The Worst NON-TRAVEL Travel Surprise

Passport Expiry

OK folks. Take a look at your passport. Where are you heading to and when? 

More importantly what date are you returning home? Expiry date no longer gives you     the right to leave your visiting country a day, a week before that expiry date – not even a month before- not even two months before. In fact, you must scadoodle out at least 3 months before the expiry date -  when your destination is Europe. But if you're visiting the USA from Europe,  you've got to get out 6 months before the expiry date.

The point of this article is this: go on line and the country’s consulate and ask very carefully, how soon must you leave the destination country before the expiry date on your passport kick in.

Note that the official has no right to ask you the number of your passport, just the expiry date.

Costa Rica from Canada demands one month prior. That is another example of each country’s exit expiry peccadilloes

 

Here’s another sneaky thing. If you opt for a 10-year passport – in the case of Canada – and you travel a lot and the pages get marked on every spot by border stamps, you have to get a new one and pay again! So much for saving $40 (the 5-year one costs $120; the 10-year one is $160).

So bon voyage, but that little coloured passport’s expiry date is so important, you may very well expire right at the airline’s check-in counter when they tell you you aren’t getting on the plane today – such as what happened to me yesterday for my flight to Athens, Greece.

 So which one are you here?                              You hit the skids; didn't check the date?                                                                                              
Easy-breezy; checked the date                           
                                                                                 

     or almost made it?