Under 18s travelling unaccompanied to Portugal - help!

[Wigeon]

So my DD and two friends have decided they want to have a foreign holiday this summer and booked a youth hostel in Portugal (they all work as swimming teachers which is how they are paying for it). They will be 17, 17 and 16 when they travel.

Because they are unaccompanied under 18s, to enter the country, Portugal requires them to have a letter of authorisation from their parents certified by a notary. All fine - but the letter has to give the name of the adult in Portugal who will be responsible for them while they are there. The youth hostel has told me that I can't use their manager's name.

Help! Has anyone else got round this?

Here's the Foreign Office advice about how the letter has to state the name of the responsible adult:
www.gov.uk/foreign-travel-advice/portugal/entry-requirements

It is fine, just make sure they have the letter. Ds17 and his friend 17 traveled to Portugal on new years day. He had the letter at all passport controls and was not asked for it. When they got to Portugal he tried to give it to passport control but was told if the UK let you out then we will let you in! It was definitely worth him having though for his peace of mind and it had our photocopied passport details and our signatures.

just to add we did not use a notary. They stayed at a hostel and did not need any other adults info.

I would be more inclined to take the FO and the Portuguese authorities seriously than someone who was lucky to get away with not following the stated rules.

Can you go with them but stay in a hotel nearby?. It’s likely going to be the only way around this issue.

How are they getting there? I’m a travel agent and we aren’t allowed to book flights or accommodation for under 18s travelling alone as they can’t legally enter into a contract? Lots of hotels won’t accept them either.

EasyJet allows them to book at that age. DS stayed at a youth hostel type place which like the UK allows over 16's. He stays in them in the UK with friends as well.

My nieces were 14 and 17 last summer and they were asked to produce this letter by the immigration authorities at Lisbon airport. First we had heard of it! Luckily the authorities were able to reach my sister and the girls were meeting me there so it worked out.

Thanks - interesting they weren't bothered by it not being certified by a notary. The cheapest quote I've got (from four notaries) is £80 per letter!

Don't worry, I am definitely trying to follow the rules! And to be fair to the past poster, she does seem to have followed the rules apart from the notary part.

Go to Portugal on your own Holliday at the same time?

Unaccompanied minors fly all the time! We've booked through easyJet and they definitely allow unaccompanied under 18s (having triple checked before we booked).

Then they are staying in a youth hostel (part of Hostelling International, not just some dodgy dive) which states on their website they allow under 18s to stay unaccompanied. Possibly it said unaccompanied over 16s are ok, but they are all over 16.

Good idea, but a) I think that would go down like a lead balloon with DD and friends as the whole point is that they want to do the whole trip themselves, and b) we want to go somewhere else on our family holiday, with DD. And we aren't going to have two separate summer holidays.

@slugsinthegarden so they didn't have a letter at all, let alone one saying who the responsible adult in Portugal would be? I am definitely going to do the letter, AND get it signed by a notary - it just sounds like it might be ok not to state a responsible adult in Portugal. I can't believe they are the first older teens in history to go youth hostelling in Portugal alone??

See above I'm afraid!

To be honest notary was not mentioned to me so i think ds was not aware!! He did have a fab time so all this will be worth it for the fun they will have. Ds felt very safe in the hostel

I think that requirement is open to interpretation, it sounds like it assumes the 16/17 year old would be visiting relatives or something, rather than staying in a hostel.

I would word the letter by giving the address of the hostel and putting underneath the name of the manager, but just as information, not explicitly saying this person is responsible.

Technically, whether they like it or not, that manager kind of is responsible for their guests, so it's not wrong.

Unaccompanied kids fly all the time! My 13 year old niece is flying to visit me in Dubai - booked through a travel agent.

Well yes they do, but as a pp said, they are usually delivered by an adult, supervised on the flight as part of the Unaccompanied a Minors Service, and collected by a responsible adult, (with the correct paperwork and proof of identity), at the other end. This is mandated for children under 14 and recommended for children over 14.
easyjet do not allow any unaccompanied minors to travel - they allow over 16’s to travel as an adult….. which is where you have got into this grey area of them
travelling alone but without an adult to take responsibility for them at the other end.
The youth hostel have accepted a booking for them, but are refusing to act as the responsible adult…. A hotel wouldn’t accept them at all, and if you had tried to book their travel as a package you wouldn’t have been able to.

Of course they do, but you are collecting them at the other end as the responsible adult? You can’t just put children on a plane and hope for the best, there are regulations.

plus it depends on the airline, BA for instance, don’t accept unaccompanied minors under 14 at all, some airlines it’s 5, some 12…..

Over 12 yrs, the Unaccompanied Minors service isn’t mandatory, but it is recommended, and some airlines won’t let minors travel without using it even if the child is over 12.

You can put under 18s on a plane and not collect them, my youngest went to Geneva on his own at 16 no letter required, went to Greece at 17 no adults again. Oldest inter railed at 17 booked his own accommodation. Another DC flew to NY at 14 with nothing more than a letter from us saying we knew they were travelling - in this case they were being met but no asked any questions straight through security.

@Wigeon

As an ex airline manager my only words of advice are if you send them alone on a flight and they get diverted or cancelled due to circumstances they'll be stuck somewhere will they be ok if the plan doesn't work out!

My old airline would look after under 18s as no hotel would take them on their own bit if there were too many of them or no hotel rooms that would be a night or two in the airport lounge!

The issue to worry about, and the reason why the Portuguese government requires the name and contact details of a responsible adult, is not the flight, but the stay.

Do you have a plan for if one of them gets seriously ill/injured and someone has to sign off on a consent form for emergency medical intervention? Or, more mundanely, if one of them has their passport lost/stolen and needs emergency travel documents from the consulate? What does the travel insurance policy say about the lead passenger being under 18?

Ds got travel insurance fine at 17. I do agree they need to be aware of what to do if things go wrong but ds had his phone, kept in contact and both dh and i have passports and could fly out if needed. If they are responsible then they will be ok. Ds17 much more responsible than ds24. When he was 18 he went to Magaluf and honestly I was seriously worried! He was fine though.

I mean, they're going to Portugal, not the Antarctic - they have internet, phones to contact one of six parents - we'd work something out.

Before agreeing to this, I went through with DH all the kinds of things that might go wrong - drinking too much, injury, going off with strangers, getting sexually assaulted, mugged, passports stolen, everything stolen etc etc etc! But honestly DH and I went to Russia when we were only just 18 (not GF/BF at that point!), only a few years after the collapse of the Soviet Union, no internet, no computers, no mobile phones, stayed with random Russians (on a scheme but they weren't vetted or DBS'd), no one spoke English, rang my parents occasionally from a public phone box.

We will talk to DD in advance about these scenarios and how to keep herself as safe as possible, and what to do if bad things happen.

I think mobile phones these days make a huge difference because of anything happened they'd have instant access to six adults (ie the parents of the 3 of them) who would be able to advise exactly what to do. And we will go through with them what to do if all three of them get their phones stolen at the same time.