Valid passport info - minimum 6 months validity after arrival?

[Lax1724]

We travelled to Jamaica a few years ago and discovered that my 18 year old son's passport had expired (2 years prior) as we were about to board the plane. He had already shown it to at least 3 people and no one picked up on it. When we got to immigration, we were told that the passport would have been good for up to 6 months after the expiration date. We were then detained while the authorities contacted the airline to have them write a letter saying that they would take responsibility. After about 2 hours, we were on our way to Negril but we stopped a few extra times for Red Stripes.

[Sophie2012]

When we got married in Negril in 2012 my husbands passport expired the week after we got home. No issues. But I don't think I'd cut it close like that again with all the 'what if's'

[ukran1ans]

What's the point of having an expiry date if it's not a hard number? Like booking a dinner table from 6 to 8 and having the table cleared at 7:30 because you're within a half hour of the end of your reservation. What am I missing? If it hasn't expired then it's good is how I feel.

Well what I think their logic is that since you can reorder a new passport within 6 months of an existing passport's expiration, that means you can potentially have 2 passports available, allowing the 'old' passport to be sold, maybe modified and used by the wrong people with still a valid expiration date.

SO I agree with most people here in that it's just not worth the hassles to not renew your passport. I did it last fall, it was easy to download the docs from online, fill them out and mail them in with my old passport with a USP money order. I got the new passport 3 weeks later....

[ukran1ans]

I've watched TA participants 'debate' and 'advise' on this topic fairly regularly and over many years...in all those years I've only seen one or two people that have given first hand experiences.

I've had a passport that was to expire within days of returning to my birth/passport issuing country. The airline was concerned at first and told me they could deny my flight...they quickly made a phone call to the appropriate people and the airline was told that I was okay to fly to Jamaica. There is no six month passport rule within Jamaica.

Now, having shared my experience...as you can see...it can be decided by the airlines whether you get on that particular flight you've booked...if you don't want to be dealing with an airline that may or may not know whether the six month rule applies...you should choose to avoid the scenario by getting a more up-to-date passport.

Yeah, but you're from Canada... you people are much nicer... lol

[Bnewb]

What's the point of having an expiry date if it's not a hard number? Like booking a dinner table from 6 to 8 and having the table cleared at 7:30 because you're within a half hour of the end of your reservation. What am I missing? If it hasn't expired then it's good is how I feel.

Irine...the US, Canada, Jamaica, UK etc do not have this rule...but...many, many countries have a three to six month expiry rule.
You're legally not allowed to travel without a valid passport and some countries do not want to deal with the possibility of a tourist/traveller overstaying without a legal passport...cautionary.

I've noticed there are A LOT of websites out there that give the wrong information!
If travelling to another country...please check your own governments legal website to confirm passport validity/expiration information...or...just make it easy and make sure your passport is valid the six months after your return date.

[Nurse Marcia]

Ukran1ans - Unless it has changed, you have to send your old passport along with the application for renewal. You get it back but it's no good for travel.

[Kent]

I read about this a few months ago and realized our passport would expire a couple months after our January 18 trip. We did the app, got the pics, and sent it in. We had our new passports in about 2 weeks. Just get a new one so you don't have to worry about it. We got our old passports back in the mail a few days later. My wife had to send her birth certificate with the old passport because we realized a few years ago that it said she was a man on her passport which no one ever brought up to or from Jamaica 3 times or Bermuda.

[Miss Honey]

There was a group of people from Ohio at Catcha last Nov. a girl in their group was stopped infamous and couldn't fly into MoBay with the rest of the group. She had 2 months on her passport.