Hello.
Just looking for a bit of off topic advise.
Going Jamaica for a week next month. Passport expires in August. Some places I read say that I need 6 months but others like the Gov website say as long as it’s valid for duration of holiday it’s allowed.
Anyone got any experience of this. As I’ve also got a trip to Finland start of August so was hoping to I won’t need to renew as after that I won’t be going away for a good few years so rather save that £100+ amount.
Different countries will have different rules. Because a bunch of places have a six month requirement, I’d apply for a new one now just to be on the safe side. You’ll get the extra months added on to the new one so you aren’t missing out on any time on the new one.
Sure, different countries have different rules; but in this case, the Government site says neither Jamaica nor Finland ask for any extra validity period other than the dates of the trip.
My question to the OP would be ‘who are you travelling with?’, as I suspect what they really want to know is if airline staff at the airport will apply their own validity rules over and above what the official ones are - either because they’ve got mixed up, or because they find it easier to have a blanket extra period instead of trying to remember when to apply it or not (which may be down to poor performance by staff members rather than a strict company policy).
I once managed to fly to the USA and have a holiday only to find that my passport was valid when I boarded the flight back and no longer valid when I landed. Not sure I could get away with that now!
I don’t think this is true anymore. As of over a year ago, the Guardian reported that the Home Office will no longer add any months on to a new passport:
It’s only £75 (edit: I get the point though, and whatever the price you don’t want to pay money for something you don’t have to.)