anybody travelled with Airtours/MY travel

[Ali and boyz]

with a 16 year old using the machine readable childs passport. there seems to be some uncertanty as whether airtours allow an over 16 year old to continue to use their valid childrens passport even though the passport agency say it is valid right up until expiry. anybody went with them and had no problems

 

[florida sun]

Ali

Im a bit confused with this, my daughter will be 16 in August and has a passport that is valid until she is 18 in 2008, it is the standard machine readable passport and I havent been informed that she needs anything different, she has had the passport since she was 13, can you give me any more information on what Airtours are saying as we are travelling with them in October.

Thanks

 

[Ali and boyz]

Ali

Im a bit confused with this, my daughter will be 16 in August and has a passport that is valid until she is 18 in 2008, it is the standard machine readable passport and I havent been informed that she needs anything different, she has had the passport since she was 13, can you give me any more information on what Airtours are saying as we are travelling with them in October.

Thanks

Hi Sue , found this by chance on another site and I am now totally panicing

Have booked with Airtours, and have just recieved an E-mail from them.
They are saying that because my DD is 17 she can't travel using her childs 5 year passport it doesn't expire until 2009.
They are insisting that we get her a 10 year one.
I was under the impression that the only difference between the adult and child's passport was the length of time it was valid for
We travelled using it last year with no problem with Virgin,
Can they legally insist on us getting a new passport, As the one she has is valid?
Can they refuse to allow her to board?
I've looked on the Passport office web site, and it's as clear as mud
Help !!!!!!!!

they threads go on basically saying the tour operator can do what they want. I contacted the Passport office and they say they passport is valid but it is just some people saying that the tour operators can do what they want that is worrying me. my son turns 16 literally just before we travel so time scale is going to be to short

hopefully somebody will have travelled with them recently with their 16 or 17, 18 year old and can let us know how they got on.

 

[florida sun]

Thanks for that Ali, I have not heard of it and yes it will worry me as well so I understand your concern, but you would think that they would have let us know. I will ring "My Travel" tomorrow and ask them, as soon as I know, I will let you know.

 

[Ali and boyz]

Thanks for that Ali, I have not heard of it and yes it will worry me as well so I understand your concern, but you would think that they would have let us know. I will ring "My Travel" tomorrow and ask them, as soon as I know, I will let you know.

Sue I have just received this from MY Travel but........................... I stupidly didn't say to them that it was Airtours that I had booked with although MY Travel is the airline. I also didn't say I was going to Florda although I gave them my booking ref. and airport destination of Sanford


Dear Alison,

Thank you for contacting the Web Support team.

As per the e-mail sent by the Passport office your son's passport will be fine to travel on and you should dis-regard the thread you read.

I hope this information helps.

With regards,

=================================

if you don't mind could you ask them if airtours and MY travel have the same policies. you would think they would as MY travel own Airtours.

 

[florida sun]

No problem Ali, will do

 

[loadsapixiedust]

And not just Airtours, to add to the confusion I found this on the TCD website

"Passports - remember that, from October 2003, ALL adults and children regardless of age MUST have their own machine readable 10 year passport when travelling to the united states of America"

I didn't think the UKPA would issue a 10 year passport to a child under 16

 

[florida sun]

Ali

Just this second got off the phone with Airtours, and they confirmed what your email has said, that any child over the age of 16 travelling on an exsisting valid machine readable 5 year passport is absolutly fine.

I asked them if they could confirm this was the policy of all their companys, Airtours, My Travel and Direct Holidays and they assure me it is.

Hope this helps, have fun planning.

Sue

 

[Ali and boyz]

Ali

Just this second got off the phone with Airtours, and they confirmed what your email has said, that any child over the age of 16 travelling on an exsisting valid machine readable 5 year passport is absolutly fine.

I asked them if they could confirm this was the policy of all their companys, Airtours, My Travel and Direct Holidays and they assure me it is.

Hope this helps, have fun planning.

Sue

thanks a million Sue another worry over

Ali

 

[Ali and boyz]

in between you phoning I got another email from them after I asked about America and got this reply

Thank you for the additional information.

This would not make a difference to the information the passport office have provided you with.

The information on our site is purely for advisory purposes, any information provided to you by the passport office would supersede the information posted on our web site.

With regards,

just shows you how wrong info on their site can make people panic !

 

[florida sun]

I agree Ali.

Never mind at least we now know for sure, great news.


Sue

 

[carolfoy]

If the tour ops don't know, what hope is there for the rest of us?

loadsapixiedust...
And not just Airtours, to add to the confusion I found this on the TCD website

"Passports - remember that, from October 2003, ALL adults and children regardless of age MUST have their own machine readable 10 year passport when travelling to the united states of America"

I didn't think the UKPA would issue a 10 year passport to a child under 16

Try booking a family trip to Egypt with a company who insists that children must have a ten year passport the bloomin tour ops haven't a clue sometimes and can't be bothered to find out!

 

[Ali and boyz]

If the tour ops don't know, what hope is there for the rest of us?

loadsapixiedust...
And not just Airtours, to add to the confusion I found this on the TCD website

"Passports - remember that, from October 2003, ALL adults and children regardless of age MUST have their own machine readable 10 year passport when travelling to the united states of America"

I didn't think the UKPA would issue a 10 year passport to a child under 16

Try booking a family trip to Egypt with a company who insists that children must have a ten year passport the bloomin tour ops haven't a clue sometimes and can't be bothered to find out!

got to laugh or don't know which but got an email from airtours (first lot were from MY Travel who own Airtrous !!) saying

We would accept the advice of the passport office, however due to the
entry regulations of the US I would advise you to contact the American
Embassy on 0207 499 9000 to check this would be acceptable.

well I had checked the American website at the beginning of the week and knew the passports were fine by them but it just goes to show how one person can get told something different from the another and cause undue distress.

 

[carolfoy]

I agree Ali, there was a piece in the daily mail a couple of weeks ago that was about the new bio metric passports, it basically read like, if you didn't get one soon you couldn't go to the US, I spent the WHOLE day on the phone to people who thought they'd better just check this wasn't the case! I think it was just a rehashed press release but it gave out totally duff info