 Poster: A snowHead
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Hi I want to travel to france for a last minute ski hol in the next few weeks. only my passport expires at the end of April.
It says on the foreign office website that I will ok to travel to france as long as i return before expiry. has anyone else done
this recently I just feel i might be stopped, by some over zealous french customs officer.
any advice please.
thanks
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
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As long as you are not flying into Geneva, you should be fine....the Swiss demand 6 months on your passport IIRC
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You need to Login to know who's really who.
You need to Login to know who's really who.
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anastasia, If you read the hrrors we went through on our thread (linked above by TFC) then I think you'd appreciate that you are in a fantastic position! Not sure I agree with the Guvnor, about GVA - I didn;t come across this in my extensive though last minute research on international travel law (some countires do require 6 months but these seem to be non-european)
I'd relax and enjoy your holiday....and welcome to  's
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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
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You'll need to Register first of course.
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Anywhere EU should be fine (I expect), Switzerland as above, but maybe if passing through GVA they are more lenient if you have a good excuse?
Not sure how long passports take to renew in UK, but mine was 7 days from postage to delivery c/o British Consulate in Düsseldorf (although most people's here take about 10 days, and FCO state much longer). Do they still do same day service in UK passport offices?
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andy, same day service does still exist - it cost me £108 last August, vs £66 for the normal service!
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You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
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vetski, Ahhh but.....the passport office claim that you must have an appointment to visit in person - they say they won't see people who turn up on spec (though anecdotally hystreria on the front steps may sway them). Now, the advice on their website for people who are travelling in "less than two days" is to make an appointment and visit in person. Elsewhere though it says you should allow 7 days to get an appointment! When calling last week, the earliest available appoitment was 3 (of their) business days away (ie excluding bank holidays and sundays but including saturdays)
Sage, Fair point - but I'd be interested if anybody has heard of a traveller being refused entry on this basis. I think its the Swiss helping us ensure that we don't travel on expired passports by adding a very cautious risk margin.
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kewhoward, I know of people who have been turned away at the Swiss border whilst driving from Germany to France - the diversion to go around was several hundred miles and took many hours....your succesful border hopping was extremely fortunate, and should in no way be either condoned nor taken for granted.
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snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
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vetski, that's a big % increase, but still cheaper than overseas FCO issued passports. Mine was about 140 euro this time last year, but I note that it's now 170 euro. Plus €5 postage (although they do come in posh envelopes).
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And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
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kewhoward, true, I did make an appointment. The passport office here is huge, though, so I got an appointment fairly quickly. Once, that is, they had made up their minds about whether I needed an appointment at all, and what documentation I needed - that took a week's worth of calls!
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| Guvnor wrote: |
| kewhoward ... your succesful border hopping ... should in no way be ... condoned |
Harsh; why not?
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You know it makes sense.
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Guvnor, Harsh indeed - I've repeatedly said here that I wouldn't recommend it - its no good for the blood pressure. I think anybody who deliberately tries to infringe these rules is asking for trouble. We tried everything we could think of to get a new passport in time. But blimey - it was 2 days out of date when we travelled - into a country that routinely accepts 5 year out of date passports as ID from other more enlightened neighbours. It was an accident (though it probably has saved me renewing her passport for a couple of months = 2/120 * 66 = £1.10. 
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Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
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kewhoward, I am sure Guvnor can speak for him/herself but my reading of the post is you were lucky and we should not advise anyone to do what you did? Its not a criticism of you as such 
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Poster: A snowHead
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kewhoward, Sorry, just to clarify who or what is harsh here? The Swiss or me?
richmond, Do you condone it then? On what grounds ?
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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Guvnor, I see no harm (apart from to kewhoward's nerves) in what was done. There's nothing wrong with travelling on an out of date passport. Obviously, travelling on an out of date passport and then blowing yourself up on a bus/robbing a bank/parking on a double yellow is wrong, but it's the last bit that's wrong, not the travelling bit. Mrs kewhoward is not a terrorist or any other sort of wrongdoer (kewhoward will no doubt correct me if I'm wrong), and I see nothing wrong with her or others with similarly wholesome intentions travelling on out of date passports. I'm not suggesting that it's a good idea, though; it's obviously not.
What do you see as the harm in it?
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Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
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richmond, if it's out of date, it's out of date, end of. If there is nothing wrong with travelling on an out of date passport where do you draw the line ? 1 year, 5 years, 10 years ?
Would you say that driving a car with an out of date MOT is OK as long as you don't have a crash ?
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You need to Login to know who's really who.
You need to Login to know who's really who.
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| bladeskier wrote: |
richmond, if it's out of date, it's out of date, end of. If there is nothing wrong with travelling on an out of date passport where do you draw the line ? 1 year, 5 years, 10 years ?
Would you say that driving a car with an out of date MOT is OK as long as you don't have a crash ? |
I wouldn't draw the line. What's the problem? I'd say that driving a car with an out of date MOT is only wrong (not the same as illegal) if the car would fail the MOT or if the insurance would be invalid by not having one. It would be wrong to drive a car which wouldn't pass it's MOT whether or not it had an one. Obviously, the authorities have to punish those who don't have an up to date MOT whether the car is in good condition or not, and you can't complain if you get nicked for not having one.
Similarly, Mrs kewhoward couldn't have complained if she'd been refused travel. She hasn't done anything wrong, though, merely failed to go through a bureacratic hoop which which would have shown that she wasn't trying to do something she was not allowed to do. She is of the class of people allowed to travel to Switzerland and to return to UK; she just didn't have the right bit of paper to show that.
For the avoidance of doubt, I'm not saying that the authorities should necessarily let people with very out of date passports travel, just that such people do nothing wrong by travelling on them (unless they are no longer entitled to a passport or something).
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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
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bladeskier, The Schengen Accord (signed by fifteen European countries, including France but not the UK) draws the line at five years out of date. ie a passport continues to qualify as photo id, which is all that is needed.
Ours was a domestic admin error - to compare it with an out of date MOT that invalidates insurance and could have serious financial implications to a third party is something else.
I struggled with the emotion of the cause and effect of our admin error - a simple timing difference caused one of the biggest emotional upset we've had in our marriage (and don't give me "its only a holiday" - its the relative impact of something which should have been fantastic turning into a complete pain in the @rse for us and our innocent children). OK its not a bereavement or barring desperate ill health or financial hardship then its pretty big.
For those of you that think we shouldn't have been able to travel I hope you find yourself in our position and then make your judgement.
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You'll need to Register first of course.
You'll need to Register first of course.
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kewhoward, Fork the narks. I'm still happy you got to go skiing 
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richmond, Crossed posts. Your logic is impeccable. Absolutely we would have accepted it as a fair cop if we'd not been able to travel.
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thefatcontroller, thank you
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You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
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kewhoward, Me too, Oh and well done for getting away with it.
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Frosty the Snowman, and thank you too
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snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
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kewhoward, Hang on - I hadn't suggested that you should have binned your hard earned holiday - all I said was that you should not condone breaking laws. You got away with it, and had a great time as a result. However, by condoning what you have admitted was a risky, shoite or bust gamble may lead to different consequences for another...hardly sage advice, is it?
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And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
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Guvnor, Where have I condoned it? For the avoidance of doubt, I don't condone it, I don't recommend it and I will never do it again (unless I am still travelling after the onset of Alzheimers or similar). I was curious about the Swiss position, thats all.
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| kewhoward wrote: |
| I was curious about the Swiss position, thats all. |
And what is it? Up an alp, with an alpenhorn, a bar of toblerone and a bemused looking lilac cow?
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You know it makes sense.
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| Guvnor wrote: |
| all I said was that you should not condone breaking laws. |
Is it illegal to travel without a passport? I doubt it; difficult, risky, nerve wracking, but not illegal.
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| by condoning what you have admitted was a risky, shoite or bust gamble may lead to different consequences for another...hardly sage advice, is it? |
Condoning something isn't the same as advising someone to do it.
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Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
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| Guvnor wrote: |
| kewhoward, Hang on - I hadn't suggested that you should have binned your hard earned holiday - all I said was that you should not condone breaking laws. You got away with it, and had a great time as a result. However, by condoning what you have admitted was a risky, shoite or bust gamble may lead to different consequences for another...hardly sage advice, is it? |
What laws were broken?
It is not illegal to travel on an out of date passport, either to leave or to enter this country.
There may be Swiss laws that make it illegal to enter that country unless you have a passoprt from your native country, but I doubt it.
There will almost certainly be laws/regulations specifying that a valid passport is acceptable proof of ID, but provided you can provide some acceptable form of ID, you are unlikley to be breaking any laws by traveling with an expired passport.
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Poster: A snowHead
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| alex_heney wrote: |
| provided you can provide some acceptable form of ID, you are unlikley to be breaking any laws by traveling with an expired passport. |
It is unlikely to be illegal even if you don't have the ID, but you're less likely to be let in.
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