View Full Version : There was a time....
This, today, from the Daily Telegraph.
Once upon a time, when our passports were Royal Blue and commanded respect across the world, this would never have happened.
Now, with our petty, insignificant, pink plastic, European style booklets this is what you can expect.
Visa requirements: the perils of not knowing where you need to travel with a visa - Telegraph (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/travelviews/4949799/Visa-requirements-the-perils-of-not-knowing-where-you-need-to-travel-with-a-visa.html)
Forget world tourism and the power of the pound (uncontrollable hysterical laughter in the background) the British administration over the past 15 years has reduced us to this - to be totally insignificant.
I used to sympathise with the queues of non-British passport holders snaking around Heathrow T3 when I returned from a trip abroad. Now I have a better idea of how embarrassing that can be.
raffele
9th Mar 2009, 16:06
I sympathise with the author of the article but she made one fatal error.
If she had read section 13 of BA's Conditions of Carriage (http://www.britishairways.com/travel/genconcarr1/public/en_gb#13) before authorising payment, she would have known that it is her responsibility to verify the entry conditions for her destination. This applies to every other international carrier. While the carrier will try and prevent such a case happening by running visa checks at check in, these cannot be 100% effective.
Moral of the story - as the traveller, it's your responsibility to check visa and entry requirements. Don't be dependant on the person behind the check in counter to spot the problem for you
Shack37
9th Mar 2009, 16:22
What is the difference between British Subject and British Citizen status?
s37
Scumbag O'Riley
9th Mar 2009, 16:23
Dont think she blamed the airline, in fact she was quite positive about them, she clearly only blamed herself. Though I suspect the check in agent got taken to one side as s/he should have caught it as the airlline can be fined for this sort of thing. Also, my recollection of travelling in the days with a blue passport is that back then you needed visas for a lot more places than you do now. India is one illogical holdout, but they are a lot better (read efficient) now in giving visas out than they were twenty or thirty years ago. Still some way to go though.
amanoffewwords
9th Mar 2009, 17:11
What is the difference between British Subject and British Citizen status?
s37
Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_citizen#Classes_of_British_nationality) has the answers
Alanwsg
9th Mar 2009, 17:32
Well, I learnt something from that article I never knew: you require two adjacent blank pages in your passport to get into RSA. I travel to Cape town a fair bit and no one's ever mentioned that one before.
Looking through my passport they don't seem to use them both, just one blank page on each occasion.
India is (in)famous for requiring (relatively) expensive visas. It's a case of RTFM, really.
Plenty of farang are caught trying to leave BKK after their complimentary tourist visas have expired. They're the lucky ones, as they're fined about 500B per day of overstay. Under other circumstances, it will no longer be the land of smiles for them!
It is not so very long ago that Australians and New Zealanders required visas for France. I once had to tear up two J class returns to Prague because I hadn't allowed for the processing time for our visas (they did not offer a same-week service, and we'd needed our passports for other travel).
It seems that Mrs Jardine was unwilling to put the modicum of effort required into establishing what she'd need and would now like to bleat about it. She reminds me of Polly Filla in Private Eye.
Just because it's the Third World doesn't mean they will kowtow to us.
BOFH
Load Toad
9th Mar 2009, 23:54
It's a story about nothing innit? Before you go anywhere you should check what the requirements are for visas, travel details, money needed, addresses needed etc. I can't see that it has anything at all to do with the colour of the f' passport. Whether 'our' passports were blue, pink or luminous snot coloured you still need to comply with local laws and requirements.
Flying_Frisbee
10th Mar 2009, 08:39
Today 00:54 Load Toad
It's a story about nothing innit?...
I can't see that it has anything at all to do with the colour of the f' passport.
I suspect the OP was really bemoaning the lack of the colour pink on the world map nowadays, rather than the colour of his passport.
Load Toad
10th Mar 2009, 11:01
Ah yes - those great days of the Empire when the map had lovely pink everywhere and we really knew how to coordinate clothes and decorate our forts with soft furnishings and drapes....
Pom Pax
12th Mar 2009, 05:58
Plenty of farang are caught trying to leave BKK after their complimentary tourist visas have expired. They're the lucky ones, as they're fined about 500B per day of overstay.
Once upon a time it was cheaper to be fined (100B per day of overstay) than to extend or buy a visa provided you didn't overstay more than 8 days. Now with the 500B price the cost effectiveness is rather shorter!
Also people don't realise the day of arrival is day one, so arrive Sunday leave Tuesday is 3 days even if you may have only been there 25 or 26 hours.
Big Harvey
13th Mar 2009, 07:15
If you do so little research concerning your destination that you don't even know whether you require a visa, you're asking for trouble, even if you're allowed into the country you're intending to visit.
In my view, shelling out for a guidebook such as a Lonely Planet is vital in order to at least have some idea of what to expect. In India, for example, the risk of violent crime is pretty low, but without proper research, a first-time visitor's chances of being ripped off in some way is close to 100%.
In the case of some other destinations, much more is at risk than simply your wealth. There are many places in the world where it's not safe to walk around even during broad daylight, and others where having certain vaccines is advisable, or even essential.
gdiphil
13th Mar 2009, 18:54
I read the article with considerable interest. I must confess I seemed to have wandered around the world in a daze over these past 56 years. I have never had any visa problems anywhere, but that is not boasting, it really is more luck than judgement. Maybe I just happen to go to countries that I know I need a visa for and those that don't need them. But I must say I did not know India required one but there again I haven't been there. The article and this thread has made me sit up and think: "visa"!!
And I have to look up that South African requirement of 2 blank pages - that is just the daftest requirement. (Or am I missing something?)