Originally Posted by
pschafer
This is an absolute must for many countries (I think even for foreign visitors to the US)
That's correct, with a noteable exception being visitors from the UK. There's some bilateral agreement that means a UK passport is automatically renewed for a further 6 months if it expires soon after you're due to depart the US, from memory. Perhaps someone else can expand on this.
Originally Posted by
pschafer
I've often thought that with passport renewal fees being so high in most countries this is a bit of a ripoff as your passport is really only useful for 9 and a half years or in the case of Canada only 4 and a half years.
Yep, same here. They just slashed the NZ passport validility from 10 years to 5 years (or 9.5 to 4.5), and doubled the price. Certainly seems like a ripoff to me!
