Damaged passport replacement urgently needed

Emily07

Hi, I booked a holiday to Majorca for me and my fianc!. We got to Gatwick yesterday (travelled from Newcastle as was needed to go to London on way down) and partner was told his passport was damaged by Monarch and couldn't fly. I hadn't seen his passport until that point and how angry I am with him is a separate issue. Basically the photo page laminate is coming away up to the corner of the photograph. After some tears I boarded the flight by myself after being advised by Monarch that he could go into London today and get an emergency passport and get a flight the next day. We checked the website-we were doubtful and they didn't give him an appointment, he explained id went out by myself, they said the quickest he could get one and that's once he'd got an appointment was 7days.

Has anyone got any advice or been in a similar situation? He's now on a bus travelling back up north, I wondered of the Durham office could do anything else? Currently sat on my own putting on a brave face trying to make friends. Still hoping something can be done or if it's impossible. Maybe it was the airline being awkward? Probably not.

badskindollheart

What a rubbish situation for you and very foolish of him. No, the airline are not being awkward, they are complying with their responsibilities; you would probably have been turned back at security or, if you managed to get on the plane, been denied entry by passport control in Majorca.

A 'damaged' passport must always be seen as a potentially fraudulent document. Forgers will lift the laminate around the photo to slot in new pictures, even slight damage to the laminate will ring alarm bells. Has he phoned the Passport Office helpline? Can none of the offices arrange an appointment for same day service? Liverpool or Newport?

PeteDoff

Emily07 wrote: »

holiday to Majorca for me and my fianc!.

Get a new 'fianc'

InsideInsurance

PeteDoff wrote: »

Get a new 'fianc'

MSE converts accented letters to a ! to stop people using them to bypass their rude word filters, unfortunately it neglects to remember that a number of english words are correctly spelt with an accented letter like fiance

London, Liverpool, Peterborough, Glasgow, Newport, Belfast and Durham all do a same day service however you need an appointment with them which you may not be able to get on the day you call. All you can do is call the booking line and see which can offer the earliest appointment, the one number covers all the centres.

Its also worth noting that the London office can do same day up to 4pm whereas Durham it has to be before midday

Emily07

Thanks for the good advice apart from the obvious typo troll. Keep on trollin!

Voyager2002

It should only take four hours to issue an emergency passport... however, to get one you need to be a British person in a foreign country who needs one to get back to Britain, or a British person who lives in a foreign country but is in Britain and again needs one to get home. So I fear that your friend has lost his holiday.

Anyway, I hope that you have a wonderful time exploring what is a really beautiful island. Some of my best holidays were on my own, because I could focus on the place rather than the people with me. And if that doesn't work... just give me a call and I would be pleased to come out to Mallorca to keep you company!

InsideInsurance

Voyager2002 wrote: »

It should only take four hours to issue an emergency passport

An emergency passport is only good for one trip and so would only get them there and leave them in the same situation.

The same day service is for a full normal passport, you just pay a premium for the fast service - I did this once and was impressed how well it worked, managed to get a next day appointment at ~3pm in London and had my new passport by ~6pm.

If you are mobile and can go to whichever passport office has slots you can do things very quickly but the availability of appointments can vary massively.

Voyager2002

InsideInsurance wrote: »

An emergency passport is only good for one trip and so would only get them there and leave them in the same situation.

Actually it is valid for a return journey, if necessary involving a visit to a third country as well. The sticking point is that you can only get one if you are already abroad, unless you can prove that you live in a foreign country. Bottom line: the airline only muddled the issue by talking about an emergency passport since it is not available in this situation.

InsideInsurance

Voyager2002 wrote: »

Actually it is valid for a return journey, if necessary involving a visit to a third country as well. The sticking point is that you can only get one if you are already abroad, unless you can prove that you live in a foreign country. Bottom line: the airline only muddled the issue by talking about an emergency passport since it is not available in this situation.

https://www.gov.uk/emergency-travel-document

According to the above it can only be used for a return journey if you are resident in the country you are apply in otherwise its only good for one way through up to 5 countries (not sure where in the world you;d require 5 stages to get to the UK but still)

If you wanted to get into real technicalities there is no such thing as an emergency passport. You have the emergency travel document as per the above but is often miss named as an emergency passport or you can get a full passport in an emergency using one of the accelerated processes like the same day service. Its arguable which of the two the airline may have been referring to when they used the term - plus you may also question if we are being given the conversation verbatim or being paraphrased which may introduce normal chinese whisper issues.

agrinnall

InsideInsurance wrote: »

...not sure where in the world you;d require 5 stages to get to the UK but still

That's a challenge! I suppose anyone could devise a route that goes through immigration in 5 countries, but finding one where you must do it does indeed sound a bit more difficult.

Voyager2002

agrinnall wrote: »

That's a challenge! I suppose anyone could devise a route that goes through immigration in 5 countries, but finding one where you must do it does indeed sound a bit more difficult.

Probably not possible, because apart from the USA you don't need to go through Immigration in order to change 'planes.

I recently gave advice when a British citizen living in China lost his passport; used an emergency travel document to visit the UK; and took a side trip to France before going home to China. That is probably about as much wear and tear as such a document is likely to get.