ESTA question

cb1979

We are going to the USA soon and our ESTA's have expired

Mine is straight forward but my wife was born in South Africa and held a SA passport but moved to the UK and has been a British passport holder and lived in the UK for over 25 years

We first went to the USA in 2001 when you filled a form in on the Plane

When the ESTA system was introduced she applied and she has had a few ESTA's since

When filling the application in now we have noticed the question about being a previous holder of a foreign passport which we are sure we have never seen before

She has an expired SA passport but we are concerned that if she now enters these details would it flag up as not being previously declared

Cant say we remember this question being on previous applications

Thanks for any advice

HappyFrog

Just answer every question honestly. You can't do much about your previous applications.
And don't try and 'play' the system; with US immigration. They will find out. And then you will not be travelling to the US at all...

I wouldn't over think this though. They will probably only use the additional passport info to run a cross-check against the primary passport info. With an SA passport you shouldn't have too many issues. It's not on Trump's blacklist. Yet.

shaun_from_Africa

Not quite the same but I have dual citizenship with a passport for each (UK and Irish) and I have a U.S visa in my UK passport and an ESTA in my Irish one.
I recently had to renew my ESTA following the renewal of my Irish passport and like you, had never seen the questions regarding dual citizenship and other passports held.
I filled in all the details correctly and had an ESTA issued within minutes.

As HappyFrog stated, just fill in everything truthfully and hopefully you won't have any problems.

heatherw_01

What if I have dual citizenship, but my non-VWP passport is expired or I do not have a passport for that country?

If you have any additional passports, please enter the most recent passport information, even if that passport is expired. If you are a dual citizen but do not have a passport from another country, select the country from the drop down list and do not enter anything in the Passport Number field.

https://esta.cbp.dhs.gov/esta/WebHelp/ESTA_Screen-Level_Online_Help_1.htm#ata8

You need to enter the information. They add new questions all the time. As they didn't ask before you didn't need to answer, now they want to know so you need to complete it.

jpsartre

Never go through 3rd party sites such as the one linked to above, get your ESTA directly from the relevant US governement site:

https://esta.cbp.dhs.gov/esta/

HogMan

Agreed, the fee for an ESTA is US $14 you should never pay more than this. Paying more via a third party does not increase your chance of acceptance.

ic

They now also ask for facebook and twitter details. I didn't fill in any of it (I didn't want Donald to see I'd retweeted jokes about him) - I still got in.

lillie421 wrote: »

I ended up getting it from removed it is up to you if you want to use them but I found them pretty helpful.

I'd hope so when they've charged you $72 instead of $14! All they do is get you to fill in all the same information, and then copy it over to the standard site. They save you nothing in time, effort or complexity - they simply cost more!

peachyprice

lillie421 wrote: »

Very good reply from HappyFrog. Do not play the system as you will never win, they are pretty strict in America.
I travelled to America 3 years ago now and to be honest, I was confused with the whole ESTA situation and hardly knew anything about it all. I googled some research and actually learnt quite a bit about it. I ended up getting it from it is up to you if you want to use them but I found them pretty helpful.

Could you please remove this link, it is a 3rd party site that charges 4 x the price than the unofficial site and can do nothing for you that you can't do for yourself.

The online application really isn't complicated and does not require paying anyone else to 'help'.

atmartins

Even though I've had an ESTA before, and knew about shyster ESTA sites, I was conned by one.
Only knew something was wrong when the site didn't show the price I was paying for the ESTA.
When I checked my credit card, it had been billed $79, plus (adding insult to injury) a $2.50 foreign transaction fee, even though I'd paid with a US$ credit card. So tried to contact the shysters right away to void the transaction - proved impossible!
Then told my credit card company: it refunded all my costs!

heatherw_01

I have deleted the post so people don't use the link to the dodgy ESTA site.

Please only use the official site
https://esta.cbp.dhs.gov/esta/