P&O

TreeTops58

A few weeks back my hubby was refused embarkation at Southampton, stated his passport had expired. We were totally unaware of the EU ruling following bexit. ie 10 years from issue date. Please don't just say we should have known, we know that now.

However, my anger with P&O is that they had accepted all his details on their portal.
Issue date; May 15
Expiry date; Feb 26
This was accepted and I was able to print his boarding pass.
So we believed all details had been accepted.

WHY Oh why was a WARNING message not shown, we could have panicked, checked and resolved.

Instead it was tears, heartache and anxiety at Southampton. This is an understatement!

Do P&O not have a duty of care, re the information they insist we must give them weeks before the cruise starts.

eskbanker

Have you complained to P&O yet?  I imagine that they'll say they do provide warnings that it's the passenger's responsibility to have up to date documents, even if they don't apply validation themselves on their form.

DullGreyGuy

TreeTops58 said:

A few weeks back my hubby was refused embarkation at Southampton, stated his passport had expired. We were totally unaware of the EU ruling following bexit. ie 10 years from issue date. Please don't just say we should have known, we know that now.

However, my anger with P&O is that they had accepted all his details on their portal.
Issue date; May 15
Expiry date; Feb 26
This was accepted and I was able to print his boarding pass.
So we believed all details had been accepted.

WHY Oh why was a WARNING message not shown, we could have panicked, checked and resolved.

Instead it was tears, heartache and anxiety at Southampton. This is an understatement!

Do P&O not have a duty of care, re the information they insist we must give them weeks before the cruise starts.

The rule predates Brexit but didnt impact UK citizens pre-brexit as we had freedom of movement whilst in the EU. 

Immigration advice is not simple and isnt static, it would be a fairly significant undertaking for them to code their website to be able to accurately advise on every country they do business with and all possible different passport and visa holders and every reason someone may travel. It also opens them up to liability claims if they advise incorrectly. 

All sellers instead tell you that you need to check your right of entry, some will refer you to a specialist company if you need advice. 

Brie

I quite agree that they could at a minimum have a pop up at the point where you enter passport details to say "have you checked your passport is ok?  go to this gov.uk website..."   Airlines do things like this so I see no reason why P&O can't.  fyi - Brittany Ferries don't either which caused me a major hassle in March coming back from France.  And likely will cause UK citizens problems when ETAs come in for the EU (supposedly) later this year.

JGB1955

P&O will have customers boarding from a myriad of countries, all with different visa and passport requirements.  It's not their responsibility to check.  If it was, it might make them liable .... and they're not!  Similar to those who are refused boarding because they haven't alerted a cruise company that they have mobility problems - there are only so many evac chairs available, and they need to be booked in advance.  I've seen people refused boarding on a 3 week sector of a world cruise.....

Ayr_Rage

All very clear on their website.

https://www.pocruises.com/help/passports-and-visas

ML and many other travel/consumer experts have been warning us about the issue for several years now.

zagfles

It seems reasonable to expect a red flag when the passport issue date was entered, otherwise what's the point of wanting advance information if that information is not checked. Would be blindingly simple to do. Worth pursuing with them on this point. 

Ayr_Rage

zagfles said:

It seems reasonable to expect a red flag when the passport issue date was entered, otherwise what's the point of wanting advance information if that information is not checked. Would be blindingly simple to do. Worth pursuing with them on this point. 

Hardly simple, you'd need to check the requirements of every nationality that my be travelling against the itinerary of every cruise and requirements at each port.

P&O's website is very clear who is responsible.

Check your passport and visa requirements before you travel to ensure that your holiday runs smoothly.

Disclaimer: Visa and passport information can change so it is important that you recheck your passport and visa requirements no later than 2 months prior to your holiday departure. The information provided on this site was correct at the time of publishing and is subject to change at any time. It is your responsibility to travel with the correct travel documentation.

zagfles

Ayr_Rage said:

zagfles said:

It seems reasonable to expect a red flag when the passport issue date was entered, otherwise what's the point of wanting advance information if that information is not checked. Would be blindingly simple to do. Worth pursuing with them on this point. 

Hardly simple, you'd need to check the requirements of every nationality that my be travelling against the itinerary of every cruise and requirements at each port.

P&O's website is very clear who is responsible.

Check your passport and visa requirements before you travel to ensure that your holiday runs smoothly.

Disclaimer: Visa and passport information can change so it is important that you recheck your passport and visa requirements no later than 2 months prior to your holiday departure. The information provided on this site was correct at the time of publishing and is subject to change at any time. It is your responsibility to travel with the correct travel documentation.

Yeah yeah it's in the terms. So what. There's not just the 2 options of utter perfection in every scenario or do no checks whatsoever. The vast majority of cruise passengers embarking at Southampton will be British citizens, and most cruises will go to Schengen countries. In any case P&O know where their cruises are going. It's such a blindingly simple check to do, issue date > 10 years, alert customer; expiry date less than 3 months after return, alert customer. Simple. Just because they do this doesn't mean they also have to check that a Uzbekistani passport meets the Schengen entry requirements.  

It would be a good, friendly, helpful way of acting that would likely fix the most common passport mistake in these years of Brexit transition. Good CS isn't pointing at legalities, terms and disclaimers and saying "well it's all in the terms, you did read them didn't you, tut tut you silly billy". It's about being as helpful as possible without the excuse of "well we can't help everyone in every single situation therefore we'll help no-one"

eskbanker

As above, the issue is less about the technical implementation of passport-checking logic, which isn't particularly complex for UK passport holders visiting the EU, but blurring responsibility and liability, so I'm not sure that any travel companies offer such validation as part of their processes for capturing advance passenger information?*

TUI do publish a passport checker page, but only as a standalone entity rather than being integrated into the main booking management processes.


* Edit: apparently there is at least one, as below!

powerspowers

You have my sympathy OP! And for posters saying it can’t be done, Brittany Ferries online check in wouldn’t allow me to check in last year for precisely this reason. It was a stress but meant I could get a priority passport application done in time. 

I was aware of the 10 year + 6 thing, I’d worked it out for the whole family earlier in the year, then booked a second trip 8 weeks later and didn’t even think about it for mine, easily done. I don’t think the company have done anything wrong but agree they could have done more.