You must apply for an ESTA online to enter the USA after 12 Jan 2009

moneynovice123

Hi there. Applied for mine today and got immediate confirmation of acceptance. However, I have a related question: does anyone know whether you need to hold a new biometric passport to go to the US? One travel agent has told me that you do and another said you didn't - if you don't know the answer, do you know where I can find out please? Travelling in the summer. Thanks!

Zork

Hi Moneynovice. Re the biometric passport. We don't have them and are travelling next month ( Hopefully!).

However there are conditions which you will find here.

http://www.usembassy.org.uk/cons_new/visa/niv/mrp_bio.html

omelette451

moneynovice123 wrote: »

Hi there. Applied for mine today and got immediate confirmation of acceptance. However, I have a related question: does anyone know whether you need to hold a new biometric passport to go to the US? One travel agent has told me that you do and another said you didn't - if you don't know the answer, do you know where I can find out please? Travelling in the summer. Thanks!

No, they're definitely not required. The US keeps saying it's going to make them compulsory for the visa waiver scheme but every time the deadline approaches they jusy put it back a bit, both because tourism chiefs keep telling them it'll ruin airlines and the tourism economy and because they haven't actually got round to issuing them to their own citizens yet and don't want to be overly hypocritical in demanding them from others first. You do definitely need machine-readable passports though (the ones with funny >>> characters at the bottom).

moneynovice123

Hi Zork

Thanks for that link, it proved very useful; we seem to be OK to go! Good luck with your journey - have fun :j

omelette451

elcomandante wrote: »

If you ask me, this is the US goverments very clever way of name checking & vetting potential terrorist suspects before then arrive on US soil. These days how may muslims are there with a British passport?..A fair amount...and with the terror attacks in London being executed by our own British born muslims, and sleeper cells of british born muslim terrorists found in the Birmingham area last year, something tells me although the US government can not 'stereotype' and interrogate certain people who arrive on the visa waiver program with a UK passport, this is their politically correct way of doing so before any potential threat may occur. Im not saying this is the only reason but i will bet you my bottom dollar that it has something to do with it.

There's already a requirement for airlines to provide 'Advance Passenger Information' which the authorities check before any plane planning to fly to the US (and perhaps even over it, but I'm not sure about that) is allowed to take off. When they introduced this they were completely honest about the reasons for it, and since there's been no mention of it this time I think it's unlikely to have too much to do with it.

dzug1

moneynovice123 wrote: »

Hi there. Applied for mine today and got immediate confirmation of acceptance. However, I have a related question: does anyone know whether you need to hold a new biometric passport to go to the US? One travel agent has told me that you do and another said you didn't - if you don't know the answer, do you know where I can find out please? Travelling in the summer. Thanks!

Depends on when your passport was issued. If it's a UK passport you don't need to worry - they meet US regulations whenever issued.

dzug1

alanrowell wrote: »

Silly question - but one that doesn't seem to be covered on the ESTA site

Flying via the US and returning via the US a couple of weeks later

In the "old days" you would hold onto your I-94W as the return date is within 90 days

Under the new regime would you have to update your details on ESTA before the 2nd set of flights?

Yes

padding to make 10 characters

Tony69

I was planning to go to Las Vegas in April, so searched around last night for prices etc and was going to book something this evening but today I have found out about this ESTA thing. I started to fill out the Green online form but you get to a stage where it asks for your flight details etc but I haven't booked anything yet so what do I need to do first/next. I can't book anything yet as I have a conviction going back over 20 years that I'm guessing now may halt my application. What do I need to do now?

Thanks

alanrowell

The help on the ESTA website says that you don't have to fill in your travel details when applying for the ESTA, but you have to fill them in before travelling

dzug1

Tony69 wrote: »

I was planning to go to Las Vegas in April, so searched around last night for prices etc and was going to book something this evening but today I have found out about this ESTA thing. I started to fill out the Green online form but you get to a stage where it asks for your flight details etc but I haven't booked anything yet so what do I need to do first/next. I can't book anything yet as I have a conviction going back over 20 years that I'm guessing now may halt my application. What do I need to do now?

Thanks

If you declare your conviction the ESTA site will reject your application and tell you to apply for a visa.

Whether you should declare it or not depends on what it was for (and how old you were at the time). The ESTA site is far more forthcoming about this than the London Embassy. And http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_turpitude
may help as well.