To shout at everyont to CHECK YOUR PASSPORT ISSUE DATE!! Not the expiry date...

[FusionChefGeoff]

I used to work in travel for fucks sake.

Both DH and my passports are not valid for our upcoming holiday to France as they are issued more than 10 years ago as of last week. They are both 'in date' if you look at the expiry date - but I completely forgot / missed the fact that doesn't matter any more.

Your passport MUST be less thatn 10 years old based on the issue date for you to travel to the EU.

Luckily, I can go to Peterborough on Monday and there are appointments for a 1 day service but fuck me £450 for 2 passports.....

Thank God I checked today and not the day before we leave.

Jesus I am still shaking. Hope I can help someone else avoid a holiday disaster with this public safety warning.

I can't see the point of the expiry date now so many places need you to have at least six months on it. They seem to expire effectively several months before the actual date.They should be issued with a renewal date.

Shaking though? What do these shakers do when something really dramatic happens? I got run over nearly, I think it was done on purpose because I support the Labour Party.

This - it was all agreed by the UK as part of the Brexit deal.

Yeah, it was the French's fault 🙄. Not the UK politicians creating a bandwagon.

Why do you feel that suddenly having a holiday pulled from under you is not a dramatic event?

I can only surmise you are rolling in money with lots of holiday entitlement. For many it's a once-a-year event and very much anticipated.

YABU. You've seriously not seen any of the 100s of sad face stories reported over the last few years..

She didn’t have it pulled from under her though did she? She’s getting it sorted.

Thank you for taking the time to post this, OP. I have a UK passport, but live abroad. I wasn't aware of the "issue date" rule, as opposed to the expiry date. Have just checked mine in a mad panic (luckily it's ok), so I can definitely understand why you'd be shaking. It's an expensive and stressful mistake. Enjoy your holiday!!

She is now, but when she initially realised the situation there was no guarantee she could get it sorted in time.

She was probably highly stressed at the time, and all that emotion doesn't just evaporate just because you sort something out. We can cry with relief at times.

Who are the EU passport people exactly?! We should blame everyone who voted for Brexit and every politician who told them to. Turkeys voting for Christmas.

Because we refused to be.

It's a Brexit Bonus and has been A Thing for nonEU passport holders as long as I can remember

This!
OP is only trying to help. There will be people reading this that don’t know this.
The rude beggars with nothing useful to add should jog on 😡

I went to France last year on an invalid passport because it was over 10 years old. Realised on the way home that they should not have let me in. I got lucky 😊

Put a sticky note in your passport now?

That’s because they have some agreements with the EU that the U.K. hasn’t replicated thugh. We could if we and the EU wanted to… The U.K. didn’t.

Exactly this ! The ‘oh I travel all the time , I’m so wise and oh so much better than you ‘ brigade do my nut in . I’m sure your superiority about passports and Switzerland etc will make your holiday all the more impressive. While I’ll just sit on a beach , drink cocktails because some kind soul thought to remind me to just check some thing I’m not familiar with . Get over yourselves please .

Got caught out by this in 2022. Didn’t realise it was a thing until I was at the gate trying to board the plane, only to be told I couldn’t. My arseh*le partner decided he would go alone. Got the last laugh though as he’d checked his case under my name and was met by a case full of dresses when he landed in Montenegro!

I wonder if the “Evil UK attempts to stitch up the EU” narrative is as prevalent on the continent as the Boris Johnson “EU steals all our money and makes us have square bananas” narrative has been in the UK since forever.

@KTheGrey im European and I’ve had the ‘chance’ to follow the Brexit debate form both sides.
In the EU, people were hoping the U.K. would somehow stay. There wasn’t a feeling of ‘U.K. is trying to stitch the EU’. But there was a clear feeling that there was no reason for a special treatment for the U.K. ie a situation where the U.K.,would be out of the EU but somehow still benefit from the EU as if it was still inside. They were also keen on having the rules being followed. Those rules were written years and years ago and yes we’re set up to discourage countries to leave.
But the whole square bananas etc etc… Nope.
And tbh there was no need. The U.K. was bad enough in the negotiations to not need to demonise it 😁

This. ^ But why let plain obvious facts get in the way of a good Brexit bashing?! Everything is Brexit's fault ya know! 🥱

I mean, when you are booking a holiday abroad, checking your passports first is the most obvious thing to do. Everyone I know does it. Saves any 'shaking and crying...'

I'm embarrassed for the people who didn't know this! This is entry level shit!

But sometimes you forget….
And that’s fair enough too.

The OP just sent a warning to others. That’s a nice thing to do. No need for bashing her or others about it.

I've never seen one of these and never knew, despite travelling to EU in the last few years.

I didn't know. I've travelled abroad once in 25yrs. So thank you OP as I'm considering going abroad again in the next year.

I bet there are many things I know that people on here crowing about "entry level shit" don't but can't imagine a world where I'd spend time trying to make them look small. You know what you know and that's down to myriad factors. Mocking people on the Internet is always a choice.

What EU passport people? Each country issues its own passports and has its own rules. Just as the UK did while still a member of the EU.

Lots of things have, there's stuff you don't know about either no doubt!