USA TODAY International Edition
Six passport problems that could ground you
When an American woman was denied boarding on her honeymoon last month because of a bent passport, she learned the hard way that if you want to get on an international flight, it’s not enough just to make sure you have your passport in hand. There also are some fussy rules and country- specific preferences, like the number of blank pages in your passport, that can trip up travelers. In extreme cases, you could even get shipped back to the U. S. on a technicality.
Here are six things you need to check on your passport to ensure you’ll coast through immigration:
1 CONDITION. That hopeful honeymooner’s tale is a cautionary one. American Airlines categorized her warped and wavy passport as “damaged” and explained to her that the airline was not permitted to let passengers fly with damaged documents. You don’t have to go so far as to store your passport like a piece of fine art, but you’ll want to protect the passport enough that it doesn’t look as if it were put through the wringer.
2 VISAS. Early on in your trip planning, triple- check to see whether you need any sort of visa, and whether you’ll need to pay a reciprocity fee ahead of time. Unfortunately, no window is going to pop up when you’re booking your ticket with a friendly reminder that you need a visa to visit the country and that you need to start the process at least a month before your trip. Make sure you’ve got the rules straight on visas while in transit, too; in some instances you may need one for an international stopover.
Also, don’t ever trust that a country has your visa in its com- puter system just because you’ve visited before. If your visa is in an old passport, bring that old passport with you.
3 BLANK PAGES. Many countries require travelers to have at least two blank visa pages in their passports. According to the U. S. State Department, some even require four. If you’re out of pages but still have years of validity left on your passport, you can have pages added ( though that may soon change).
4 EXPIRATION DATE. Similarly, most countries won’t let you in if you’re within six months of your passport’s expiration date. European countries in the Schengen Zone are sticklers about this. Even if your passport hasn’t technically expired, immi- gration officials see an upcoming expiration date as just as bad. Start the renewal process early.
5 WHAT YOU LOOK LIKE. Do you have a major weight change, dramatically different hairstyle, new face tattoos? You’ll want to be prepared for comments on the change and be ready to explain it, perhaps with additional photo evidence. In a well- publicized recent incident, a man was briefly jailed in England after officials at London Heathrow were unable to identify him after he had lost 100 pounds since taking his passport photo.
So if your appearance has “significantly changed,” the State Department says, you’ll need a new passport altogether. So what’s a “significant change”? As the department’s FAQ on passports explains, it’s nothing like new hairstyles, beards or “normal aging,” but if you’ve:
Had significant facial surgery or trauma.
Added or removed numerous/ large facial piercings or tattoos.
Undergone a significant amount of weight loss or gain.
Made a gender transition.
6 YOUR NAME. While you’re checking everything, make sure the name on your boarding passes exactly matches your passport. Even minor misspellings can cause problems with certain airlines and countries.