Not so absurd from the country's point of view. A lot of tourist visas issued upon entry are valid for a six month period. If they gave you entry on a passport with less than than amount of time remaining, and you stayed for the entire 6 months, upon expiration you would be in the country illegally.

It does seem that enforcement of the rule is stricter than it used to be.

It would be absurd to conclude that the OP of this thread would be in any of these countries illegally under the circumstances mentioned in the above post.

Just because a passport expires during a stay doesn't necessarily equate with being in a country illegally -- and it generally does not equate with being unlawfully present after admission.

Anyone can argue why or why not it should be a rule, whether or not visitors could or could not stay that long, would or would not be in violation of the law, etc.

All irrelevant to the fact that it is what it is.

Many immigration rules may appear absurd and they may even be absurd, but it doesn't matter. They are also enforced by low-level people who have tremendous power and little to be gained from common sense interpretations.

Thus, it pays to read every rule carefully, not ask whether there is a way to read the rule differently, but simply to know what the rules are so that one can follow them to the letter.

BA had no problem sending me (US passport) to transit BOM without a visa for India after weather resulted in the cancellation of LHR-DXB. Had anything gone awry, I'm not sure what they would've done about the fact that I wasn't able to go landslide.

I've also known plenty of people to do connections at, say, SVO, without a Russian visa.

If you check timatic, you'll find that in most cases where airside only transit is permitted, passports still need to be valid for x months.

I am flying with someone from Japan (here on a student visa) to Europe May 4-10 this year. His Japanese Passport expires November 4 this year. The EU only requires his Passport be good for 3 months. Do you think he will have a problem?

Simple answer - no. Three months means three months, and one needs to remember that it was "duration of intended stay" until only 18 months ago. Schengen never had a six months requirement.

Agreed.It doesn't make sense that those countries are so concerned that a visitor may illegally stay longer than the validity of their passport...when all someone has to do,if their intent is to stay illegally,is to simply re-new their passport before they go to that country!

I don't think the OP is being chastised. The question was "was this my fault?" to which posters have answered "unfortunately, yes". It must be very frustrating, but it does not change the situation, i.e. compensation can not be claimed and insurance would not have helped.

Good point - some of these rules are indeed obsolete. I don't think there is an authority that monitors these rules and proactively makes suggestions about changing them. (No government has THIS on the list of priorities and no political candidate has won an election based on the "shorten the requirement for passport expiry for visitors" agenda.)

Governmental authorities do negotiate with other governmental authorities to adjust the required validity period for passports -- of one or more type of passport -- to be useful for travel to counterparty agreement countries. But these matters are rarely re-visited even annually.

what an inconvenience it can cause, specially during an IRROPS anywhere

I don't fault the OP for not knowing the rule. I forget where I first learned about it, but it wasn't that many years ago, probably on FT or somewhere else on the internet like the State Department website when I was doing a renewal.

The '6-month rule' is not universal by any means.

Each country has its own set of rules which can vary based on the person's nationality. The rules generally fall into 4 categories:

1. Passport valid upon arrival
2. Passport valid upon arrival + X months
3. Passport valid for period of intended stay
4. Passport valid for period of intended stay + X months.

For example, for myself as a Canadian citizen:

1. Travelling to Australia, my passport must only be valid upon arrival
2. Travelling to Singapore, my passport must be valid upon arrival + 6 months
3. Travelling to the UK, my passport must be valid for only my period of intended stay
4. Travelling to Hong Kong, my passport must be valid for my period of intended stay + 1 month.

It is the traveller's responsibility to verify all of this information.

Rules differ for 'transit' vs 'destination'. In the OP's case, because of the separate booking, SIN is their destination and the applicable rules apply.

I am also inclined to think that the rules may also differ based on the nationality/country/passport of the traveler.....some countries get extra attention for ALL these checks....

For example, when we missed our FRA-JED connection due to late YYZ-FRA flight, LH in FRA double-checked validity of my wife's passport(3rd world) + PR Card (she's not a Cdn yet), whereas they did not bother checking mine for 6-months validity at least. This was for re-routing us via LHR to JED on BA. They even said mine was "easy" for being Canadian, but they had to make sure for hers. Fortunately we were ok and good to be re-routed...

But it did get us thinking...that passports are essentially useless when they're at 6 months validity remaining.....due to many countries requiring x number of months validity. Makes sense to get 10-yr passport for convenience then eh.