Help! Travelling Monday - Passport Expiry.

[invisiblebark]

Planned a day trip to Europe on Monday to go to a Xmas Market.

One of the kids passports expires on 16th January.

Will he be refused entry??

I believe you need at least 3 months left on the passport?

They won't, the law now requires at least three months validity from the date of your return.

His parent should have checked with him for the three months thing, but its too late now.

At least its an adult who can rationalise the mistake rather than a small child.

Possibly, I should have done, yes.

But I assumed either he or his DM would be aware of the rules and the dates on his passport so when I booked and asked him to come they'd have been able to say 'actually, Insiblebark, I/DS passport expires on X.'

It was booked as a last-minute thing, so there wouldn't have been enough time for a renewal anyway.

But lesson learnt. I'm pretty gutted and not sure what to do now.

Well he can't go; so you have to decide with your DP whether the rest of you are going or not.

Why should his mum be aware id she isn’t going on the holiday? Could his dad not have checked if someone had to ask him?

I think we will, yes, as otherwise we'll lose the £150 Le Shuttle Booking and the other four kids will miss out.

Too many others going to cancel IMO. At his age he can cope. You meant well. It's just bad luck.

If they're travelling by Eurotunnel they won't have bought an individual ticket for him. It just means he won't be able to go. The rest of them can still go.

@invisiblebark If you don't want to travel without him you can change your Eurotunnel tickets very easily and travel some other time, but it won't be for the Christmas market.

Maybe to you but every summer there are endless threads on here from posters in exactly the same situation, they aren't doing it on purpose, people make mistakes, you must know that even if you never make one yourself

It was booked pretty last minute.

It was more of an 'we're planning a trip to X on this date, do you want to come?'

But, in hindsight, either DSS, me, DH or his DM should have thought to check.

Brilliant.

If you can afford it could he go on a trip with his dad next year?

I have never heard of someone in real life doing that.
It's just stupidity, sorry but it is. Before you book anywhere check passports.

It's always on Mumsnet this happens. Never in real life.

Thanks for this. We've had a very hectic month. I'm off work at the moment due to autistic burnout and waiting for an assessment for ADHD. DH has been unwell for months after a bog standard cold type virus. And autistic DS 6 has been struggling lately.

We booked last minute to try and inject a bit of last-minute Christmas fun after having a rough few months. So this is quite gutting.

At DHs work they ask for a photo of the details page (and cover) a month beforehand as even apparently responsible adults can mess this up.

It's always a woman's fault, usually a mothers.

But again, why are you placing any of the responsibility on his mum?

If you see my follow ups, I'm not blaming his Mum at all. I said it was all of our responsibility to have checked. One of us should have had the forethought to check - that includes DH and his DSS. Both men. And yes, me, a woman. Probably mostly me as the booker, tbh.

Why is his mum getting any of the blame here?

DSS is an adult and you and your DH are the ones booking the holiday. Those are the only people that should be included in any blame

Im going to assume that there isn't an influx of posters lying about passports every summer and I do know two people this happened to, both feel foul of the 10 year old, both sensible people, just one of those things

I think that was aimed at PPs, not you.

I've read your follow ups, I'm not seeing why you are including his mum in this at all. Yet you mentioned her.

You can think you've checked everything and still get caught out.

I was going to two countries in SE Asia with 5.5 months left on my passport on the day I got back to the UK. Both countries were happy with just 3 months left.

Nearly was not allowed to fly as it turned out the airline wanted 6 months after my date of return. Which I had not thought to check. That did coincide with the home country of that airline but I was only transiting there, I did not think the rules would apply.

Luckily, I have two passports and was able to fly on the other one. Nearly a lesson learnt the hard way!

People will fall foul of the 10 year rule up until 2028 as the passports only stopped adding extra months in 2018 so the expiry date for Europe isn't always what's printed on the page.