USA e Passport advice finally hits the news.

Westin

bluenoseam wrote: »

When people started getting turned away at customs it became an issue - which I have little sympathy for. It's been well known for long enough now that it was coming, the US have advised a biometric passport for years & the last non-compliant passports are due to expire this year.

Ouch.

Well that was me but thanks to Virgin Atlantic I was prewarned and applied for a new passport.

I, like many others, had a biometric passport. It just didn't have a chip. The biometric information was published but the US authorities only updated the requirement to have a chipped passport earlier this year.

Shimrod

danielthomark wrote: »

Next problem will be those flying out to Canada and don't realize they need an ETA after September 29, 2016

To clarify, these came into effect from March 15th, but they have extended a leniency period until September. There are still other conditions to be met during this period, so it is still better to have you ETA in place before you go.

The canada.travel website suggests you could get one last minute by using an internet device before you go through passport control, but while my wife's ETA came through almost straight away, mine took nearly a week (you have to declare your health status, and I take some medicines).

gettingtheresometime

I happened to mention to a friend yesterday about it and she hadn't even thought about an esta.

Luckily she checked and new passport duely applied for!

SW17

bluenoseam wrote: »

When people started getting turned away at customs it became an issue - which I have little sympathy for. It's been well known for long enough now that it was coming, the US have advised a biometric passport for years & the last non-compliant passports are due to expire this year.

There could actually be quite a few non-compliant passports valid well into 2017, since a renewal made prior to Oct 2006 could have up to 9 months of prior passport validity added to it.

Westin wrote: »

I, like many others, had a biometric passport. It just didn't have a chip. The biometric information was published but the US authorities only updated the requirement to have a chipped passport earlier this year.

Is there such a thing as a biometric passport without a chip? I don't know how biometrics would be stored on a passport without a chip. Do you mean you had a machine-readable passport?

LT73

bluenoseam wrote: »

When people started getting turned away at customs it became an issue - which I have little sympathy for. It's been well known for long enough now that it was coming, the US have advised a biometric passport for years & the last non-compliant passports are due to expire this year.

I'm being polite, but what a crap thing to write on a public board - what help does that give anybody. :mad:

My wife and I are intelligent and experienced travellers who visit the USA twice a year and were caught out by this. Astonished to see this finally hit the UK press this weekend.

This has been handled badly by the relevant authorities and travel companies all around and is costing people valuable holidays and cash.