Originally Posted by
HasteFlier
On the other hand, having a second passport for "normal" people (business travellers for example) can save a lot of hassle when going to incompatible or partially incompatible countries.
I second this point, I also think that the younger you are the more suspicious it is to have heavily stampted passeports.
Since a lot of customs officer are not very familiar with the points industry they tend to think that you're either:
1) ISIS afficionado
2) Drug dealer
3) Your parents are bilionairs
So the question I'm getting all the time is "Who's paying for these trips?" and it's usualy hard to brief them on credit cards bonuses and award ticketing rules in 5'.
Regarding the actual topic of this thread, I went to the mighty Mairie de Pau to ask a bunch of questions and the very nice laddies gave me some infos that could be useful for people in a similar situation.
1) apparently incompatible destinations alone is not a valid reason of having a second passeport. When I asked why, she told me that it was a new policy since some jackasses started going on vacation to Syria.
2) She gave me a model for the letter your boss needs to sign, which reads as follow
PREFECTURE DE Wherever you are
À l’attention du Service des Passeports
City, date
OBJET : Demande de deuxième passeport
Monsieur le Préfet,
M.
Your Name employé de la société
Your company, est appelé dans le cadre de ses fonctions à effectuer des déplacements fréquents dans les pays suivants :
LIST OF COUNTRIES YOU TRAVEL TO
Il arrive que les délais d’obtention des visas requis par les autorités de ces pays soient supérieurs à son temps de séjour en France.
En conséquence, j’ai l’honneur de solliciter de votre part l’obtention d’un deuxième passeport afin qu’il puisse obtenir, en temps voulu, les visas nécessaires à l’exercice de sa profession.
Je vous pris d’agréer, M. le Préfet, l’expression de ma considération distinguée,
to which she added that there is no need to have official letterhead paper and/or seal/stamp. Also she told me it does not have to be signed by anybody in particular just someone "in charge" in the company.