a mad dash to the passport office for half a holiday.

Thanks again those of you who posted kind wishes.

Planning a lovely staycation all together. Lucky to live in a beautiful part of the country.

OP posts:
Noangelbuthavingfun · 20/02/2022 20:13

@olympicsrock phew that's a relief! Enjoy the time off and looking forward to the holiday to come !

hellithurt · 20/02/2022 20:37

[quote olympicsrock]**@Noangelbuthavingfun* and @WouldIBeATwat* . We changed the flights in the end to another school holiday. All too stressful to make a mad dash to the passport office for half a holiday.

Thanks again those of you who posted kind wishes.

Planning a lovely staycation all together. Lucky to live in a beautiful part of the country.[/quote]
That's good news! Enjoy your staycation and your later vacation!

Ellmau · 20/02/2022 20:52

Excellent news. Enjoy your staycation now, and the abroad holiday later on :)

Dutch1e · 20/02/2022 21:20

@Paterson8080

We fly to Mallorca every year. One year we turned up and discovered (at check in) that youngest child's passport was about to expire. Not a problem as Spain made an exception to this rule (and we were told is the only country that does so). This was at least 10 years ago and of course we were in the EU at the time so the rules may have changed ....
Yes, perhaps they have Hmm
PenStation · 20/02/2022 21:23

Sounds like a good outcome. Smile

ClareBlue · 20/02/2022 23:52

[quote WaterBottle123]@olympicsrock There are NO appointments left in the entire country next week? Really?

My boss had this situation and drove 700 miles to Liverpool office to sort it...[/quote]
Where is 700 Mike's from Liverpool by car?

ClareBlue · 20/02/2022 23:52

Miles that should be

blueshoes · 21/02/2022 16:49

Great update - enjoy your holiday

McKDil · 27/08/2022 21:20

We had the same situation. We had no idea of the new rules. I was just checking the COVID rules to Portugal when I stumbled across the 3 month rule on the expiry date. My daughter had 8 weeks left on her passport. So we, like you tried to get an emergency passport appointment but the soonest we could get was on the day we were leaving (today) and with the 1 week on top of this to post it to us we would have been home by the time this happened. ]

We thought we would 'wing it' and hope that no one would look at my daughter's passport properly. When I read these messages and realised that we could reschedule our flights and cancel our AirBnB we decided not to risk it.
It was gutting. Really annoyed about BREXIT, as before this we could have just flown without thinking about it.

Now we know and it won't happen again. We just have a holiday next summer to look forward to. However Ryan air charge a huge amount for rescheduling flights! Almost the cost of the flights one way. Very sad. We should be in Portugal tonight... never mind. We are alive and well and the kids took it quite well. The bizarre thing is we can fly to America no problem!! Used to be America that was difficult to visit.

As you can tell I am not a BREXIT fan. Our Portuguese relatives will have a party without us this weekend. 😔Please tell all your friends who are travelling, I wished someone had told us in time.

McKDil · 27/08/2022 21:22

Does anyone know anyone who managed to get through with under 3 months on their passport?
Wondered how strict they are at the airport.....

dementedpixie · 27/08/2022 21:47

I very much doubt they are lenient at all with passport validity

MarinoRoyale · 27/08/2022 22:03

I travelled to Europe over the summer and the passport checks are noticeably more detailed than pre-Brexit, they’ve properly studied the information and asked more questions each time. I don’t think there’s any wriggle room now.

blueshoes · 27/08/2022 22:04

McKDil · 27/08/2022 21:22

Does anyone know anyone who managed to get through with under 3 months on their passport?
Wondered how strict they are at the airport.....

It is not so much the airport in Spain that you are worried about (Crete Heralkion did not even check passports, I am aware this is Greece, not Spain), it is the UK airport/airline that will be strict. The airline won't let the child get on without the 3 months left otherwise the airline can get fined.

If you try to wing it, then at least one adult has to stay with the child if the child is refused and also miss the flight. What will the rest of the family do? Board (and parent joins later without child or renew the passport (enough time?) and both parent and child join later) or all cancel? You don't want to be making these decisions on the hop, so have a plan.

CreepyDibillo · 27/08/2022 22:05

McKDil · 27/08/2022 21:22

Does anyone know anyone who managed to get through with under 3 months on their passport?
Wondered how strict they are at the airport.....

Difficult to say, I wouldn't risk it.
Having said that, we did manage to get into a Spanish Island last week without our covid passes, despite being asked for them. I had checked a few weeks before and they'd dropped mandatory vaccination, must have changed it back without me realising. Anyway, we weren't prepared with them to hand and it was the day the NHS app went down so couldn't access them. Lots of passengers on our flight in a state of panic and in the end they just waved us through and said don't worry about it!

Poppyseed14 · 27/08/2022 22:18

We flew last week from Gatwick to Lanzarote with Easyjet. My daughter's passport expires in January so has over the required amount of time left. It flagged up though at the boarding gate and it said boarding denied. I initially thought it was because I had downloaded the boarding passes incorrectly as I had requested a mask exemption for her and I had to redo the boarding passes but the guy at the boarding gate said no it was because of the time left on the passport. We were able to fly of course but just to let others know that there is no winging it as it flags up automatically. Last night tonight in Lanzarote 😔

Poppyseed14 · 27/08/2022 22:22

@CreepyDibillo we had the same last Thursday at Lanzarote. I almost died when I couldn't get into the app. Didn't help with my OH asking me had I not taken a pdf of my vaccination certificates. Nobody likes a smart arse 🙄🙄 But like you they didn't look for them.

blueshoes · 27/08/2022 22:32

Issues with the covid vaccination certificate are quite a different kettle of fish from irregularities with the passport. There is no comparison.

chilliesandspices · 27/08/2022 22:52

When I went to Turkey there was a woman with a child who's passport didn't have the right length of time left. She managed to get through from the U.K. unnoticed but the officials in Turkey spotted it and refused entry. They were organising a flight back to the U.K. for her family as we left. Not something I'd risk myself though she seemed genuinely surprised.

blueshoes · 27/08/2022 23:07

Worth checking your travel insurance to see whether it covers this situation, like the family in Turkey who got sent home. I suspect the insurance does not cover because it is a known event. Something to bear in mind if you are thinking of winging it.

XelaM · 27/08/2022 23:15

Unfortunately I don't think it's possible to wing it. I think it gets flagged by their system.

The closest we came to rules being bent for us was a few years ago when we were flying to Turkey. I have dual German/British citizenship and was flying with my German passport and my daughter was flying with her British passport. It stupidly didn't even cross my mind that she required a visa for Turkey as German citizens don't. The airline didn't want to let my daughter board the plane, but we begged and begged and begged and spoke to whoever we could speak to at the airline to allow us to fly. They said we would be refused entry in Turkey, but miraculously allowed us to fly. It took us about 10 mins to sort a visa at the airport once we arrived in Turkey. What a relief that was! Very different to the current passport rules though.