Woman loses £2,600 dream holiday after passport expiry date blunder – here is how to check if yours is valid
A WOMAN has issued a warning to families heading abroad this summer, after she lost her £2,600 dream holiday due to a passport mistake.
Brits who think they have until next year to renew their passport, may have much less time than they think.
The 67-year-old retiree, who remained nameless, explained how she lost her dream holiday because of the new passport expiry issues.
She told Gazette Live that she only realised after booking the holiday and the travel agent checked her passport.
She said: “I had the extra six months. I’d even put a note in my diary, so I was well aware of the expiry date.
“She said ‘you haven’t got enough on your passport’ [and] told me not many people know about it, but the rules have changed.”
The new rules no longer allow an additional ten months on passports, which could previously be rolled over.
This means passports prevoiusly could be valid for up to 10 years and 10 months.
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New rules mean those 10 months are invalid, which means a passport which has an expiry date of June 2022, will actually expire this month.
The retiree added: “In my case, the issue date was September 15, 2011.
“Add ten years on – and it took me to September 15, 2021, which meant there wasn’t enough time left on my passport.”
“They’re only allowing you ten years on your passport exactly.”
Most destinations in Europe are also requiring Brits to have at least three months on their passport, post-Brexit.
Despite being able to get someone else to take her holiday, she had to pay another £150, and warned other travellers to “ignore the expiry date” and only look at the issue date.
EXPIRY DATE CONFUSION
Other travellers have already faced problems – earlier this month, passenger Abi Campbell was stopped from boarding her flight back to Glasgow from Tenerife after thinking her passport was valid.
Despite expiring in May 2022, the issue date was August 2011 – meaning it is only valid up to August 2021.
The government website states: “Your passport must also be less than ten-years-old on the day after you leave. If you renewed your current passport before the previous one expired, extra months may have been added to its expiry date.
“Any extra months on your passport over ten years may not count towards the minimum period needed.”
Families planning on booking a last minute holiday this summer are also being warned of 10-week waits for a new passport.
This means that holidaymakers wanting to go away, but have to renew their passport, may have to wait until mid-October before getting them back.
Last summer, a backlog of 400,000 passports was reported, after more than a million passports expired during the lockdown.
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