Finished your taxes? Now check your passport

by Janice Hough on April 17, 2009

Now that most Americans have finished with tax season, it’s a good time to take care of other life maintenance issues. How about a quick passport check?

First, where is the passport? Yes, I know, most passports “live” in the same drawer all the time. Except when they don’t. I can’t count the number of frantic calls I have gotten over the years when clients go to get their passport before a trip, and it’s not where it should be.

Next, what is the expiration date? This issue particularly can be a problem for children’s passports, which are good for only five years. A family assured me last year all their passports were current to fly to Vancouver for a cruise, they discovered the week before that their son’s had expired. It took a two-hour drive to the nearest passport office, a lot of waiting time, and money to save the trip.

Then, where are you traveling next? Some countries, including England, require six months validity on a passport beyond the entry date. Otherwise they will deny entry. This means travelers planning a June trip to London with a passport expiring in October need to get a new passport now. They aren’t kidding about this. A travel agent in our office ran afoul of this rule and was turned back at San Francisco Airport by British Airways.

Also, regarding the destination issue, make sure you have a couple of blank pages. Some countries want a clean page to stamp their authority to enter. No space, no entry. And still other countries want that space for a visa. This is especially important for travelers who enjoy last minute trips, because you would need to send for new pages before you request such visas.

Finally, if you have had any name changes, through marriage, divorce, or any other reason, does your current name match your passport? I just dealt with a divorced woman who gave me her “legal” name for a ticket, and forgot that her eight-year-old passport had her old married name on it. (She said, I just try not to think about the jerk much anymore.) Fortunately an amused Delta agent in a good mood allowed us to change the ticket.

A passport check should take only a couple minutes now. And it could save you hours, stress and money before your next trip.

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Tagged as: blank pages, expired passports, London, passport expiration dates, Passports, six month passport validity rule, visas

  • Wrona

    I did my passport check a few weeks ago. I was looking for another important document when I realized my passport was not in its spot. I had taken it out earlier this year because I needed it for something at work and when I got home I did not immediately put it back where it belonged, instead I laid it on the dining room table with some other paperwork. A family member came by a few days after that and cleaned up my house for me as a surprise, this included straightening my dining room table. Unfortunately their idea of where a passport should be filed and mine are quite different. I finally found it after a couple of frantic days of searching – filed with my credit card statements.

  • Jonathan

    So, what does one do when they’re running out of blank pages in their passport and they still have years to go before it expires?

  • Carrie Charney

    I am still looking for my husband’s passport, which I thought I had given to him. He says I didn’t. Luckily, I am the one traveling out of the country while he has no plans to do so in the foreseeable future. I’m keeping my eye out for it.

  • http://leftcoastsportsbabe.com Janice Hough

    Jonathan, you can actually send your passport in by mail and get extra pages… here’s the link with information.

    http://travel.state.gov/passport/fri/add/add_850.html

    thanks for reading !

  • Jonathan

    Thanks for the info, Janice.

    Is there any alternative to mailing the passport for processing? I’m an expat living in a small town in northern England and I feel uneasy about (1) mailing my passport overseas and (2) having my passport be out of my possession for long while living in a foreign country. Twice in the last two months I’ve had to travel overseas with less than a week’s notice. I’d willingly give up a day on my next US trip to stand in line at a passport office, if it could be done in person. However, I couldn’t find any alternatives to mail-in processing. Is this something I could do here in the UK at an embassy or consulate?

    If there is no alternative, I suppose I could at least pay for expedited processing, to minimize my time without the passport and to have it be trackable through FedEx or some similar service…

    Cheers -

  • Puzzled

    I would never advise sending a passport by anything other than a trackable service. Yes, it does cost more but is well worth it. Theft of passports is a big business and for a citizen living overseas could be a monumental hassle to deal with.

  • Jonathan

    In case anyone else wanted to add pages to their passport, I thought I would share my experience now that I’ve gotten mine processed. It turns out that there were a couple of alternatives to sending my passport overseas to some office in the States and waiting an ill-defined amount of time. In fact, it turns out that I’m not supposed to send my passport to have pages added in the US. This isn’t mentioned anywhere on the State Department’s web pages, but the instructions printed on the application form state that citizens living abroad should contact their nearest embassy or consulate.

    I was much more comfortable with sending my passport to the embassy down in London. Unlike the Department of State web pages, which describe regular and expedited processing but doesn’t define how long either takes, the embassy web site promises a fast turn-around (they claim five business days, although in reality it wound up being a couple of days longer). Having the pages added here provided some extra piece of mind because if I had a problem and needed my passport in the interim, the people I would call for help would be the same people who would have my passport.

    An alternative that might have been possible is to go to one of the regional passport offices while I was visiting the states (there are just 15 of these offices scattered about the US: http://travel.state.gov/passport/passport_4312.html ). Their services are provided by appointment only and only if you will be traveling or need to submit your passport for a foreign visa within 14 days. I did not attempt this option, so I cannot confirm that adding pages to a passport is amongst their services, but it would seem to be a reasonable possibility. I wanted to mention this in case any readers out there need to add pages, apply for a new passport, etc, and are in an urgent rush…

    Cheers –

    - Jonathan

  • http://easyeta.com AustralianVisa

    I would simply recommend that not only Americans, but all travelers need to make sure their passports and their visa requirements are looked after in any travel situation. For Australia, I can tell you right now, a visa is much easier to obtain than, say, Russia, China, or Brazil. This, of course, depends on your citizenship and passport situation. It is important to do your homework. Using my earlier example, for an Australian ETA, you just need to fill out an online application. There can, however, be other travel visa requirements where you’ll need to prepare and often times need a physical piece of paper in your passport. Thanks and I hope this helps!

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