Panic, no esta and at Gatwick

[DisneyDaffodil]

Safe journey today Rachy. I hope you have a very uneventful travel day 😀 and a wonderful holiday xx

[Elodie]

Originally Posted by Invisible Man

Agree, it’s great how the family stuck together and didn’t fall out over it. I love my DOH to bits and we rarely fall out, but stressful situations is the one trigger for us to fall out. If this had happened to us, I would be in the doghouse (whoever’s fault it was) and we wouldn’t be speaking to each other for the rest of the day..

Glad everything worked out for Rachy and family and hope they have a fantastic holiday..

See more...

I agree, DH and I would totally have fallen out over this! In DLP, I left him queuing to meet Moana while I took DD to the toilet, then he met us outside the toilets and said he’d left the queue to do something else! (i.e. the queue we’d joined 5th from the front during EMH and had been in for nearly two hours so that we could avoid the 4 hour queue that would have formed by 10am.) I was furious and couldn’t even speak to him while I stomped off to the back of the massive queue - THEN he told me that he was winding me up and he’d asked the people behind us to save our places

[BucksBugsy]

Originally Posted by itsmeGAV

I still don't understand how any of this is Norwegians fault?

---

OP, Have a fantastic holiday!

See more...

Playing devils advocate I dont think it is. We are all ultimately responsible for our own travel documentation

BUT

in my time on the dibb I've never heard of this situation before so all credit to Rachy for bringing it to our attention even though she was extremely stressed at the time.

[jdybnsn]

Just wanted to say - hope you have a good holiday

Don't forget to treat yourself to a large drink on the plane - you deserve it !

[BucksBugsy]

Originally Posted by Myakka17

So let me get this right the moral to this is print out your confirmation, then you don’t have to start a new application , which unknowingly invalidates an existing esta.
Is this correct or have I missed something?

See more...

In my opinion yes and no

The CBP site recommends having a printed copy of your approved ESTA (which I do) but in this specific situation I'm not sure how it would have helped because as Rachy has said it's the fact she reapplied (and got to the payment stage) that effectively cancelled her previous one.

We will never know if a printed copy would have helped.

[Frostie13]

Wow! Read through every post, even had to stop half way through to get a cup of tea!

So glad you have managed to get a flight for today. I think I would have been a wreak if it was me.

Definitely going to be checking and re-checking those ESTA's!

Have a great time.

[Dinglebert]

Having following this yesterday there still seems for some people to be a degree of confusion. This is nothing to do with Norwegian Air. They are not in any way responsible.

The problem quite simply was that the valid ESTA held by the OP was cancelled when she went through the process of getting a new ESTA. What she didn't know and what I suspect the vast majority of us didn't know until yesterday was that there is a stage during any ESTA application which cancelled out all previous ESTA's. This happens even if you don't complete the next ESTA application. This meant that unknowingly and expensively she did not have an ESTA when she turned up to the airport yesterday.

Because the US have tightened up ESTA applications and extended the approval time from seconds to potentially days but more certainly hours this meant that turning up to an airport without an ESTA means high chance of not getting on the plane.

Frankly given the circumstances this could have been any of us.

I know for most who have followed this post is just stating the obvious but some people have misunderstood and are still blaming the airline. It did look at face value for a small period of time yesterday that it was the fault of the airline but the OP cleared that up.

[Dinglebert]

Originally Posted by BerkshireBugsy

In my opinion yes and no

The CBP site recommends having a printed copy of your approved ESTA (which I do) but in this specific situation I'm not sure how it would have helped because as Rachy has said it's the fact she reapplied (and got to the payment stage) that effectively cancelled her previous one.

We will never know if a printed copy would have helped.

See more...

I think you misunderstood the previous poster. There suggestion is that if you have a paper copy in front of you then you will know you have a valid ESTA in date and therefore no need to start a new one. The OP was unsure when she started the new application if she had a current valid one. She then checked old emails when the application was current and realised she didn't need a new one and so stopped the applicaiton However it had passed a point and therefore the old one had been cancelled.

[disneypars]

I wonder how many people have checked that their ESTA is still valid after this event.

[thatdavieguy]

I think we're going round and round in circles here and the thread would be better served by wishing Rachy & her family a safe journey today and to enjoy their holiday then letting it slide down the page.