Passport Dilemma
Hello,I am looking at leaving Australia in December this year and spending two to three months travelling around SEA and then heading over to the UK to travel and work the rest of the year.
Here's my dilemma. I have both an Australian and British passport. Obviously I want to enter the UK on my British passport so that I can work and travel for as long as I like. I have never used my British passport before and have only recently received it.
If I leave Australia on my Australian passport and most likely fly from somewhere in SEA or Japan to the UK, at what stage do I start using my UK passport?
Any advice will be great.
Cheers.
1
You can start using your British passport whenever you want to, really.The main thing is that you use your Australian one to leave Australia, and your British one to enter the UK / EU.
Countries tend to charge different visa fees depending on your passport, so before hitting South East Asia, do a bit of research to see which passport will save you the most money.
2
As above - any time you want but you should always leave a country on the same passport as you entered. There is unlikely to be much difference in visa cost for most SE asian countries. You might as well use the passport which will expire first for the majority of your travels to save space in the other one.3
Ditto the above but if you find that you don't need a visa with a British passport on your travels, use that one and vice versa. I don't think there are any places in SEA that the British wouldn't need a visa for though, so on this trip, that's probably irrelevant.You will find that the airline needs to see your British passort when you leave Oz, since they have to know you have the right to land in the UK - and likewise when you leave the UK, the airline needs to see your Oz one. That is not the same as border control. When you leave Oz, use your Oz one and enter UK on your UK one and vice versa.
4
I travel on two passports and the only thing I have found is that if you have checked in for a flight using one passport and then use the other at immigration on arrival there is sometimes a slight delay as your details do not match the manifest which the airlines are obliged to forward to the country you are travelling to. It's not a problem just show immigration both your passports.6
That all said which ever passport you enter a country in on, that passport will look after you if anything goes wrong. The Australian govt is rubbish at looking after it's people hence I always travel on my UK passport except when entering Australia.
