Passport expiration question

A family member is traveling to Paris very soon (short visit). Her passport will expire several weeks after the trip.
US State Dept suggest that the passport be good for 6 months after the trip.
American Airlines recommends 3 months

Anyone have experience traveling to France with a passport that will expire shortly after the trip?
Hoping to avoid surprises when they land.

I ran into this a few years ago… St Dept and AA can recommend whatever they want, but you really need to check the rule with the country your family member is going too.

Aware of that. Hoping there was some practical experience board members could share

Gottcha, good luck.

They should pay for expedited passport now.

France is a party to the Schengen Agreement. Visit the Embassy of France website for the most current visa and entry requirement information. Passports should be valid for at least six months beyond your stay.Feb 29, 2016
France - US Department of State
https://travel.state.gov › content › country

This!

I speak from personal experience that your family member will not be allowed to board the plane. In December my husband and I were trying to travel to Nice. We got to the airport and tried to print our boarding pass and the airline (United) refused to issue the boarding pass stating that my husband had a passport issue. His passport expired in March and this was December. We had no idea that an unexpired passport was invalid.
We tried to rebook our flight for the following day - hoping that he could get to the passport office to get an emergency passport, but no flights were available. So we had to cancel the trip. Since this was over the New Years Eve time, we had to prepay our hotel and a couple of restaurant reservations. We could have been out thousands of dollars. Luckily after fighting with the airline, hotel and restaurant we were able to get credits which we ended up using in March.
So, get the expedited passport ASAP.

They will be no surprises when they land because they more than likely won’t be taking off.

+1

My boss was recently denied entry to Paris over this issue. Get the expedited passport renewal.

All correct. Deal with it now before the trip.

This is really good to know. I had no idea that a passport could be invalid if it hadn’t expired yet.

Luckily we checked before a recent trip to Israel, but my kids passports would have expired 3 months after we returned from our trip and we were told by United to get them renewed before the trip.

local friend traveling to France last year had to leave a day or 2 later than originally as his passport was expiring within 6 months. Expedited and saved most of his trip

This is really interesting. I’ve flown back and forth from the US to the UK several times with no problem in the past few months with a passport that is about to expire. But I do have a specific UK Visa, so perhaps that accounts for the discrepancy.

I was leaving for Paris on May 20th.
My passport was expiring on July 23rd.

They would not issue me a boarding pass.
It was a mess.

I’ve been reading wine boards since 2003. The least you folks (Berserkers) can do is read Flyertalk, or equivalent. With the summer fast approaching, the time to plan is now. Don’t be a rookie.

A friend was prevented this Spring from flying from Philly to Germany with a valid passport. Had to scramble the next morning to get a new passport. Since airlines require passport information, would it be too much to ask that one be notified of a problem when that information is provided. Probably, too busy thinking of ways to add extra charges.

This type of thing annoys me to no end. If you can’t use a passport 3 months prior to expiration, why have an expiration date at all? Why not just make it 9 years 9 months?

I believe these are rules set by the host country (no doubt because they don’t want to be stuck with you if you’re still there when your passport runs out.) Your life must be full of frustration.

I think some countries specify 6 months (I know I got a new passport for Vietnam for this reason and my visa was for 1 month). I understand if your passport expires during the travel time, but why if you plan a two week vacation and declare that, do you need 5 months of leeway?

My life is full of frustration.