By Replacing A Damaged Passport, You Are Protecting Your Vacation

Knowing what to do about a damaged passport can assist travel plans

. Distinguish most common perils that create damage. Rank the severity of harm and brace yourself for effects that damage causes.

The best sales person sunbathes at the seashore. She has won an award and now enjoys the first prize, a paid vacation, compliments of her company. She is unsure if the passport she dropped into the water will cause her to remain in paradise a little longer.

At the airport, this top sales person tells the customs agent that she dropped her passport in the sink in her hotel room. The customs official smiles and replies that water is a common cause of damage. Customs informs her that she cannot return home until she acquires a replacement passport. She feels uneasy about this turn of events. She walks slowly toward the taxis for the sad ride back to the hotel.

Usual Reasons For Damage

Later, near the hotel, a travel agent hands our helpless sales rep a cup of tea. The travel agent invites her to sit in a chair against a wall on which hangs a picture of a red and white cruise ship. The travel agent tells her many hazards can damage a passport. I knew one vacationer, the agent continues, who spilled ink on his travel documents. I also remember a mountain climber who tried on some mountain boots and stomped on his passport. The sharp spikes on the shoe bottom made Swiss cheese of his visas. Another passport sustained deep dents when heavily weighted musical equipment slammed down on it. People accidentally bend their visas and travel documents as if they are a magazine. Humidity harms the paper inside pasports and water ruins them quite often, the travel agent opines.

What Damage Looks Like

How do travelers know when their travel passport needs to be put on the permanently disabled list? Travelers can use their eyes and fingers. A photograph that appears scratched, defaced, stained, or unclear is evidence of damage. Letters that look wrecked or badly written are damage.

Customs personnel can conclude that a passport is excessively damaged if its electronic computer chip does not operate. Passports currently carry its bar code and its electronic chip. Customs officials might specify that a passport is too damaged to function if the bar code becomes indecipherable. A chip can be corrupted by electronic or physical means.

Consequences

Basically, the consequences involve inability and loss. One inability you may suffer is the inability to go again back from where you came. Imagine how the shock of being blocked must feel. You sit in an airport. You have a pocket filled with money. Planes fly back to the country of departure. Unfortunately, the scratched and torn passport does not credibly identify which country you came from. You feel stuck like the queen chess piece sitting on the back row of a chess board. The travel rules say the queen, while on the back row, can move forward to a new square. It also can move side to side, to a new square. The queen cannot move backward.

One example of a loss is the loss of anonymity. If travel documents need to be replaced the affair must be handled in very public government offices. The traveler may have to talk to the police authorities. This probably means signing some police documents. Oh yes, you must reapply for a new passport in person. Every signature you sign proves you traveled to that location. Beloved fans and the paparazzi will find out where you are.

The delay to go back home can create a loss of wealth. Departure gets delayed because you must wait for delivery of new undamaged travel documents. How important is the loss of income in the amount of one week of wages? An unexpected loss of finance can punch a hole in a travel budget. Then, the wise travel agent ceased speaking. Our sales person thanked her new friend, the travel agent, for his experiences and ginger tea.

The replacement passport and visas arrived in about one week. Her trip back home made her happy especially because she had brought extra money for emergency purposes. She promises herself to secure a replacement passport and visas before they get too worn. She promises to protect her travel documents when she travels in the future.

by: Ben Pate

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