ETA Process
 

Has anyone had any problems with the on-line ETA process? My application was rejected - the reason was that my passport expiry date was "outside the acceptable range" but my passport is still valid for over a year.

Hello MC04,

This probably is not the explanation, but you might want to eliminate it as a possible explanation, just in case it is.

Americans write a date as "December 2, 2005," and they abbreviate it as "12/2/2005."

Australians write it as "2 December 2005" and abbreviate it as "2/12/2005."

Suppose your passport will expire on December 2, 2005, but suppose you abbreviated that as 12/2/2005. If that was the case, an Australian computer might have interpreted it as 12 February 2005.

I don't even know if it's possible for a communication gap like that to occur on an on-line application. I didn't apply for the ETA on-line, as Air Canada did it for me. Therefore I have not viewed the way in which dates are entered on the application form.

I consider it unlikely that such a misunderstanding could occur. However, as I said, I offer it as one explanation you might want to eliminate before moving on to other avenues of enquiry.

After I paid for my ETA, I was told that my airline would not only get it for me, they would do it at no cost. Check your airline is my suggestion.

Our friend Judy has a good point about the way the dates are written.

Margo and Judy - a very good and important point - unless we have our wits about us and discover country of origin of booking request, we'll take a booking of say, 7/6/05 as 7th June, 2005, NOT 6th July, 2005. I can usually define an Australian, British , NZ, or South African booking request by the fact that the date is usually given before the month, not after, but if only numerals are given this makes it impossible to discern in a lot of cases. To be safe, give the actual name of the month. Saves confusion.