passport question

firbyfred

My passport runs out March 2008, would it still be okay to use 3rd week in October?
We have just come back from Greece and when we booked the holiday it said a minimum of 6 months were needed on the passports.

dzug

firbyfred wrote: »

My passport runs out March 2008, would it still be okay to use 3rd week in October?
We have just come back from Greece and when we booked the holiday it said a minimum of 6 months were needed on the passports.

Depends where you are going.

There's actually very, very few countries whose immigration laws require 6 months on your passport.

Most travel companies oversimplify this and say all countries require 6 months just so they don't have to think and maybe get it wrong and get sued.

firbyfred

thanks
if we do go away it will be some where in Europe.

Steve_xx

You'll be fine anywhere in Europe. I think that if you decide to renew your passport now, the passport office will credit upto nine months from your existng passport. So you would not lose out if you replaced it early.

alwaysskint96

You would be ok but Id renew it now- prices are going up AGAIN in Oct. Its a quick turnaround at the moment as well- I sent my daughetrs old one off for renewal on Mon- and the new one arrived on Friday

moonrakerz

firbyfred wrote: »

We have just come back from Greece and when we booked the holiday it said a minimum of 6 months were needed on the passports.

Who keeps on doling out this mis-information ?

See below.

For EU citizens

Passport or identity card

There are no longer any frontier controls at the borders between 13 EU countries. This is thanks to the Schengen agreement which is part of EU law. The Schengen rules remove all internal border controls but put in place effective controls at the external borders of the EU and introduce a common visa policy. The full Schengen members are Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, Sweden (but not Ireland and the United Kingdom) plus Iceland and Norway (which are not EU members).
The 12 countries that have joined the EU since 2004 do not yet fully participate in Schengen. You will therefore need a valid passport or ID card to travel to those countries and to Ireland and the United Kingdom.
When entering or leaving the EU at the external borders you will need a valid passport or an ID card. You may, of course, need your passport when leaving the EU in order to enter the country of your destination.
It is best to have your passport or ID card when travelling in the EU because you may be required to prove your identity. If public order or national security so require, checks at the internal borders may be carried out for limited periods.
Make sure that any children travelling with you either have their own passport or ID card or are registered on yours.
Agreements with Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway, and Switzerland enable their nationals to be treated in the same way as EU citizens and to travel with just an ID card or passport in the EU.
More information on the free movement of people within the EU.

Visa

You will not need a visa for travelling within the EU.

dzug

moonrakerz wrote: »

Who keeps on doling out this mis-information ?

.

Travel agents and tour operators - because they do not trust their staff to distinguish between different countries when giving out information, they play safe and say a blanket 6 months. Some even incorporate it in their T&C.

moonrakerz

dzug wrote: »

Travel agents and tour operators - because they do not trust their staff to distinguish between different countries when giving out information, they play safe and say a blanket 6 months. Some even incorporate it in their T&C.

It just goes to show how incompetent most travel agents are ! You pay these people for accurate information - not what it suits them to give out.

Infidel

dzug wrote: »

Travel agents and tour operators - because they do not trust their staff to distinguish between different countries when giving out information, they play safe and say a blanket 6 months. Some even incorporate it in their T&C.

You can't get the staff these days. :rolleyes:

A friends passport had just 2 months left to run when he went to Spain for 2 weeks and he didn't report any problems.

But as said earlier, you may be better off renewing asap if you plan to go abroad again in the coming years, especially since the prices are going up and probably mind scans and anal cavity searches being incorporated into the application process come October. :eek:

Pollycat

firbyfred
even if you are intending to travel to an EU country that only specifies that your passport needs to be valid for the period of your stay, if the airline's T&Cs state that your passport must be valid for a number of months after your return to the UK, they can deny you boarding.

As Steve has said, if you renew early you get the unused months credited to your new passport so you don't lose out.

Unless you have a really good reason not to renew NOW, I'd get it sorted and not run the risk of not being allowed on the flight.

Polly

Voyager2002

I don't think that an airline can impose conditions on the validity of a passenger's passport that are over and above the immigration requirements of the destination in question.

Anyway, the OP did not clarify what passport s/he holds. The advice given above is correct for a UK passport, but for UK residents of other nationalities the position may be different.