Bits: get 2400 Avios from Tesco Wine, biometric passports for the US, Gett taxi app in 25 UK cities

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• JamesWag says:

  8 May8 May 05:37

  I don’t think anyone should be having a problem with their non-biometric passport given that to enter the US you must have in excess of 6 months until expiry. Anyone whose passport expires at the latest date (for a non-biometric passport) will already have less than 6 months on it so would be denied entry on that basis anyway 🙂

  • Yuff says:

    8 May8 May 07:21

    It is possible to enter the US with less than 6 months left on you passport. I did it twice last October, as long as you have a valid ESTA you will get in.
    If you are using theur automated entry system it will flag up you have less than 6 months on your ESTA because the ESTA cannot be valid for longer than your passport. When that happened I had to have my passport checked by a US official who let me in with no issues.

  • Fenny says:

    8 May8 May 15:46

    There have been several reports in the last week of people being turned away at the airport because they don’t have biometric passports. You would think that they would have checked, but clearly, whatever checks they thought they had done were insufficient. Cue lots of wailing and posting on FB about the inhumanity!

    • Callum says:

      8 May8 May 18:35

      Indeed – what complete and utter morons they are for thinking a valid UK passport with a valid ESTA attached to it could possibly be admissible for entry to the US…

      • Fenny says:

        8 May8 May 18:58

        You don’t check the travel requirements and make sure your documents are still valid before travelling? I always check my ESTA before I go to the US by logging into the site. If, as has been reported, there are warnings about non-biometric passports not being valid any more, this is the reason for checking.

        But I suppose if we don’t feel that our travel documents are our responsibility, that’s fine.

        • harry says:

          8 May8 May 19:03

          No point letting your passport go that ‘low’ in any case

          Plenty of other countries do enforce the 6 month rule

          Plus when you renew the UK passport, you get the unused months (as pointed out!) ISTR up to 12 months

          Only laziness would stop you renewing a year ahead in Jan/ Feb/ March (if not travelling)!

        • Alan says:

          8 May8 May 22:32

          It’s not 12 or six but nine, Harry – see the link I posted! 😛

  • Nathan says:

    8 May8 May 18:23

    The six month requirement was removed some time ago.

• Scott says:

  8 May8 May 07:01

  What happens if you have less than 6 months left on your passport?
  Mine runs out sometime next year so I’m fine for now.

  Do you apply for a new one 6-12 months early, an extension or what?

  • mark says:

    8 May8 May 07:06

    You get upto 6 months added onto your passport so a maximum total of 10 years and 6 months.

    • Alan says:

      8 May8 May 09:10

      Up to nine, not six, months can be added – https://www.gov.uk/renew-adult-passport

      • harry says:

        8 May8 May 09:48

        Yep, starting to get a bit busy now (May-Aug), don’t leave it too late if you need to renew. Jan/ Feb is ideal, I’ve found, what with the 3 kids needing new passports every 5 years, we seem to constantly have one expiry in mind etc – but with Jan/ Feb renewals (even by post) you get the new passport back a week or so later.

      • mark says:

        8 May8 May 11:09

        Thanks for that Alan, they must have changed it from when i renewed mine…

        • Alan says:

          8 May8 May 15:46

          I knew I’d got more than 6/12 added on to mine, that’s what made me search out a link 🙂

• Boris says:

  8 May8 May 07:13

  Online renewals are very efficient.

  • Adey says:

    8 May8 May 07:21

    Yup – did mine online a couple of weeks ago.

    As a UK citizen (adult) all I had to do was post a couple of photos and the old passport after completing a (trivial) online form. No faffing around for countersignees etc. Got the new passport back in just over a week.

    Adey

    • Fenny says:

      8 May8 May 15:49

      Yes, the removal of the requirement for counter-signatories is very handy. And if you’ve recently renewed your photo driving licence, you can use the photo they already have stored. My last passport renewal was very quick and efficient. More so than renewing my ESTA!

• Ianmac says:

  8 May8 May 07:21

  My passport, was issued in Aug 2006 and is biometric. The 6 month rule does not apply to UK citizens btw.

  • John says:

    8 May8 May 09:22

    So you may have been affected by the problem where ESTAs were wrongly cancelled

    • Ianmac says:

      8 May8 May 09:54

      I will check that, thanks.

• Concerto says:

  8 May8 May 07:50

  I wonder what the next set of anal restrictions that the Americans will impose are going to be. Eye ball tagging like in the film Minority Report? What do they do with those billions of fingerprint files? What did they do with all those green bits of paper (I-94), which must be stuffed in some warehouse somewhere?

  • Worzel says:

    8 May8 May 07:58

    Not an issue for me, been there once, East and West, no need to return 🙂 .

  • Mel says:

    8 May8 May 09:10

    Lots of countries collect “bits of paper’ when you enter or exit. You need to get out more.

  • Imbruce says:

    8 May8 May 09:27

    Who knows what will happen if Donald dump becomes president. Maybe he will only allow
    white middle aged people?

    • Worzel says:

      8 May8 May 17:47

      Imbruce, should Donald Duck get in, I appear to fit the criteria- however, it remains doubtful that I’ll return, 🙂 .

  • John says:

    8 May8 May 09:30

    Given that people eagerly agree to any new requirements the US sets for visitors, I think the Americans can do whatever they want. Inexplicably, the introduction of US-VISIT and ESTAs increased the desire of my acquaintances to travel to the USA.

    Like Worzel I’ve been twice (pre 9/11) and I don’t have any strong desire to go again. There are plenty of places left in the world that I want to visit, which don’t require a spurious tourist tax/fee and don’t want my fingerprints or any information which I would be happier if they didn’t have.

    • harry says:

      8 May8 May 09:43

      heh heh! I fall in the Worzel camp as well. I went a few times with work & usually tacked on a weekend to look around – maybe 10 trips in total, LA, San Francisco, NY, Detroit, Boston, Houston, Dallas, Miami etc.

      No desire to return whatsoever! I can’t really see what the big attraction is for Brits, but you can’t deny the stats & popularity – about 4 million Brits go to USA pa.

      Europe on our doorsteps/ SE Asia & Australasia – much more ‘me’ 🙂

      • Callum says:

        8 May8 May 18:51

        Because the US offers countless things Europe and SE Asia/Australasia doesn’t? I’ve never found an area in Europe, SE Asia or Australasia that I’ve found as spectacular as many of the US national parks. New Zealand seems to have a few places that would rival them but is also 12,000 miles away!

  • Rob says:

    8 May8 May 09:38

    Remember that, before they pulled it due to an outcry, India was insisting that anyone planning to go had to visit the Embassy in London for biometric fingerprinting BEFORE a visa was issued.

    • John says:

      8 May8 May 16:11

      True, but India would really have seen a fall in visitor numbers if they didn’t backtrack.

      There has been plenty of outcry against the US policy but they don’t care / just ignore it.

  • John says:

    8 May8 May 09:40

    Fingerprint records are kept indefinitely, and whenever your passport is used to enter, the computer matches it against the previous fingerprints you gave.

    They are also matched to the fingerprint records of everyone who is currently denied entry to the US, in case they happen to have obtained a new passport/citizenship and are trying to enter the US when they shouldn’t be.

    The bits of paper are kept in a warehouse in Kentucky or something. You can request the info from USCBP if you want. Of course a few will have been lost over the years.

• Kipto says:

  8 May8 May 09:45

  Well without wishing to open a political debate, i can’t see anything wrong with the US choosing to prevent individuals with certain criminal convictions entering their country. Nothing wrong with drug dealers etc being denied access. I only wish we did that in the UK.

  • mark2 says:

    8 May8 May 10:22

    +1

  • John says:

    8 May8 May 16:16

    I agree, but currently the US is only able to get the criminal records of Canadian residents. For a British UK resident, they rely on you being honest, although they obviously want to get access to police records from all over the world eventually.

    Wanting fingerprints and an entry fee is mainly to enforce immigration policy, although if you happen to have been arrested for a crime in the US when you used a different name/passport this may also be flagged up.

• Chris says:

  8 May8 May 10:06

  My gripe is why the UK don’t reciprocate to American visitors?

  If we’re forced to fill in an online form and pay 14 dollars- why don’t we expect the same?
  Sure make it easy as possible- but a minor cost must also be imposed on American travellers too

  • Leo says:

    8 May8 May 11:15

    I have to agree….would pay for a few nurses and teachers etc. Ultimately UK tourists to the US are a guaranteef source of income via ESTA.

    • Brian says:

      8 May8 May 13:09

      US tourists to the UK are also a guaranteed source of income – via hotels, restaurants, tours, transport etc etc. That’s no reason not to impose a fee, of course…

      • Leo says:

        8 May8 May 14:47

        Quite.

  • Alan says:

    8 May8 May 15:45

    They still get hit with a chunky APD hit when they leave 😉

    TBH I find immigration in the USA absolutely dead easy now with Global Entry – the TSA Pre that comes with it also make things much easier for internal flights too. I wish UK immigration worked as well as GE (esp when it comes to connecting at LHR – spent 25 min queuing last time to connect onto a UK flight as they had only one person doing both EU and non-EU passports).

  • John says:

    8 May8 May 16:19

    The EU (Schengen at least) is thinking about it.

    Reciprocity just means that each government is hurting the citizens of the other country. It doesn’t solve anything and the government officials responsible will remain exempt (being diplomats).

• Eleanor Livingstine says:

  8 May8 May 10:41

  Both mine and my husband’s Esta’s were cancelled, both being only six months and both with new UK Biometric passports!
  I sent an email to U.S Homeland Security and still waiting on reply. Has anyone else had this problem?

  • Adrian says:

    8 May8 May 13:04

    I had an old passport, replaced this year with a new biometric one and therefore a new esta.

    Does everyone know that when you get a new passport your old esta is automatically cancelled? I didn’t and had to fill it out on my mobile at Heathrow, luckily I was approved! 3 weeks ago I had an email from cbp telling me that my esta had been cancelled, this was confusing as i’d just got my new passport and esta. I’m 99% sure the email is in relation to my old passport and esta as when I log on with my new reference number my new esta is still valid! CBP don’t provide a reference number in the emails they send so this doesn’t help matters.

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