Qantas - have YOU traveled to Australia with less than 6 months left on your passpor

Hi! We are scheduled to go on a RT cruise out of Sydney around New Zealand. We bought a RT ticket non-stop from LAX to Sydney with some extra padding both before and after the cruise (we are american). DH's passport expires in May and we travel in November. I know that neither New Zealand or Australia has the rule of needing to have 6 months left on your passport to travel to or from those countries, but I find Qantas' website isn't giving us good information. They say to check with the country to which you are travelling, and the Australian consulate website says to check with the airline. Has anyone traveled on a non-stop from the US to Australia on Qantas with less than 6 months on their passport?

To gum this up - why don't we just renew his passport, right!? We need it for another cruise out of Canada in October - and we live in Alaska. There's no "just running to the passport office," it would require a plane ticket and a hotel room. We will have just over 3 weeks when we return from Canada to get the passport renewed, so do we trust that they will get it returned to us in time if we expedite it?

Has anyone traveled on a non-stop from the US to Australia on Qantas with less than 6 months on their passport?

I've never yet pushed this to the limit though. The Australian rule for both UK citizens and US citizens is "Passports and other documents accepted for entry must be valid on arrival." And as an eVisitor (for UK and others) or ETA (for US and others) only needs to be valid on arrival and your three months stay runs from the date of entry, in theory you could arrive in Australia on the last day of your passport validity and still stay for the full three months.

It's possible, though, that a US citizen could have more problems getting home than a UK citizen: we can enter the UK on expired passports. :D

The option you can choose, then, is to take the chance and go to the airport without the six (6) months left to expiration and find out if he will be boarded or not.

By that time, it will be too late to do anything else and you are at the mercy of the check-in agent... if they say no way, you will not fly, regardless of what the website is or is not clear about.

The general rule has been at least six (6) months before expiry at departure from the visiting country. Are there exceptions, sure there are, some countries have looser or tighter requirements for the six (6) month rule.

Have you tried calling the Australian Embassy or Consulate for definitive info, if not found through your usual search for this info? Do not U.S. passport holders need a Visa to enter Australia? This may be a place to start for information.

bon voyage

The general rule has been at least six (6) months before expiry at departure from the visiting country.

I did, however, look up the exact wording of the current rule for UK citizens and US citizens visiting Australia, for the purposes of my previous post. And that was repeated verbatim in my previous post.

Do not U.S. passport holders need a Visa to enter Australia?

It might help, though, if you can tell us what is your experience of entering Australia, and what sort of visa and how much passport validity did you have?

You should also confirm what your cruise line requires. A few years back I was booked on Princess cruise out of the UK and they would not allow me to complete my check in because my passport would expire less than 6 months after the end of the cruise.

There is no 6 month requirement for Canadians travelling to the UK but princess would not budge. So while I could have flown to the UK with no problem I would have run the risk of being refused boarding. I tried to fight it but gave in and renewed my passport early. No idea if your cruise line has a similar requirement but it’s worth checking.

The major airlines all use a common immigration database called TIMATIC to verify that a passenger is in theory going to be allowed into their destination country. United makes that portal available to the flying public here so they can check and assemble documents as needed:

https://www.united.com/web/en-US/apps/vendors/default.aspx?i=TIMATIC

The major airlines all use a common immigration database called TIMATIC to verify that a passenger is in theory going to be allowed into their destination country. United makes that portal available to the flying public here so they can check and assemble documents as needed:

 

https://www.united.com/web/en-US/apps/vendors/default.aspx?i=TIMATIC

Great link. Thanks for sharing.

The major airlines all use a common immigration database called TIMATIC to verify that a passenger is in theory going to be allowed into their destination country.

We did a Celebrity cruise from Sydney to Auckland in January 2017. Our flights were Delta PHX-LAX-PHX with connecting Virgin Australia service LAX-SYD-LAX. At the termination of the cruise in Auckland, we stayed an extra few days, then booked on Air New Zealand AKL-SYD the day prior to our flight to the USA.

At the time of departure, DH had exactly 6 months validity on his passport. He had no problems with obtaining an ETA, embarking/disembarking the ship, immigration control in either country nor check-in with any airline.

Not sure if this information helps, but thought I would share our experience.

Enjoy your cruises.

The major airlines all use a common immigration database called TIMATIC to verify that a passenger is in theory going to be allowed into their destination country. United makes that portal available to the flying public here so they can check and assemble documents as needed:

 

https://www.united.com/web/en-US/apps/vendors/default.aspx?i=TIMATIC

Bon voyage

Sent from my P00I using Tapatalk

Thank you for this link, it appears that it will answer the OP's question.

The option you can choose, then, is to take the chance and go to the airport without the six (6) months left to expiration and find out if he will be boarded or not.

 

By that time, it will be too late to do anything else and you are at the mercy of the check-in agent... if they say no way, you will not fly, regardless of what the website is or is not clear about.