Do we need to go the extra yard on travel biometrics?
Simon Calder answers your questions on early bookings, refund scams and busy days at the airport
Q My husband and I both have passports that will expire next year, in August and November respectively. We are going to Lanzarote in January and then making three further trips to France during 2025. My question is: will the forthcoming biometric fingerprint records for entry to the EU be linked to our current passports? If so, I imagine we would need to provide the biometrics again after our passports are renewed. In other words, would it be better for us to get new passports later this year, before we fly to Lanzarote in January?
Sarah Harding
A My immediate concern is whether your passports will be valid for travel to Spain, France or anywhere else in the European Union and wider Schengen area during much of 2025. As “third-country nationals”, alongside people from Paraguay and East Timor, the UK chose to become subject to two rules. Accordingly, your passport must not be older than 10 years on the day you depart to the EU, and – on the day you plan to return – it must have at least three months before the expiry date.
Your husband’s passport could have been issued as early as November 2014. The document cannot be used for travel out to Europe after its 10th birthday, which could be before the end of this year. Even if it is valid for the minimum 10 years, it cannot be used in the EU beyond May 2025 (the specific date being three months before its expiry in August).
Your passport is potentially ineligible for travel out to the Schengen area from February 2025, and cannot be used in the zone beyond August next year.
Having said that: if both your passports are good for the January trip to Lanzarote, and you then have a clear three weeks in which to renew before your first French foray, then by all means plan to renew after you come back from the Canaries.
Yes, you will have your fingerprints and facial biometrics taken twice (once on your old passport, once on the new one). But this is likely to add only seconds to the cumulative processing time at the EU border. I would certainly not recommend applying early for a passport simply to swerve this red tape.
Q My family and I are looking to go to the US in July 2026. We want to fly to New York City for three nights, then spend 10 nights in Orlando and three nights on the Florida coast in Clearwater before flying home. I am shopping around. Two companies say they can confirm all the flights and hotels for 2026 with a price. But other agents say flights will only be released 11 months ahead. They said the prices will be “live” and cheaper than booking now. I’m in a dilemma. Do we wait and take their word for it, and hope the flights are still available and cheaper, or book it now before the hotel prices go up too?
Richard B
A I am impressed by your advanced planning. Anticipation is a valuable element of a trip, and looking 22 months ahead to such a specific itinerary is commendable. But I do not recommend handing over cash at this stage.
It is a bold claim for any company to assert they can confirm flights and fares for July 2026. Airlines are likely to be running much the same services out to New York, onwards from there to Orlando and returning from Tampa (the nearest major airport to Clearwater). But none would guarantee exact timings and fares at this stage. I surmise that the price you have been quoted may either be extremely high, to provide the company with a cushion if fares increase sharply; or “subject to revision” when bookings actually open for those flights. That revision, I suspect, would be upwards.
As you have been told, flights tend to go on sale 11 months (or a week or two earlier) before departure. A good agent will be able to book for you as soon as flights are on sale. Buying at that point is likely to extract the lowest possible fare. So do wait until next summer.
Hotels do things differently, and may well open bookings a couple of years ahead. But rates are unlikely to increase significantly during the first year. Buying a proper package – flights plus accommodation in the same transaction – will provide the best possible consumer protection.
Q I had a KLM flight that was cancelled and have been trying without success to get a refund. I resorted to X/Twitter and finally got a response. But why is someone based in Kenya calling me?
Sam S
A You have been contacted by social media fraudsters, many of whom seem to be located in Kenya. For the past two years they have been targeting travellers who have customer service issues yet have not received a useful response from the actual airline. The crooks set up fake accounts designed to look like the actual airline’s X account and then use bots to track people who make a complaint. The scammers will respond from their fake account, saying: “Thanks for reaching out to us. We’d really like the chance to take a good long look into this for you.”
They ask for a phone number by direct message. If you send one, they will then call you on WhatsApp, typically from a mobile number in Kenya. (This is not standard practice for most major airlines.) If you talk to the villains, they will promise compensation. They ask you to download a legitimate remittance app, saying that is how they will send the money. In fact, they want to trick you into sending them money. The next step is to ask you to “tap in a code” which isn’t a code at all but an instruction to send them hundreds of pounds in Kenyan shillings (prefixed KES, the international code for the currency).
I must have reported at least 100 of these accounts but they keep popping up with little effort shown by Elon Musk’s social media site to stop them. Fortunately, there are plenty of tell-tale signs. You were contacted by “@FlyingKLM_UK”, which is currently promising to help several other KLM customers: Francesca, who lost a stroller at Washington Dulles airport; Gorija, who had a tough time checking in at Bengaluru; and Psumanta, who is unhappy about being charged three times for inflight wifi on a flight from San Francisco to Amsterdam.
But @FlyingKLM_UK only has two followers. The official account, @KLM, has 2.2 million – as well as a gold tick to signify it is authentic.
Q I see you wrote that Friday 6 September was expected to be the busiest day of the year for flights. Why?
Richard V
A I agree it appears odd that the first Friday in September should be so busy – after all, July and August are the peak holiday months, and most of the UK schools are back.
In fact, holiday flights are still at full throttle. Evidently the number of families with kids at private schools makes this weekend very profitable. In addition, there is a bump in demand from people who are not school-term dependent and who therefore deferred their return from abroad because last weekend’s prices were so painfully high. And plenty of other shrewd travellers, aware that fares, crowds and temperatures moderate from early September, are heading out on holiday.
At the same time, airlines ramp up their business-focused flying in the first week of September. Typically, flights to business destinations such as Milan and Munich will have had their frequencies pared back in July and August; the planes, pilots and cabin crew could be used more profitably on holiday routes. Those gaps are now filled again.
These assertions generate (at least) three more questions. First, why this week, not next week or a later date? The number of pure holiday flights starts to diminish in the coming days. While the official airline summer season extends from late March to late October, some routes have a very short season that barely extends beyond the standard school holidays.
Second question: as everyone who flies over the festive season knows, fares can be extremely high and airports very crowded in the run-up to Christmas. So why is, say, the last Saturday before 25 December not in contention? The short answer is that far more planes and passengers fly in summer than winter. Even with weekend ski flights adding to the pre-Christmas rush, numbers get nowhere near summer levels.
Finally: planes, crews and airport slots are famously finite, so how can one day be significantly busier than any other? So keen are the airlines to respond to demand from holidaymakers and business flyers that they pull out all the stops, squeezing in extra flights where they can and perhaps leaving little slack in the system. On that fateful Friday, British Airways cancelled at least 100 flights – which means the skies did not turn out to be so busy after all.
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