Martin Lewis has stressed the importance of checking your passport today.
With the holiday season here, the financial guru advises travellers to verify their passports before flying, which could save them lots of money. Speaking on ITV’s This Morning, the founder of Money Saving Expert (MSE) highlighted two crucial checks.
“Do not presume your passport is valid,” he cautioned. “There are two key aspects to verify. Firstly, concerning the day you enter a country, your passport should generally have more than six months remaining. For entry into the EU, it should be more than three months.
“Now most people know that. What they don’t know is you also need to check that your passport is not over 10 years old on the date that you enter.”
He further explained: “You used to be able to, when you renewed your passport, take what was left on your old passport to add it to your new one so you have longer than 10 years. But now many countries will not let you in if your passport is older than 10 years.
“This is not a small thing. People do their flight then get sent back and you can’t travel. I know someone it happened to in Dubai because of the 10-year rule.”
Because of situations like this, you need to do those checks now, he suggests, saying: “So if any of those things when you go and check your passport, if you’re not overseas [apply to you], you then need to go and check the specific rules for the country that you are travelling to and, if you are out of date, you then need to get it renewed.”
When asked if the timings were long to renew your passport, the expert stressed: “The passport delays have shrunk, they are not as bad as they were. But still, frankly, if you are going on holiday in eight weeks time check today. The sooner you do it, the cheaper it is, and the more chance you have of getting it sorted. So go check your passports today everyone.”