Passport Card: Good News and Bad News

by Mary VanMeer
Filed Under Travel Information 

The Department of State has taken action to help simplify at least ONE of the travel hassles … dragging your passport around if you’re only going to Canada, Mexico, the Caribbean, and Bermuda. 

Now (well, in July) you can get a “Passport Card” the size of a credit card that will get you into our neighboring countries of Mexico and Canada, including cruise travel throughout the Caribbean and to Bermuda.

The Department of State says that the card will “carry the rights and privileges of the U.S. passport book and will be adjudicated to the exact same standards.”  That’s the good news.

The bad news is that it won’t be allowed to be used to travel by air.   Huh?  They emphasize that it is valid only for land and sea crossings between the U.S. and (as I’ve said twice but it needs to be said again) Canada, Mexico, Bermuda, and the Caribbean.  So I guess that means that if I want to fly to Cabo San Lucas (Mexico) or Vancouver, BC (Canada) I still must use my bulky passport.

Yet one more reason not to fly!  And that’s unfortunate because I love to fly, although that love affair is being challenged as of late (another post for another time); and now there is one more nail in air travel’s coffin.  This makes me very sad.

But maybe that part will change eventually.  It’s just a new concept, and a very practical one.  I hope that it expands worldwide and includes air travel.  Stay tuned.  I’ll keep you posted on late-breaking developments.

Meanwhile, if you want to read more about this, including the pricing and the how-to, go to the U.S. Department of State’s web page at http://travel.state.gov/passport/ppt_card/ppt_card_3926.html.

P.S.  If you’re using your birth certificate as a form of identification, be aware that as of June 1, 2009, it will no longer be allowed as a border document.


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