…and your oil.
Up until last year, anyone from the UK and a ton of other countries could just fly to the US and simply put up with the intimidating, morose and short-tempered border guards who’d randomly fling you out for no reason other than their wives wouldn’t sleep with them the previous night. Or their coffee had gone cold. Or it was a Thursday.
Then, the Powers That Be decided they’d ask us all to fill in a Travel Authorization (which they couldn’t even spell) online at least a few days before travelling. These ESTA s are free and last for two years.
Well. They’re free until September 8th this year when they’ll start costing $14.
So if you’ve any plans to fly into or through the US – this includes and airport-only stopovers on the way anywhere else – get to their web page and sign up now. Hell, if you’ve no plans at all I’d still recommend it. It costs nothing but five minutes of your time and it’s one less thing that you may forget should you be booking a trip next year.
Frankly, the possibility of me going to the US at the moment is slim. Much as I’d love to see some friends there, and enjoy the superb scenery, I simply can’t be bothered with the immigration hassle. They’re even worse than us. The Aussies and Kiwis are strict, but they’re good-natured about it.
However, I do plan on visiting Canadia sometime in the foreseeable future and a lot of the routes are via the US. At least I know I’m allowed to fly there, even if they won’t let me through immigration. Which doesn’t bother me anyway as I’ll be on a transfer so that shouldn’t be an issue.
(credit: I pinched the image from the MoneySavingExpert.com newsletter because I liked it!)
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