Chuvash

Hi folks,

I don't know if this topic has much to do with Flying Blue but I figured it's the place where I might reach many Frenchmen who travel a lot. Here's the situation:

I have a valid French passport with a bunch of long duration visas on it (Canada, Russia, ESTA...). But I also have a lot of "non good looking" stamps on it (Cuba, Russia, Abkhazia) and I'm being increasingly scrutinized when I cross Schengen/Canadian borders. I am aware that when you get a new passport valid visas get transfered to the new passport, but generally speaking I'd like to have one passport for "normal" destinations and one for more unusual destinations. I know it is possible to obtain a second French passport but the requirements appear quite vague.

I'd love to have some feedbacks from those of you who have gone through this process.

As far as I understand there are two options:
1) provide a supporting letter from your employer stating that you must travel while your passport is stuck in a consulate for another destination.

For this case can anyone tell me how detailed it has to be, i.e. will they verify that you are indeed working for that company etc.

2) prove that you are traveling non compatible destinations, in which case would it be enough to book refundable flights to let's say Israel and then to an Arab country? But again would you have to justify why you're traveling there?

PS: for Moderators if there is a specific forum for this kind of question could you direct me there.

Best regards,

orbitmic

For what it's worth, I suspect your topic belongs here: http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/travelbuzz-176/ as it has indeed nothing to do with FB.

For what it's worth, I have never been able to get a second passport while keeping the old one valid despite going through multiple attempts (long term visas, etc).

Your example of Israel + an Arab country is a total no go: Israel will let you in with stamps from anywhere, and they themselves do not stamp passports any more (you receive separate codebar cards) so no reason why it should lead to a bar in the likes or Iran and Saudi Arabia either. However, Abkhazia stamps may be considered incompatible with Georgia.

RigpigMalta

Chuvash it might be the same for French but UK second passport rules are both your questions 1 & 2 and yes they do check before, letter has to be on company letterhead written by an executive or head of HR etc .... Specific examples of why needed etc (I am just getting my 2nd renewed again because it's full after 3 years and it was a 48 page one too!)

orbitmic

All the people I know in the UK who have needed a second passport (and that is quite a few) have received it. Yes there are rules, but it seems to work at the end. By contrast, I am still to meet any fellow Frenchman who has managed to get the same. It could be chance but I suspect that for whatever reason, the French authorities are just making this difficult.

Goldorak

It's clearly possible in France and probably "not-so-hard", as I know several (French) people who had or have 2 passports because they are traveling a lot to countries requiring visas and it can be very challenging/impossible to manage with only 1 passport. But I have no idea what kind of paperwork they needed for this.

bodory

http://vosdroits.service-public.fr/p...s/F21517.xhtml

Spot on !

Same here.

mogoy

I managed to get a second passport when being relocated to DXB.
My original passport had a couple of Israeli stamps that are not compatible with Saudi Arabia which is part of my scope.

So I went with a letter from my company signed by some HR rep stating basically the above.

And that was that (apart from the regular documentation needed).

Doc Savage

This seems to be a case of exactly why second passports should NOT be issued, i.e., it is an attempt to hide from border officials where a person has travelled. I'd rather my border officials know if someone has made multiple trips to Syria, Iraq, etc.

bodory

Why wouldn't they know? The second passport is issued under the same name to the same individual, isn't it?

Chuvash

Thanks everybody for your replies, I hope it's gonna work.

Then I guess you also oppose dual citizenship since it's effectively the same thing.

I think that we pay enough taxes to make sure that the detection of individuals who are really dangerous does not rely on Border police. I hope that these people are being monitored by the appropriate services (maybe not http://www.ouest-france.fr/paris-tro...pelles-2846241).

It's simply getting tiresome to explain to Canadian immigration officers that some people go to Mexico for vacations, and do not want to start trafficking illegal substances, or that Cambodia is not in Africa and is therefore not affected by the Ebola pandemic (true story).

Doc Savage

Yes, in fact, I do oppose dual citizenship. But that is settled law in the US and not likely to change.

I know lots of Canadians who go to Mexico several times every year, and have no extra hassles. That is a specious argument.

If someone has a travel history which suggests to border officers the possibility of drug smuggling or perhaps travel to ISIS areas multiple times, do you really want them to be able to obscure that from border officers?

It's not people like you I worry about, OP, it's the bad guys. They could use the same two passport strategy to lower the risk of being caught.

jsfr

Wow - if border security relies on stamps in passports we're all in big trouble...

The only countries that "cause problems" due to stamps in passports are not exactly the world's most developed/open countries anyway - but they are places where a lot of us have to travel to for business, so we go anyway (or change jobs).

It takes at least one week to get a Russian visa (and often a lot longer), Same for Saudi and many others, are you suggesting that very frequent travellers (like most of us) stop travelling, for a week or more whilst we get a Visa? Not possible.

As for travelling to ISIS areas - I have 6 trips to Turkey so far this year- one of them (this week actually) was to an area about 50km from ISIS (and an area of Turkey with an uncomfortable ISIS presence), however the stamp in my passport from that trip from Ataturk airport looked just like all the others...

I suspect that terrorists don't fly directly out of Peshawar and Drug Smugglers directly from Medellin.

HasteFlier

I agree - frequent trips are often a big issue when visas are needed and one only has one passport.

And, as you say, stamps are only a small part of travel history, which can be easy to "tweak" if necessary by the people Doc Savage worries about. 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.

Chuvash

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

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.

Pauillac

I had a second passport few years ago with a similar letter. Having this letter and a passport full of stamps will make it very easy for you to get it I am sure. Your second passport will have the same expiring date as the first one and should be free.