ESTA Chaos

LT73

Had two flights booked with Thomson from Newcastle to Orlando on Friday.

Our only correspondence with Thomson was the confirmation email from when we booked in January, which in the small print, detailed passport and visa requirements. Requirements in the email were machine readable passport and a valid ESTA. We complied with both of those.

Turned up at the check in desk on Friday to be denied boarding due to recent US changes to passport requirements for entry i.e a biometric passport.

We were obviously gutted since we had complied with the requirements stated on our only correspondence with Thomson. They had basically not told us about the changes to the regulations despite me supplying the relevant API back in March. The supervisor at the airport has seen numerous cases like this since April the 1st.

In addition to this, I updated our ESTA's in March with our new hotel address and got the application approved message. I checked yesterday and our ESTA's are still valid for travel according to the ESTA website.

To pour salt on the wound, Thomson re-sent us our booking confirmation an hour after we would have taken off with the amended passport requirements.

Has anyone had a similar experience or have an idea on how to proceed in getting some kind of compensation. We have opened a case with Thomson so far.

richardw

It's happened to a lot of people, best to do many google searches to see what others are doing.

Westin

Several threads on here about this recent change if you do a search.

MSE also published a story about it a few weeks back.

I was in the same situation and had to get a new passport and a new ESTA.

The US authorities gave little notice of this change. I was tipped off via an email from Virgin against an upcoming flight with them in June. I had nothing from Norweigan who I flew to the USA with last week (back now).

LT73

Thanks for the replies guys.

I've read the MSE article and various posts on this subject.

Our case seems to differ slightly to most in that our ESTA's were never revoked. They are actually still showing as active and OK to fly.

I'm at the passport office tomorrow to get new passports and hope to fly next Friday.

Travel insurance want nothing to do with it as its a documentation thing and I was wondering where the blame lies: airline, us customs or even us.

danielthomark

LT73 wrote: »

I was wondering where the blame lies: airline, us customs or even us.

Ultimately, you. As you need to be aware of the requirements to enter a country. The page on Homeland Security website was last updated on February 10, 2016

However, I would have been really nice if this had been bigger news, and the airlines/travel agents/dhs had bothered to send out warnings.

LT73 wrote: »

I updated our ESTA's in March with our new hotel address and got the application approved message.

The application wouldn't have been approved, just updated with the additional information.

LT73

It would also have been really nice if the airline, who had all our passport details, contacted their customers to inform them of the change - like Virgin did.

Girl at airport has seen numerous cases since April 1st.

It seems really odd that the airline also re-sent our confirmation 1 hour after our flight had taken off detailing the new passport requirements.

Our original document from January did not detail the changes.

jonesMUFCforever

Can't comment about Thomsons but I have flights booked through Expedia with Thomas Cook and I got an email about this change in regulations.
Luckily we got new passports in 2010 so have the necessary passport.

I feel for anybody who has lost out because of this - so much about the 'special relationship' between us and the Yanks.

callum9999

LT73 wrote: »

It would also have been really nice if the airline, who had all our passport details, contacted their customers to inform them of the change - like Virgin did.

Girl at airport has seen numerous cases since April 1st.

It seems really odd that the airline also re-sent our confirmation 1 hour after our flight had taken off detailing the new passport requirements.

Our original document from January did not detail the changes.

It would indeed - though they weren't obliged to do so. And the reason it wasn't bigger news was because virtually everyone already has ePassports, so it can't have affected that many people.

Did they offer anything as goodwill - like a free/reduced cost date change for your flight?

I would imagine it was (unhelpfully) automatically triggered by an event that day - either by you missing the flight or a date change etc. Were the changes even known about when you received the original in January? It was very short notice. I'd imagine they updated the passport details on the booking confirmation when they were told about the change.

callum9999

jonesMUFCforever wrote: »

so much about the 'special relationship' between us and the Yanks.

I'm not sure UK authorities would have ignored security concerns about old American passports because of a meaningless media soundbite either?

jonesMUFCforever

callum9999 wrote: »

I'm not sure UK authorities would have ignored security concerns about old American passports because of a meaningless media soundbite either?

They could have easily worked with the british authorities and extended the 'old' way for a maximum of 6 months and none of this would have happened as everyone then would have had the new bio passports - with no security issues that wer not there prior to April 1st.

callum9999

jonesMUFCforever wrote: »

They could have easily worked with the british authorities and extended the 'old' way for a maximum of 6 months and none of this would have happened as everyone then would have had the new bio passports - with no security issues that wer not there prior to April 1st.

Everyone did have a chance to get the new ePassports. It seems like a big waste of time and money to "work with the British authorities" (whatever that means?) to extend the deadline by 6 months for the sake of the few people who both had an old passport and are planning on going to the US.

All special relationship means is that our countries work closely together, it doesn't mean we both bend over backwards to give each other special treatment.