AIBU to worry about passport validity for Channel travel?

[parallelignition]

Has anyone travelled across the channel with a valid passport going out but just short of the three months coming back? I don’t know why I’m so stupid as I knew I had to renew it but it completely slipped my mind. It’s a child passport and haven’t got time to wait a week for a passport.

Well if it has less than three months on your return date they can't travel on it and won't be allowed to.

You can get a passport faster if you're prepared to pay more and go to London for it x

I just did it successfully this weekend so good luck op. I’m normally very organised and if just completely slipped my mind, maybe the ferrry didn’t ring my usual checks. passport checked before boarding and arrival in Holland. And way back - no one said/noticed. I noticed the night before so had no choice. With a week I may try to get a next day one. I found a few reports of people making it through on ferries (and planes actually) so risked it and was lucky it was ok

Crikey that was lax of them!

You can’t get next day ones for children. Thank you Mmmm19 that’s very reassuring. How many days were left on the passport before it expired?

We were thinking as a last case resort we could cut our holiday short.

We did with DS at the eurotunnel and the British border chap reminded us to renew it. He’s a dual national though so had a French passport with much longer on it to show the French side, and it was the French one we put in the API for the outbound journey. Not sure how it would work if you only have the British, I suppose worse case you bring your return forward?

It expires end of October so we were about 10days short of the 3 months left. I think they don’t auto flag as it’s 3 months after your return date so not something they can calculate without knowing your return date - although I’d have thought they should have realised there wasn’t even 3 months when we left

Thanks for all your help. No stories of people being refused because of the return date so we’ll hope for the best.

In case anyone else is in the same situation, we crossed fine and no one mentioned the passport at all.