ESTA for the US - no travel dates yet

[whimsicalmoon]

Hi everyone,

Quick question about the ESTA for the US. I'd like to sort it out now in case I need to travel at short notice (health stuff means I can't plan far ahead) and I just wanted to check with anyone who's done it recently that it's still fine to do it without having any solid travel dates/plans? Can you just put down the address of the place you want to stay or something, even if you haven't actually booked anything yet?

Also, I saw a comment here recently from someone who said it expires if you don't "activate" it within six months by travelling to the US. Is this true? I've never heard of this before, but then previously I've always just applied for the ESTA once I had solid plans to travel.

Many thanks!

I actually just had a reminder from the ESTA people that ours would expire soon, so to renew it.
So they're actively encouraging people to do so without plans!
We always have one in place, just in case.
Never heard about the 6-month expiry thing: surely that would be written on it in big red letters?!

Yes, I'd like to have it sorted, as it's quite a faff and I wouldn't want to be doing it under time pressure. Mine actually had six months to go, but I had to renew my passport.

I had never heard that either about the six months, literally just read it on a comment here. Wondering if that person got the wrong end of the stick because it doesn't sound right at all.

I've never heard of the 6 months rule and we've continually renewed our ESTA's for the last 8 years.

We always like to have them just in case we book a trip. And we've always been advised to do them before parting with our money just in case they're declined.

There's no six month activation rule. You don't need to put an address on the application at all, you can leave that blank.

I've always thought it a bit daft that they ask for that information anyway, with the ESTA lasting two years, you're unlikely to be staying in the same place over multiple visits, or even one visit in many cases!

Oh, and yes, best to have it before you book a trip. Approximately six months wait for a visa appointment at the moment and you never know for sure that your application will be approved. I read a tale of a nine year old boy being refused, when the rest of his family were all approved. No idea why, possibly had the same name as someone on the no fly list 🤷‍♀️. That said, our recent application was approved in under an hour.