Passport Expiration Question

This is always a good source for US passport holders ...

https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/international-travel/before-you-go/schengen.html

Short answer: there is no "six month rule" for Europe. For some Asian countries, yes.

We have flown in and out of Germany, UK, and Italy on BA with 4 months left on my passport. No one said a word.

https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/passports/apply-renew-passport/hurry.html

I did the normal renewal recently on mine and it only wound up taking 2 weeks with no extra fees or rush service. Do make sure that when you do renew you have all the ducks in the row and go to a place experienced at taking passport pictures as that can be rejected. It happened to a colleague and wound up taking quite a bit longer.

You're not traveling until March. Why don't you renew now (faster service than in the summer, probably), and avoid the chance that you'll be the only person who has trouble that day at Immigration? Someone who travels as much as you do should not be rolling the dice.

How certain are you that you won't have to change terminals at LHR? Gates change, volcanoes erupt, and so on.

Since you will have to renew it eventually anyway, why not just do it now and be done with it. You may be ok with normal renewal turn around time, but to be safe there is always the expedited renewal -- for and additional fee of course. Last June we used the expedited service and it only took ten days door to door. But your "...mileage may vary".

Renew your passport now and I recommend choosing the larger size (52 page). It's the same cost as the smaller 26 page passport so why not given it's good for 10 years.

Interesting piece in The Guardian about "Czechia".

As others have said, do the passport renewal now. I had a similar expiration time frame for my recent Germany/Austria trip and renewed my passport over the summer. Why risk any hassles?

If you are flying on a US passport, it looks to me from reading the US state department website that you need a passport with 6 months validity beyond the planned date of departure for Germany but only three months for the Czech Republic. From the official website:

"Your passport should be valid for at least six months beyond the period of stay. This regulation is strictly enforced in Germany."

I don't know your exact travel plans, but I would fully expect the airline to enforce this regardless of what days you plan to be in which country. I'd renew my passport now.

Thank you all. It looks like the team has spoken and we need to go in and do this week, that would give us the longest period for them to fiddle with it. I presume I can enter an updated expiration date, yes? I already entered the data for bioth flights.

On a related note - I stupidly put my middle name in when got my passport in 2009, probably because it has always been on driver's license and my government id (I had worked for SSA). Unfortunately, this has caused a couple problems as the airlines all handle middle names differently even when though have it as a separate field, and on the last trip it was added without a capital to my first name on all their docs. And this caused a problem at immigration coming back in, we had to get "special" treatment as the kiosks rejected both of us for this (as I was later told.). Is there any EASY way to get this off my passport ion the renewal? Or is the simpler solution just to make sure I NEVER enter my middle name or initial when i book?

Personally I'd keep the middle names on the passports due to the unique nature of the document. I'm sure there are many "Larry Xxxx", but not nearly as many "Larry Yyyy Xxxx". Some, sure, but not that many. I may have to stand corrected, but it seems to me that on Delta flights they have always wanted the name on the ticket to correspond exactly to the name on the ID be it a passport or drivers license. Delta did have a problem with the middle name part of the reservation system several years ago, but apparently that has been corrected and isn't a problem anymore. We make it a practice that on anything with any degree of "officialdom" to always use the full names and have never had a problem. Just a hold over from some advice I received many years ago. And with identity theft being so common it's just another layer (albeit a small one) of peace of mind.

The state of NJ is currently unable to put a full middle name on a drivers license. So my domestic name and international names are different. (Sometimes I carry the Passport domestically, just in case. But I've never had to produce it.) I have been relieved that it hasn't yet caused me a problem. I suggest that you learn what the US Immigration kiosk "wants" you to do when you confirm that your name is correct. Maybe you can avoid the mismatch that way.

I have learned that it is very important not to rush through the kiosk prompts. In particular, some of the touchscreens are poorly calibrated, and you need to learn early in each session (I mean, when you can still press "Back" ... ) just how well it works. We had to have our luggage xrayed, needlessly, on our last entry. I believe that one of my answers to the standard list of questions was answered/recorded "wrongly" (and I mean, that the honest answer was the one that would not have required extra screening).

We are always rushing to stay ahead of the mob for the live agent counters, and I was too fast at the terminal.

The Kiosk problem is that it gets everything from reading my Passport, which shows under "given Names" "Larry Ian, which is also how my PA Drivers' License has read for almost 50 years. No manual entries other than answering the questions. On the return in question this year, United, in spite of "Middle Name" being a separate filed on their screens, placed my name on my ticket and records as "Larryian". Our Kiosk entries were thus not approved and we had to see someone, and we were told this was the issue. An annoying hassle, and one that i would love to eliminate. FWIW, the BA tix we just booked only show "Larry", and on the United flight to Mexico I again found this issue, but because of a screw-up on their site, I had to get phone assistance to get the transaction through, and during that i was also able to convince them to remove the offending "Ian", which was again already showing as "Larryian". Now granted, this was Dulles, only the 2nd time I have had to use that airport, this was not our choice but we were in via United which does not fly into Philadelphia directly from Europe. We have never had an issue at Philadelphia's Kiosks.

Even harder when you routinely use your 'middle' name, and have done so for many decades from childhood, and have virtually no documents that show the original first name. I actually changed my name by deed poll to drop the first name so that it will no longer appear even as an initial.
[My parents always intended to call me by that middle name; they just put the names in that order because they 'sounded better' that way round.]

Try this - my wife's mother decided after she was born and the birth certificate issued that she should call her Megan, which she saw on some soap opera, instead of Margaret, which she was given. So everyone from way back in her past still refers to her as Megan, even though she reverted it herself back to Margaret before college. But there has never been a document issued that way. She also never used her middle name on anything, so that issue she does not have. Did I just hijack my own thread??