New, "More Secure" US NextGen Passport
#136
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#137
Join Date: Jul 2011
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Can't deny that. The Norwegians also have big plans: http://www.theguardian.com/travel/20...assport-design
#138
Join Date: Jul 2006
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No, please don't. I had one of those (renewed the year they were issuing them). Got funny looks for years from immigration officers around the world, whose immediate reaction was "US passports are blue (or brown, or black, in some cases), what's this green thing?"
#139
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Personally, I don't fancy US passport redesigns as each one has done little more for me than increased the chances for a future passport fee hike that provides me nothing more in return.
#140
Join Date: Jan 2014
Posts: 288
I have entered the Schengen Zone a large number of times without my US passport being stamped. Some EU passport control checkpoints even refuse to stamp my US passports, and others don't stamp it unless asked (and I don't ask usually). Some Schengen passport control staff stamp my US passports without even checking out the biodata info in my passport -- as happened to me again when entering Schengen a few days ago in a country with a Germanic language as the only official language.
#141
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By my count, that's six countries (Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Germany, Liechtenstein, and Iceland), although one of them (Liechtenstein) isn't reachable directly from outside the Schengen Zone (unless you have a helicopter with some pretty amazing range or a Harrier).
#142
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#143
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In the course of hundreds of entries/exits to Schengen ever since it was first implemented I don't think I have ever not been stamped. It's true, of course, that you no longer get stamped at internal Scengen borders, e.g., I have old passports with dozens of stamps from leaving Poland and going to Sweden and v.v, and now of course there is no passport control between those countries, but it is always stamped at the first point of entry and last, e.g., yesterday I flew into FRA and got an entry stamp, then flew to VIE where I boarded a flight to EVN and got an exit stamp. The Austrian immigration official barely glanced at my passport, but he did stamp it.
#144
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I made a mistake in that post, but that time it was indeed one of those airport-possessing Schengen countries which stamped my US passport without looking at the biodata info in it passport.
Last edited by GUWonder; Jul 29, 2015 at 2:26 am
#145
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About five years ago, on landing at MXP, I handed my passport over to the immigration guy, and he just pushed it back. Didn't even open it.
#147
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At MXP, I've seen the same thing happen to US passport holders of South and/or East Asian backgrounds where the US passports were sometimes not opened at all. Then again, I've also seen them open passports for stamping way more often without even looking at the biodata page.
Last edited by GUWonder; Jul 30, 2015 at 8:35 am
#148
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Few years ago, in MXP too, they just waved anyone with a American or Canadian passport right through when i got off the flight. Didn't even bother to open the data page, just looked at the cover of the passport.
#149
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#150
Join Date: Jan 2014
Posts: 288
Last rime i was in spain, there was no Schengen, and I definity got stamped. Italy I have travelled to recently and also got stamped.