Who knew a US passport that is supposedly good for ten years is actually only good for nine and a half years – or that one issued to a kid is good for four and a half years rather than the five years it says when issued?  Who knew the expiration date was actually six months prior to what it says inside the passport?

Certainly I was clueless. (hush, I realize there are a lot of things I am clueless about, but I didn’t think international travel was one of ‘em)

A student asked me about this. He’s traveling with me to Europe next year and his passport is set to expire a few months after we return. His father told him to ask me if he could still use it. I was puzzled. Seriously, if the expiration date says “June 1, 2010”, I would assume that as long as I was safely back inside the US borders before that date, there wouldn’t be a problem. Instead, if your passport is set to expire June 1, 2010, you may not be able to use it after December of 2009.

*blinks*

When my student asked I checked with another teacher that travels with me. Like me, she didn’t think the “six months before expiration” thing made any sense. At least she didn’t until she and her son headed off to fly to Germany. They headed to the airport a few days ago, her son’s passport expires in July; they ran into problems at the airport because of the six month thing.

Apparently some countries will not allow people whose passports are going to be expiring into their country. Because some countries are pretty tight about this six month window, a number of airlines will no longer let anyone fly out if they are carrying a passport that falls within the six month window.

Color me silly, but why have an expiration date that doesn’t seem to mean much?

Every time I’ve gone through customs – and I do this a LOT – they ask me “how long are you planning on staying in the country” (among other questions). I should think if I said I was going to be there longer than my passport would allow, they could tell me then.  If I were going to stick around and cause problems, an expiration date or a six month window wouldn’t stop me – idiots, lawbreakers, terrorists, and the like don’t necessarily worry about being legal anyway.

Oh well, I’ve now double, triple, and quadruple checked on the fam’s passports. We’re all set to scamper in and out of the country over the summer. Nobody is “expiring” any time soon.

Peace