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?

Yes, 13, realised that after I posted. Still probably young enough not to pay it much heed.

@invisiblebark I realise this is probably irrelevant but from context I'm assuming that it is a British passport your dss has. If it was an EU one I think it would still be ok.

Well he won't get in. Why would he with 3 weeks left?! What a stupid comment.

Oh no! Obviously in hindsight you or DH should have checked (this isn’t something I’d expect an average 18 year old to know yet since they likely haven’t been involved in arranging much travel yet), but I can see how it would get missed, especially with a last minute trip and mum being keeper of his passport. Unfortunately it sounds like he’s going to have to stay behind this time. Disappointing but this won’t be scarring for him at this age. Is there an alternative treat DH can arrange for him? I’m guessing that could to a long way to softening the blow.

I’m a mid-30s professional who travels internationally roughly 30 weeks per year, and about this time last year I arrived in the US with DH and all 7 of our DC for a Holiday visit and got to spend several hours at the airport sorting things out because I had somehow brought only my UK passport with me… as a dual citizen I know full well that I need my US one to enter or leave there. We all miss things and just have to figure out the least shite way to deal with the problem.

Hopefully Santa will bring some of these posters trampolines next week since they seem to have a need to jump up and down on something.

June!

Yes, I agree - responded to a similar comment a few minutes ago.

Not sure having 6 months left on your passport makes you any more traceable than having 2 months or a month.

they are 18 years old and it’s a day trip. Looks like they will be sitting this one out. Unfortunate but a good life lesson for them. Make sure they understand why, and that it’s their responsibility to manage their own passport now they are an adult.

They are zippy atm, I sent mine off on Thursday and they received it Friday and I had the new one on the following Tuesday - sorry that that won’t help the OP though.

Duplicate

Thats so annoying. It wouldn’t occur to me that a passport wouldn’t be valid for travel before it had actually expired, I would have assumed it was fine to travel up to the 16th January. It is an easy mistake to make and strikes me as an odd rule that you can’t travel with under 3 months left on a passport, why give an expiry date if actually it’s not valid from another, sooner, date?

yes. You need 6months for a trip
to Europe. You made a grave mistake,
so disappointing for you all.

^ this - well said. Saddened by some really bitchy replies.

No you don't
You need 3 months remaining for Europe

Why does being a professional have anything to do with it?

You can travel home on your passport until the day it expires. Most countries (and the EU) have rules about foreign visitors not entering on a passport that’s about to expire to make sure you’re out of their country before it does.

When you get a new passport for you or DC, put a reminder in your calendar to renew a year or 9 months before the actual expiration date.

If he's 18 it's his own fault, he's an adult and should be able to check his own passport!

I actually included that just to needle you.

Either that or because the point of my story was to reassure OP that despite managing a career in which I travel internationally on a regular basis and am thus extremely practiced at it, I still occasionally overlook things like this when organizing one-off travel with my family.

I watch the tv programmes where people turn up without passports, the wrong passports or expired passports.

I did watch an episode where someone was in the same situation as you, except the passport belonged to a minor. The airline they were flying from contacted the airport they were flying to and they agreed to accept the family with the minors passport due to expire.

Might be worth contacting the airline, if they see a family coming through together rather than a single person, they may just bend the rules a little, seems like it can be done.

No you cant. When leaving the EU you need 3 months remaining so can't travel up until the expiry date.

Ok miss high and mightly.

The rules have become much stricter since Brexit.

Well other people clearly aren’t as perfect and wonderful (and smug!) as you, I guess!

My ex had to borrow his twin’s passport to go on holiday with when we were at uni. He’d forgotten his. Luckily the ticket was booked under J Smith, and one was John, the other James!

I was cabin crew for years and remember a crew member getting to America and not having her passport. Luckily they didn’t fine her, just sent her straight back. And when I was grounded for a while I worked on the ground. Loads of people turned up with expired passports. It’s easily done, sadly. Like I said, not everyone is perfect.

Me: OP, don’t get too down about making this easy mistake. Here’s an embarrassing story about me causing a huge travel delay for my entire family a few days before Christmas because I forgot to double check that I had both of my passports despite this being something I usually do every other week. No one’s above overlooking things like this on occasion.

You: Oh so you think you’re better than everyone else

Great mumsnet stuff, here. Just because someone’s overtly being kind doesn’t mean you can’t try to turn it into a fight.

If you are already in the EU and have less than three months left on your passport, do they stop you leaving?