Out-of-date dilemma
I know we should all be giving our brains a workout to ward off dementia, but understanding passport issues is surely the equivalent of an Olympic routine in the anti-Alzheimer’s stakes.
My colleague Natalie was all set for a week’s holiday to Gran Canaria with some girlfriends. On the Friday afternoon, as the girls were packing for the following day’s flight, someone suggested that they check their passports. Eek! One of the girls noticed that hers had expired earlier in the year.
An appointment was made at the passport office for the Monday, with the girl in question planning to fly out and join her pals for the rest of the week. One of her friends then suggested that they all go to the airport and take a chance – perhaps the check-in staff wouldn’t notice that the passport was no longer valid?
As a crosser of Ts and dotter of Is, this strategy would have had me break out in a rash and be refused travel on medical grounds, but Natalie and her gang were quite cool about it and – working to the ‘what’s the worst that could happen?’ rule – duly rocked up at the airport.
Naturally, any check-in employee worth his salt would spot a schoolgirl error of this nature and spot it he did. The girls looked crestfallen but were then happily surprised when the chap in question went on to say: “It’s okay, the area you’re travelling to accepts expired passports.”
Needless to say, after I-dare-you-to-guess-how-many years in travel, I don’t think I was ever aware of countries being willing to accept invalid passports. And in this post-9/11 world with its heightened anxieties about terrorism, who would have thought you could bypass all that security?
Anyway, the girls made it to Gran Canaria, where – just as the official had said – there was no problem with entry, and enjoyed a great week.
On their return to Gatwick, however, the young woman in question was taken aside and questioned about travelling on an expired passport and told in no uncertain terms that she should never have been allowed to fly in the first place.
If there’s confusion at the airport about the validity of expired passports what chance do the rest of us stand? (I think I’ve earned a few extra IQ points just by relating that story…)
Tailbone of contention
On the subject of passports, some of my clients recently returned from a trip to Venice and had nothing but praise for the Italian police, Kirker Holidays, the Londra Palace Hotel and the British consul following the theft of a travel wallet.
A pickpocket had made off with the couple’s tickets, passports and English money and, naturally, they were very distressed.
In Italy everyone knows someone. The concierge at the Londra Palace happened to be a friend of the chief of police and got things moving immediately.
The embassy, on being informed of our clients’ plight, agreed to stay open after their usual closing time of 12pm, to issue our clients with emergency 24-hour passports at a cost of £70 per person.
Kirker did its bit and reissued tickets, while the Londra Palace supplied €200 to help our clients enjoy their last day (when they promised to reimburse the hotel they wouldn’t hear of it).
Generous responses were the order of the day – even the delay to the easyJet return flight, which could have threatened the validity of the 24-hour passports, was shortened.
How I wish that every bad-luck story turned out so well. One of our regular older clients popped in to tell me that he wouldn’t be going away for the foreseeable future as he had been suffering from back problems.
“They’re sending me to the specialist to look at the base of my spine,” he said. “I’m alright standing up but I can’t sit down for long.”
I sympathised – big mistake. He undid his belt and pulled his trousers away from his sweaty lower back.
“Put your hand there and feel my coccyx.”
How does one turn down such an offer with sensitivity?
“I wouldn’t want to make it painful for you,” I replied, “so, on this occasion, I’ll decline.”
As I said to my boss Peter later, I will do most things to drum up trade, but I draw the line at massaging men’s coccyx.
Maureen Hill works at Travel Angels, Gillingham, Dorset