Virgin confusing things....

[MJG]

Received my booking confirmation today. At the bottom there is a paragraph that says:-

SPECIAL REQUESTS NOT GUARANTEED.
Please note: All British Passport holders will now only be permitted to enter the United States if they hold a machine-readable passport. All passports issued within the UK since November 1991 are machine readable. This is not the case for all UK passports issued overseas. Anyone travelling after 26 October 2005 and who is travelling on a passport issued after this date will be required to obtain a US Visa. For up to date information please refer to our website www.blah blah.com Alteratively please contact the British Passport Office on blah blah or wwww. blah blah.com or the US embassy on blah blah or wwww. blah blah .com. Note All British passport holders will now only be permitted to enter the United States if the hold a machine readable passport.



Our passports were issued in July 2002 so I am reading the above as we will be OK, our passports are 'machine readable'

But Virgin seem to be saying that my daughter who had a new Bio-metric passport issued this year (2008) would need a Visa if she was to travel to the US.

"Anyone travelling after 26 October 2005 and who is travelling on a passport issued after this date will be required to obtain a US Visa."

Whos lost the plot Virgin or US immigration?????

[blott]

Virgin I think...

Passports issued after 26 October 2005 have to be biometric ones and contain a digital photograph. I would imagine that your daughter's passport meets these requirements if it was issued in 2008.

If you've got machine readable passports, they're fine too if they were issued before 26 October 2005.

You don't need a visa unless you don't meet the visa waiver requirements.

http://london.usembassy.gov/cons_new...v/mrp_bio.html

[MJG]

Err ..... many thanks for the info.



but can you confirm why my post was moved - it was about visa requirements which is where I posted it, but it's been moved to 'off topic' How come a post about Visa requirements is Off Topic? and been moved to a forum about missing cats, new babies etc etc.

I would have PM'd you about this but for some reason this option is disabled in your posts - so had to post here.

Many thanks.

[blott]

You're welcome.

I think your post was mainly about passports.

[steph_goodrum]

Their paragraph relates to British passports Issued overseas after 2005.
The UK itself complied with the regulation that stated that any new passports issued after Oct 26th 2007 had to be biometric, I believe, so any issued since then in the UK are valid without visas if you meet all other criteria. However if for some reason you got your UK passport in a UK passport overseas then you would need to check if it has the bio chip.

The issue got somewheat clouded because of the "machine readable" which included a data strip along the bottom and bio metric which includes the chip.

[Pudders]

My Friend's son got his passport renewed just before we went out to Orlando in April - he had the new biometric one.... had no problem with it at all.

Hope this helps.[msnsmile2]