Right passport to use for dual nationals?

pieroabcd

Hi, now that ETAs are in place a bit everywhere I'm a bit confused about the passport to use.
Assuming that Mr Smith with an EU and UK passport travels from the UK to France doing the check-in with his EU passport
- on exit from the Uk there's no border check
- the travel company wants to see an eligible passport and may deny boarding. The EU passport is used
- he enters the French border with the EU passport

on return:
- he leaves the French border with the EU passport
- which passport does he have to use for the check-in and the boarding with the travel company?
- he enters the UK border with the UK passport

Now the question is, which is the right passport to use with the travel company for the check-ins, especially for the return flight?
I imagine that he can use the UK one for the return, because it's easy to convince the travel company that you can board the flight without ETA and without an eVisa share code, but... 
I remember that after every travel the travel company sends a notification to the various Home Offices that Mr Smith flied from UK to France with passport X and flied back from France to the UK with passport Y, so what happens if the record show that he left and re-entered the UK  (and France, too) with 2 different passports even though  at the UK border he always used the UK passport and at the French border he always used the EU one? Can this mismatch create problems?

Also, no travel company that I use seems to offer the possibility to specify 2 passports, so every time that you fly you need to re-enter the passrport details from scratch because you overwrite them during the last flight.

Any idea?

DullGreyGuy

pieroabcd said:

Hi, now that ETAs are in place a bit everywhere I'm a bit confused about the passport to use.
Assuming that Mr Smith with an EU and UK passport travels from the UK to France doing the check-in with his EU passport
- on exit from the Uk there's no border check
- the travel company wants to see an eligible passport and may deny boarding. The EU passport is used
- he enters the French border with the EU passport

on return:
- he leaves the French border with the EU passport
- which passport does he have to use for the check-in and the boarding with the travel company?
- he enters the UK border with the UK passport

Now the question is, which is the right passport to use with the travel company for the check-ins, especially for the return flight?
I imagine that he can use the UK one for the return, because it's easy to convince the travel company that you can board the flight without ETA and without an eVisa share code, but... 
I remember that after every travel the travel company sends a notification to the various Home Offices that Mr Smith flied from UK to France with passport X and flied back from France to the UK with passport Y, so what happens if the record show that he left and re-entered the UK  (and France, too) with 2 different passports even though  at the UK border he always used the UK passport and at the French border he always used the EU one? Can this mismatch create problems?

Also, no travel company that I use seems to offer the possibility to specify 2 passports, so every time that you fly you need to re-enter the passrport details from scratch because you overwrite them during the last flight.

Any idea?

The answer will vary between countries involved as some will have additional restrictions even if they recognise dual citizenship. For example in a US citizen must enter and leave the US using their US passport no matter which other nationalities they hold. 

Some are made more complex because of rules about changing your name, wife's UK passport is in her married name Amy DGG, her non-UK passport is in her maiden name Amy Smith Jones, were she to change her non-UK passport it would become Amy Smith of DGG so still wouldn't match her UK passport. 

It's generally easiest to enter/leave a country with the passport of that country and to check in using the passport you'll be using at the destination. For the wife its slightly different because of the name difference so she will use her UK passport at check in in both directions (it has a note of her non-UK passport in her maiden name on the observations page) so the name matches the booking, she'll use the UK passport in the UK and the non-UK passport back home. They dont raise any Qs about the name not matching the passenger manifest. 

vacheron

It does depend on the country. I'm in a very similar situation to @DullGreyGuy whereby my wife has a UK passport in her married name and a (non-EU) birth country passport in her maiden name.

When she travels home she has to enter under the passport of her birth country so we book the tickets in her maiden name using her birth country passport. However, if she has to travel home via an EU based hub on a non-connecting flight, we use her UK passport and her married name to book the flights from the UK to the EU (as she can pass through passport control without a visa if necessary, and we use her non-EU passport and her maiden name to book flights from the EU to her birth country.

So in summary, we have always booked the tickets based on the oubound destination passport requirements which has always avoided any issues with us. 

I remember that after every travel the travel company sends a notification to the various Home Offices that Mr Smith flied from UK to France with passport X and flied back from France to the UK with passport Y, so what happens if the record show that he left and re-entered the UK  (and France, too) with 2 different passports even though  at the UK border he always used the UK passport and at the French border he always used the EU one? Can this mismatch create problems?

She ran into a similar problem for the first time the last time she flew and connected via Antalya in Turkey. She had to pass through passport control into Turkey in order to check her baggage for her flight to her birth country. However when she passed back through passport control they got confused as they couldn't see her Turkey arrival stamp in her birth country passport she was using to fly home.

She explained that she entered on her UK passport just 45 minutes earlier and they aksed to see it and stamped her out on her UK passport just to keep things simple. 

 

DullGreyGuy

vacheron said:

It does depend on the country. I'm in a very similar situation to DullGreyGuy whereby my wife has a UK passport in her married name and a (non-EU) birth country passport in her maiden name.

When she travels home she has to enter under the passport of her birth country so we book the tickets in her maiden name using her birth country passport. However, if she has to travel home via an EU based hub on a non-connecting flight, we use her UK passport and her married name to book the flights from the UK to the EU (as she can pass through passport control without a visa if necessary, and we use her non-EU passport and her maiden name to book flights from the EU to her birth country.

So in summary, we have always booked the tickets based on the oubound destination passport requirements which has always avoided any issues with us. 

A bit curious if it's the same non-EU country, there are no direct flights for us either but there are connecting ones so the name is the same on the whole trip. Technically ours is slightly different as she can enter her homeland in her UK passport but its only on exit that she has to use her home country though in practice she uses it for both. 

Her UK passport allows entry and so we use her married name though she'll show her maiden name one at the border of "country of origin" and UK passport everywhere else in the world. 

vacheron

DullGreyGuy said:

vacheron said:

It does depend on the country. I'm in a very similar situation to DullGreyGuy whereby my wife has a UK passport in her married name and a (non-EU) birth country passport in her maiden name.

When she travels home she has to enter under the passport of her birth country so we book the tickets in her maiden name using her birth country passport. However, if she has to travel home via an EU based hub on a non-connecting flight, we use her UK passport and her married name to book the flights from the UK to the EU (as she can pass through passport control without a visa if necessary, and we use her non-EU passport and her maiden name to book flights from the EU to her birth country.

So in summary, we have always booked the tickets based on the oubound destination passport requirements which has always avoided any issues with us. 

A bit curious if it's the same non-EU country, there are no direct flights for us either but there are connecting ones so the name is the same on the whole trip. Technically ours is slightly different as she can enter her homeland in her UK passport but its only on exit that she has to use her home country though in practice she uses it for both. 

Her UK passport allows entry and so we use her married name though she'll show her maiden name one at the border of "country of origin" and UK passport everywhere else in the world. 

I think they must be different as she has to use her birth country passport for both entry and exit when she visits home.

The only reason her passports are in different names (we've been married for 15 years) is that her surname can only be changed while she is in her home country, and can take 12-16 weeks, which is a little "impractical" for someone with children who works full time in the UK!... so nobody from her country ever bothers. 

The only time we ran into a problem with this was last year when we renewed her UK passport and they wrote back saying that she CANNOT hold any foreign passports with a different name to her UK passport (despite them doing so previously), and that she needed to change her name in her foreign passport and then re-apply (this was 6 weeks before our family holiday was due to commence!)

However a few letters later explaining the logistical difficulties of doing so, and they have done the same thing of adding this info into her observations page instead, so a sincere Thank You to HM Passport Office!

Oh, and there are no connecting flights at present, and when there were, they were 2-3 times the price of booking with separate airlines, so that wasn't happening! (This is MSE after all)! 

eDicky

pieroabcd said:

Can this mismatch create problems?

Mr Smith having both UK and EU passports, with no variation of his name, is a very common situation and should cause no problem of mismatch.

In general it's best to depart a country using the same passport as used for arrival, so the EU passport would be best used for return journey flight/ferry check-in details.

To enter UK he would be exempt from any ETA or visa requirements as a UK passport holder, with opportunity to declare this being given if/when such restrictions arise.

As you say, the UK passport should be presented at the UK border.

DullGreyGuy

vacheron said:

DullGreyGuy said:

vacheron said:

It does depend on the country. I'm in a very similar situation to DullGreyGuy whereby my wife has a UK passport in her married name and a (non-EU) birth country passport in her maiden name.

When she travels home she has to enter under the passport of her birth country so we book the tickets in her maiden name using her birth country passport. However, if she has to travel home via an EU based hub on a non-connecting flight, we use her UK passport and her married name to book the flights from the UK to the EU (as she can pass through passport control without a visa if necessary, and we use her non-EU passport and her maiden name to book flights from the EU to her birth country.

So in summary, we have always booked the tickets based on the oubound destination passport requirements which has always avoided any issues with us. 

A bit curious if it's the same non-EU country, there are no direct flights for us either but there are connecting ones so the name is the same on the whole trip. Technically ours is slightly different as she can enter her homeland in her UK passport but its only on exit that she has to use her home country though in practice she uses it for both. 

Her UK passport allows entry and so we use her married name though she'll show her maiden name one at the border of "country of origin" and UK passport everywhere else in the world. 

I think they must be different as she has to use her birth country passport for both entry and exit when she visits home.

The only reason her passports are in different names (we've been married for 15 years) is that her surname can only be changed while she is in her home country, and can take 12-16 weeks, which is a little "impractical" for someone with children who works full time in the UK!... so nobody from her country ever bothers. 

The only time we ran into a problem with this was last year when we renewed her UK passport and they wrote back saying that she CANNOT hold any foreign passports with a different name to her UK passport (despite them doing so previously), and that she needed to change her name in her foreign passport and then re-apply (this was 6 weeks before our family holiday was due to commence!)

However a few letters later explaining the logistical difficulties of doing so, and they have done the same thing of adding this info into her observations page instead, so a sincere Thank You to HM Passport Office!

Oh, and there are no connecting flights at present, and when there were, they were 2-3 times the price of booking with separate airlines, so that wasn't happening! (This is MSE after all)! 

If you asked many of her countrymen they'd say the same about entry but it's not strictly true. 

Had the same issue with renewing her UK one, other than her non-UK passport was expired, made worse by their system saying it was a simple process to change the name. Had to make the same explanations that it can only be done in country, she has no local passport so cannot leave the country, current waiting times for passports then was 6-9 months and even if she did do that it still wouldn't match her UK passport. There is a process to get a judges consent to change your name in a different way but it's intended for witness protection or victims of domestic violence etc. In principle anything is possible with the right number of dollars in the envelope with the application but is HMPO really suggesting we should bribe the judiciary in a foreign country?

I find the observation thing really odd as it highlights the old passport is expired. Lets say she was able to change her name and to match her UK one... that would still mean the old expired passport is in her maiden name and yet for some reason that wouldn't need to be noted?

We only got sense after it went to Belfast, the guy there said it was all changes introduced by Teresa May and intended to put people off.

vacheron

Yes, sometimes the logic just doesn't seem to add up.

We noted in our appeal to HMPO that when she first got her UK Citizenship and applied in person at the passport office for her first UK passport, they even asked her if she would like to use her maiden name or married name so they clearly had no issues with doing this 10 years ago. But as you said, maybe this was introduced by later governments legislation.

It does seem to be that many of the rules appear initially to be set in stone, but then if you persevere, there is some leniency available, given the amount of contradictions between countires I don't think the system could work otherwise!

We've also just noticed that her Foreign International Passport expires in March, so a trip to the Embassy in London is needed before then, otherwise renewing an expired passport requires many more hoops to be jumped through!

pieroabcd

Thanks everyone for the answers.

smudge56

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/names-aligning-names-on-foreign-documents/names-aligning-names-on-foreign-documents-accessible

This is the guidance for name alignment on passports.  The reason for the observation is to link the two identities.   If the passport can only be changed in the country of origin, a letter explaining why you can’t travel to change it will allow the British passport to be issued without alignment.  If the passport can be changed at the embassy in the UK it is expected that it should be done,  all you have to provide is evidence that the process has started.

jimi_man

Hi. 

There would be no trouble with a mismatch. In the U.K. there is no requirement to enter using the U.K. passport rather than the EU one. You can use whichever you like. A lot of people depart on the EU one and then arrive on the U.K. one but obviously the ETA makes a difference. Personally for ease of travel I’d probably stump up the tenner just so you can carry on doing the above. 

Also whilst the ETA system has started it’s not yet being enforced at passport control and won’t be for a while yet.