Himeno
Senior Member
- Joined
- Jun 15, 2011
- Posts
- 5,379
Can't think of any issues with new passports in 2016.Is the US better now with new passports? Seem to remember that the new Oz passport raised concerns when Trump came in.
The VWP rules were that in order to use the program, passports issued before Oct 26 2006 had to be machine readable (the 2 lines of text at the bottom of the ID page) and that passports issued after had to be e-passports. Non e-passports were no longer able to be used for the VWP after Oct 26 2016.
My last passport was issued in Feb 2005, before Australia started issuing e-passports (which the passport office started doing on Oct 26, 2006). It was machine readable and met the requirements for the VWP.
During a trip in 2011, I was checking in with JAL at ICN. They were trying to claim I needed a visa because it wasn't an e-passport and wouldn't even try to check it on the system. They only backed down and let me check in when I pointed out the US CBP VWP entry stamp from a few months prior.