V. Important News for all travellers to USA after 1 Oct '03 (incl. those w/o kids)

[lewisturek]

I have found this on the Virgin website:

***

New U.S. Customs Requirements

With effect from October 1st, 2003, no citizen of any existing Visa Waiver Programme eligible country will be allowed entry into the United States without a valid U.S. visa unless he or she holds a valid machine-readable passport. If you are unsure of what documents you require to gain entry to the U.S., please contact your nearest U.S. consulate or embassy.

***

This means that anybody who holds an older style red passport (with no barcode on the picture page) will have to buy a visa from the american embassy which I imagine will be around twenty quid. The only other option is to buy a new style passport which costs £55 !!!


Its amazing how holidays always seem to get more and more expensive, after you'd thought you'd paid for everything!!!

 

[Goofyish]

The 'machine readable' bit on the passport isn't a barcode - it's the combination of the text and >>>>>> bits at the bottom of the last page (or last but one page on newer passports).

 

[lewisturek]

Goofy,


Are you sure????


When I spoke to Virgin to confirm what was on their website, they said that only passports with BARCODES would be acceptable.


Oh well, typical Virgin Atlantic, telling us porkies.

 

[Phil R]

My passport is just over 3 years old and has text and <<<< symbols on the bottom of the picture page. Is this the barcode Virgin are talking about.

Does anyone have a brand new passport they can check?

Phil.

 

[Phil R]

Panic over!! Just spoke to the UK passport office all of the "RED" passports are machine readable. The information is at the bottom of the picture page in a series of text and <<< characters. IT IS NOT A BARCODE....

Phil.

 

[Muppet]

#


Thanks Phil for that I was trying the Passport Office myself and was on hold and Nic was talking to a lady at the US Embassy.

But you have saved the day.

 

[BevS97]

Phil's very new passport hasn't got a barcode on it anyway, just the lines at the bottom with all the <<< on it.

I thought the old style passports were hardbacked and blue? is my memory failling me?

bev

 

[lewisturek]

So I guess Virgin told me duff information (AGAIN!!!)


All's well that ends well!!!


Lewis


PS The older ones were blue and hard-backed, but they were the "older-older" ones!!!

 

[Red-Snapper]

British Virgin Islands had just introduced brand new machines that "read" passports when we went earlier this year....unfortunately they dont work very well.

Lines were very very long and most of the passports had to be manually input into the machine after the customs officer had tried scanning them 4 or 5 times each !!!

Hopefully our American friends will be flexible if our Brit passes dont scan well

 

[Celestine]

All passports issued in the UK will have the machine readable code <<<<, however if you had your passport issued overseas (I got mine in Cyprus when DH was posted there), it will not have a machine readable section. Apparantly the machines are prohibitively expensive for places other than UK & Paris. Looks like we'll need 3 visas then. You would have thought something as important as this would be better advertised!

 

[Aceman88888]

On our last two trips abroad, and in particular this year's to WDW, our passports were swiped both entering and leaving the US.

I think it's been in use for some time!

 

[catherine]

Some passports that are obtained overseas have the readable code. I got mine in the U.S., it has the code.