Should the whole family forfeit the holiday?

soco1

Murphy_The_Cat wrote: »

pssst, what's Petty France ?

It's the name of the street where the Passport Office is in London.

soco1

innerpeas wrote: »

is it possible to travel from the ujk to france without a passport? some people tell me yes, and others no...

Officially no - after all you are crossing an international border.
The free movement within Europe just refers to within the countries signed up to the Schengen agreement which have got rid of their internal borders. Of course this doesn't stop any UK national being free to travel to and work in any EU country but a passport is required to cross the initial border into mainland Europe.
Having said that it is very easy for people travelling by ferry to travel without passports as the UK hasn't has embarkation checks for over 10yrs and the French Frontier Police don't appear to be bothered about people travelling with just driving licences as ID, even though they don't prove nationality!

Getting back into the UK would however be delayed whilst your ID is verified which could cause you to miss a ferry and incur additional costs.

No-one would realistically dream of trying to board a non domestic flight without a passport but for some reason people think going by ferry is different.

Basically when travelling outside of the UK you need a passport.

becs789

Last year this actually happened to my family, my husband, son and myself were literally just loading the car to travel to the airport when someone jokingly said have you got the passports and are they all valid, so i checked and to my horror my husbands and run out the month before. i was devistated not that we were going far or the holiday was really expensive, just because i hadn't thought to check, you might say well it was your husbands passport therefore it's his responsibility, however i feel that it was ours, so inside we went on to the passport office nothing could be done today as it was a Saturday but they made him a appointment for the Tuesday first one available, then on the net trying to find a flight out asap after the appointment, that was a little more tricky however that sorted we all then drove to Gatwick my son and i on the flight and husband to follow the Tuesday night, which all worked very well shame the holiday was only for a week so he only had 3 days in the sun. If it was one of my childrens passports that would have made the choice much more difficult and doubly expensive to get another flight, but i would have tried and explained that accidents happen and if we were unable to get flights renew passport etc we would get there one day in the future, it certainly would not have made me divorce my husband.

keeli3

this happened to me a few years ago. i was on my mums passport and had no idea that because i turned 16 a month or so before that i could not fly on it. the people in the airport said it would not have been a problem had i been going to spain or something but i was going to greece. my dad was all set to not go but i pleaded with them to go and i would try and get a passport sorted. so off they went and i went off to liverpool to plead with them to sort out a passport asap, another problem was that i had changed my name when i was younger and could not find my change of name deed, so had to get it in my previous name. so i waited for the passport to be delivered, im so glad my postman realised what it was and he signed it for me as i was asleep. as soon as i found it i called a taxi got down to the airport and tried to get a flight. i flew out on my own, something i found hard as im not a very confident person.

this is just one of the many holiday disasters we have had.

MarkyMarkD

I'm shocked and disappointed that two different people have suggested insurance fraud as a means of dealing with this, entirely avoidable, situation.

Insurance fraud is theft. Insurance fraud is the reason that insurance premiums are as high as they are - a huge proportion of travel insurance claims are fraudulent, either completely false or inflated.

I'm also not "missing the point" with my view that half of the family should go, leaving the other half behind. Children need to learn to deal with disappointment as it's a part of everyday life. Making the other parent and child miss their holiday, for no reason, doesn't make the child who's staying at home any better off.

4isnotenough

LOL check and check .... its easily done - we had a panic a few years ago trying to get my baby's passport in time. yes we applied, yes we did everything but the new born baby's photo was not quite right and we had to do it all again THEN the passport office failed to look in the envelope and missed the second half of our form and sent it all back again ...by then it was just a couple days to go ...

so depite having mistakes made by the passport office at this stage we just paid to do fast track pass port and we just got it through by the skin of our teeth!

lady_stardust

Wow, a hard dilemma for once!

I think I would phone up the holiday company first and see about an amendment, maybe even move the holiday to next year if that was all that could be done. If a suitable amendment can't be done, then no holiday for anyone I think. There's no good outcome really though.

oxmatt

I am pretty sure that the insurance company would require a doctors note or such saying that the child was unfit to travel...

Sharp_Eyes wrote: »

Knowing me, I would probably find out what my travel insurance would cover, say sudden illness for eg. lie and say the kid/family was taken ill the day before the trip with food poisoning or something, have the passport renewed and the date amended and have the travel insurance pay the amendment fees!

How immoral am I? *LOL* Will NOT forfeit my 2500 quid, and will NOT leave her behind! How cruel is that??? :eek:

persei7

It is quite interesting how half the people just miss the whole point of a moral dilemma by trying to weasel their way out of answering the key question. Do you forfeit the holiday entirely or does one parent & child still go while the others stay behind?

Some say that this would never happen to them because they always double check their passports 10 thousand times before a trip. Well done for your anal compulsive behaviour but that is the same as me saying that it would never happen to me because I don't have kids. It is a hypothetical question, just suppose it did happen and get over yourself.

The other type of avoidance is more relevant but still, in my opinion, misses the point of the dilemma. These moral dilemma weasels try to take actions beyond those available by reimbursing or changing the dates of the holiday, defrauding the insurance company, getting lightning fast passports and so on. Having a disclaimer for every imaginable possibility would take forever but, as I understand, it is implied that all possibilities were exhausted until only the two options in the question remained.

Anyhow, given the options I would forfeit the holiday. But if I were to be a weasel too my answer would be I'd beat the kid with the valid passport half to death and leave both behind while I enjoy my holiday at Disney. That way the other kid gets to appreciate how lucky she was the one with the expired passport. This way it evens out with those who would have left the hypothetical kid behind sulking.

notfes53

I do recognise this dilemma as the same thing (almost) faced us a few years ago. The difference being that we had lost my son's passport. Quite how one passport can be lost is still a mystery as they were all kept together. What made it worse was that I'd just had my newly discovered birth mother flown over from Israel, so that we could take a family trip with her as a family of me, my wife and two children to Thailand.

At least when your passport is out of date, and in need of renewal you have something to work with. But a lost passport is a bit more difficult. We already worked out that we would split the family up and my wife and son would fly out later at extra expense and catch up with me, daughter and my "new/old" mum. Fortunately the Passport Office at Peterborough were fantastic. I explained the situation - trip of a lifetime, etc - and they pulled out all the stops to get my son's new passport issued within a day, the day before we were due to travel.

It's always difficult to say what we'd have done if the new passport hadn't been available before we were due to travel, but my vote is to have those that can travel go, and to have the others catch up as soon as the passport can be sorted.

The dilemma is doubly difficult as it not only involves splitting a travel party, it also involves spending unbudgeted funds.

It's a lesson for us all:

a) keep passports up to date and preferably locked in a safe or a secure place.
b) always recognise that you need an emergency fund for real emergencies.
c) don't commit a crime such as insurance fraud as this is not a victimless crime as some seem to think. It is dishonest and unworthy :mad: .

I felt that it was my fault as I'd done most of the trip planning. As such I would have offered to make some sort of forfeit to compensate the family finances if we'd been left having to pay part of the costs twice. I would certainly have taken the blame!!