Bee Travel
Passport cards soon to be issued
CHRISTINE HICKS- USTA Travel
The passport card is coming. Since the passage of the Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative, the much-ballyhooed requirement for U.S. citizens traveling automotively to and from Canada, Mexico or floating to Caribbean ports has been spooked by the specter of requiring a passport for re-entry. This is being sidestepped by the development and issuance of the "passport card."

Applications for the new identification will be available and accepted starting Feb. 1. You apply for these much in the same way you do a passport. While there are other similarities to a regular passport (such as its 10-year validity), travelers need to be keenly aware these are two distinctly different pieces of identification.

What will the passport card do that the passport won't? Nothing, except perhaps take up a little less space. (It's a wallet-sized card.) What will a passport do that a passport card won't? Plenty. The passport card is NOT a replacement for a (book) passport. A passport card does not satisfy identification requirements for air travel anywhere. As such, it is not valid entry identification from a majority of foreign destinations. Consider yourself forewarned.

The passport card will be valid identification for re-entry into the United States for travelers crossing the Mexican or Canadian border by car, bus, or rail (think "land"). It will be acceptable identification for cruise passengers traveling the Caribbean and to Bermuda (think "sea"). Air travelers will still need alternative government-issued identification and if traveling internationally anywhere, will be required to show a valid (book) passport.

The cost for the passport card is a two-part affair. The card - for adults older than 15 years - is $20. However, there is a one-time execution fee of $25, which pushes the total to $45. Children 15 and younger will pay less, $10 plus the $25 execution fee, totaling $35. If you possess a book passport and want to obtain a passport card as well, the execution

fee is considered paid by virtue of its inclusion in your (book) passport fees, and you will pay only $20.

The new cards use something called radio frequency identification technology. While the technology isn't new, it's now being used to speed border crossing by alerting Customs and Border Protection officers with the stored passenger identification at the border crossing approach. The chip embedded in the passport card transmits a unique traveler number, which is associated with data stored in a secure government database. (No information other than the unique number is actually stored on the chip.) Because data searches can be conducted with greater speed, border crossings generally are expected to be conducted more quickly than was previously possible.

Applications for the passport card are being taken at more than 9,000 facilities through the United States (mostly postal facilities - see http://iafdb.travel.state.gov/ to check for a facility near you) effective Feb. 1. The cards should be available to approved applicants in spring 2008.

(Christine Hicks-Usta has enjoyed more than 30 years of globe-trotting as a member of the travel industry. Direct questions to her at Bee Group Newspapers, P.O. Box 150, Buffalo, NY 14231-0150.)