jimhurt

Hello Folks

Do any of you keep to passports whilst living in the Middle East? Reasonable easy to obtain?

Thanks

csdf

I do, but it's useless. In the UK, it allowed me to submit one for a visa whilst travelling on the other. Here, I can't do that as when you apply for a visa, you have to submit the passport that contains your residency visa. And that's the same passport you have to take with you when you leave the country (i.e. if you took the other passport, then it would look like you're leaving a country which you never officially entered, as there would be no entry stamp in that passport). In theory you could get around this by using the e-Gate card, but I've never dared try this in case the e-Gates are down the time I want to try it.

jimhurt

Hi whats an egate card?

Trouble is I dont think I'll have a residency for a good few months for Saudi (I'll be living in Bahrain) and I have to travel all over the middle and far east.

csdf

If you don't have residency, I suspect you'll have to send your passport back to your country of origin in order to get your visas. If you apply locally, the embassies will ask for your residency visa.

The UAE has a digital ID card with associated electronic gates - saves queuing at passport control and avoids passports filling up with stamps. Bahrain has the same thing, but you can only register with it once you have a residency.

Bahtatboy

I have 2 passports, both current (obviously), and stapled to each other (one has my UAE work visa in it, and is nearly full). In the past when I've needed to travel and at the same time apply for a visa outside of the GCC, I've sent my 2nd passport (the one without the UAE visa in) back to UK and applied for the visa from there. I also at one stage had a multiple-entry Saudi visa in my 2nd passport, and would leave UAE and arrive in and leave Bahrain on my main passport, and enter / leave Saudi on my 2nd passport. THere are uses in having 2.

The UK arm of my employer did the application for my 2nd passport, on the basis of lots of travel. Wasn't a problem, and most of my UK colleagues have 2.

csdf

I did this for a while, though it did cause some scary confusion a few times when I mixed them up on the way out and appeared to be an illegal immigrant!

Miss Anne Thrope

Another use of a second passport is that you can avoid filling up your residency visa passport too quickly by using your second passport to enter countries that issue a visa on arrival (thus consuming a full page) such as Jordan, Turkey, Indonesia, Kenya, South Africa, China via Hong Kong etc.

Ireland has for several years now been only issuing second passports with a duration of five years (still charge the same amount of money, thieving bastards). That means you end up having to replace first passport after a couple of years for being full and second passport for expiring after 5 years half empty... Grrr..

Anyway, I suppose all those extra fees must help with the bloody bank debt!

jimhurt

Hi Baht - what was the advantage of doing that?

jimhurt

Great point.

Bahtatboy

I can't remember the exact circumstances now, but I'm pretty sure it revolved around one passport expiring / being full, and not wanting to wait up to 2 weeks for the Saudi embassy in UAE to process the visa application. So the Saudi visa was in my (newly-issued) 2nd passport, and the visa application was done (technically illegally) in the UK while I was here in UAE.

Tockalosh

Tried to get it a few months before we left and egate was for bahrainis only. I have 2 but had to apply for the second in the uk as Brit embassy in Manama refused it

jimhurt

Cheers Baht