Millions of travellers are to be hit by an unannounced policy change on passport rene
The Independent
Until now, the Passport Office has granted up to
nine months of extra validity for British passports renewed ahead of the expiry date.
A traveller whose passport is due to expire on 1 June 2019 could renew on 1 September 2018 and get a new document valid until 1 June 2029. But starting this week, the long-established practice of crediting a new passport with unexpired time from the old passport has been dropped.
The change was uncovered by the Money Saving Expert website after multiple users reported they had been “short-changed” when renewing their passports. The founder, Martin Lewis, told BBC Radio 5 Live: “We got contacted by a number of our users saying they renewed their passports in the last couple of days, they had many months remaining, and those months were not added on their new passports.”He said that the customer service team at the Passport Office had told researchers that the policy had changed on Monday 10 September.