Member Article

Don't forget your toothbrush, oh and your passport!

With only six weeks to go until the school holidays and the great summer holiday exodus begins, the Identity and Passport Service (IPS) is calling on all holidaymakers to check that their passports are in order.Every year people risk being unable to go on holiday because they arrive at ports and airports with passports which have expired. Last summer alone, 106,000 people paid £48 on top of the cost of a passport for the same day renewal service because they had not left enough time for a standard renewal.Travelling abroad has become the norm for many people, but checking travel documents well in advance has fallen out of fashion. Research conducted for IPS found that 17 per cent of people start looking for their passport just one day before a trip and a staggering 15 per cent start looking only a few hours before a trip.IPS is also reminding families planning to travel to the USA that under the US Visa Waiver rules, children must have their own machine-readable passport. Anyone without their own machine-readable passport, including children on a parental passport, will need a visa to travel to the US.With around 47 million British passports in circulation, with 80% of the population holding a passport the IPS service is expected to be in huge demand this summer. For full details on prices, the renewal procedure and new passport photo rules, please go to www.passport.gov.uk or call the Passport Adviceline on 0870 521 0410.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Ruth Mitchell .