How to Make Your Passport Last Longer and Much Better Lounge Champagne

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About Gary Leff

Gary Leff is one of the foremost experts in the field of miles, points, and frequent business travel - a topic he has covered since 2002. Co-founder of frequent flyer community InsideFlyer.com, emcee of the Freddie Awards, and named one of the "World's Top Travel Experts" by Conde' Nast Traveler (2010-Present) Gary has been a guest on most major news media, profiled in several top print publications, and published broadly on the topic of consumer loyalty. More About Gary »

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Comments

  1. That’s rich coming from Wells. Maybe they should stick to NOT illegally opening for customers before they should decide the legal actions of others.

  2. In re: Brandon’s tweet, and his question about American and China Southern, “Could this be leading to something else?” . . . I have to admit my first reaction was that the Chinese were biting American.

  3. I don’t bank with Wells, nor think they’re necessarily a pinnacle of morality lol but that’s a perfectly fine statement to make. And one I wish I heard more often.

  4. I learned my lesson when I reentered the US years ago and the official stamped my passport across the fold – essentially using two pages. Now I use the opposite sticky note approach. I found where I wanted the stamp to go and put one of those small “sign here” type post-its in the passport and made sure it hung over the edge. Then I would point it out when I handed over the passport. Works every time and I get the most utilization out of each page.

  5. Nice tip! Thankfully, I didn’t run out of pages on my most recently expired Passport after Yogyakarta, Indonesia pasted a full page Visa On Arrival to a blank page in 2010. At least they stamped both arrival and departure on the Visa, so net loss was about 1/2 a page. On a trip to Bali a couple of years later, the Visa on Arrival page was much smaller (because it was Bali or they changed size everywhere, who knows?), but it was pasted smack dab in the middle of a random, mid-passport, empty Passport page, and the entry/exit stamps were around it.

  6. Indonesian visa on entry got cut in half, for all ports of entry. It’s free now for American citizens, though they are happy to sell you a business visa if you want to pay.

    Speaking of Muslim countries, I find with every entry into Malaysia, UAE, Saudi Arabia, and sometimes to Indonesia, I find that the immigration officer goes through every page in my passport, possibly looking for an Israeli entry stamp? If I had sticky notes across multiple pages, I’m sure it would look suspicious and slow the whole process down. Better to do a “Stamp here” sticker, as Jim does- will try that now that I am down to only a few blank pages (and now you cannot get extension pages added)…

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