Fury as Brit loses £3,000 on the spot after discovering little-known passport rule | UK | News | EUROtoday
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A pair claimed they misplaced £3,000 after being unaware of this passport rule that catches out quite a few Brits every year.
Huw and Patricia Gosling, from Porthcawl in Bridgend county, had deliberate a vacation to Sofia in Bulgaria for every week to see an opera in July 2023.
But Huw, 69, was unable to board the flight at Birmingham Airport after being instructed he couldn’t journey as a result of his passport had been issued greater than 10 years earlier.
UK passports are legitimate for precisely 10 years, however these issued earlier than September 2018 might be legitimate for 10 years and 9 months as a result of the Passport Office used so as to add as much as 9 months from an outdated passport onto a brand new one.
And since leaving the EU, Brits should guarantee their passport was issued lower than 10 years in the past for quite a few European locations.
Huw and Patricia, 70, have been planning to see German composer Richard Wagner’s Ring Cycle, which Mr Gosling described as “20 hours of opera over four days. It’s very special.”
Before travelling Huw had entered his passport particulars on the IATA Travel Centre web site, which confirmed to him “the documentation you hold is sufficient”. And regardless of having a 10-year-old passport, he thought he had sufficient time because it was legitimate for an additional 9 months.
He instructed the BBC: “I knew I needed more than three months left on it and mine had nine, so it seemed like plenty,” he stated, including that his passport particulars had been checked when he checked in and booked his baggage on the airport.
“But when I got to the gate, the woman said ‘You can’t travel on this passport’. I was livid, but I didn’t know who to be livid with. At the end of the day, the European rules had changed and I was not allowed to travel. I was livid almost with myself, but then I thought what more could I have done?”
“We lost everything. We lost our flights, they weren’t insured. And Patricia couldn’t travel alone because she’s in a wheelchair. I was able to get money back for our hotel but not for the travel, car parking or opera tickets. We lost about £3,000.”
The UK Government advise travellers to verify the entry necessities on-line earlier than travelling overseas.
Are you impacted by the 10-year rule?
- Check in case your passport was issued earlier than September 2018
- Has it handed its 10-year anniversary? Even if it has a number of months left to run, it’s invalid for journey to all EU international locations except Ireland in addition to Iceland, Norway, Lichtenstein and Switzerland
- If you’re going to these international locations you need to have a passport issued lower than 10 years earlier than your departure date
- If your passport is invalid you’ll be able to try to guide an emergency appointment on-line at your nearest passport workplace which gives a one-day and a one-week quick observe service
- Otherwise passports might be renewed on-line by HM Passport Office or by utilizing a paper utility from sure Post Offices
- It can take as much as three weeks to resume a passport from the UK
https://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/1890742/fury-brit-loses-thousands-passport-rule