If billyh42 has a piggyback FAA (I understand his post suggests not) is there not a requirement for I.D. check because of the slight change in his EASA licence number?
My FAA PPL is "piggybacked" on the JAA PPL. Initially when the EASA changes were announced, the FAA said that their "piggybacked" certificates would remain valid as long as the holder had an "equivalent" EASA licence.
However, they announced just last month that holders of any "piggybacked" licences would have to attend personally at Gatwick and renew if converting a licence to EASA. The point of my complaint being that I already have to provide a passport etc to the CAA at Gatwick to "verify" my identity for the EASA conversion, so common sense (not the CAA's strongpoint I know) would suggest that this should suffice as ID to allow everything to be done at the same time.
The deadline for renewal is however October 2018, but as usual it's still a bit ambiguous as to whether the current FAA licence remains valid?