British passport to book tickets but travel on Pak passport?

I am in a bit of a mess. I was booking airline tickets this morning with a travel agent for the whole family and he has asked me to send him the passport numbers and expiry dates to finalize the booking. I was just checking the passports and my son's passport is going to expire in June 2015 - We are travelling in July 2015. My son is 5 years old. I have enough time to renew the passport before actual travel but the problem is that I have to give a valid passport number and expiry date to the travel agent. If I wait for a couple of weeks to book the tickets then chances are that prices will go up because it is school holiday period. The airline I am booking with is PIA.

1. Can I give the current Pakistani passport number to the travel agent (even though it will expire before travel) and change it later when I have the new passport?
2. My son has british passport too which has a long expiry date. Can I use British Passport to book the tickets and then use the renewed pakistani passport for travel?
3. I would prefer travelling on Pakistani passport, does it really matter which passport I use to book tickets and which one I use to travel? I mean they both belong to the same person and have same details.

Please help.

zeusmagnanimous wrote:I am in a bit of a mess. I was booking airline tickets this morning with a travel agent for the whole family and he has asked me to send him the passport numbers and expiry dates to finalize the booking. I was just checking the passports and my son's passport is going to expire in June 2015 - We are travelling in July 2015. My son is 5 years old. I have enough time to renew the passport before actual travel but the problem is that I have to give a valid passport number and expiry date to the travel agent. If I wait for a couple of weeks to book the tickets then chances are that prices will go up because it is school holiday period. The airline I am booking with is PIA.

1. Can I give the current Pakistani passport number to the travel agent (even though it will expire before travel) and change it later when I have the new passport?
2. My son has british passport too which has a long expiry date. Can I use British Passport to book the tickets and then use the renewed pakistani passport for travel?
3. I would prefer travelling on Pakistani passport, does it really matter which passport I use to book tickets and which one I use to travel? I mean they both belong to the same person and have same details.

Please help.

You normally don't need passport information in that advanced. I have booked flight for June(Turkish airline) and it won't let me add the details even I want to add them at the time of booking.

I am pretty sure that passport number can be changed at any time. Speak to your agent about it.
If your kid has MRP, then the new MRP will have slightly different passport number. Only last digit will go up by 1. For example if old passport number is XXXXXXX1, new one will be XXXXXXX2.
You can use British passport number for booking and enter Pakistan using Pakistani passport.

Why are you flying with PIA? Their service and safety record is crap. You pay more for tickets. Planes are always late. Last time I flew with PIA, there were naked wires under the front seat where I was sitting. That was the last time I flown on PIA.
I don't even want to get into how bad the cabin crew is.

Thanks for the reply akhurshid. I will speak with my agent.

As for going with the PIA is concerened I pretty much agree with you but the dates I am travelling are the start and end of the children's summer holidays plus it concides with Eid. I agree that PIA is not very good in terms of service and times etc but they have a direct flight which reduces the travel time and I am going with family and they allow 40K baggage which is more than other airlines. I will do a short stay but family will stay for the entire duration which means on the way back they will be travelling alone so direct flight will make a lot more sense. Also I have checked with other airlines but for the dates I will be paying a lot more and PIA seems to be the cheapest for these dates. Due to school holidays and other commitments I have to stick with the dates.
I am no fan of PIA but I think their safety rating is no worse than any other airline - service is a differnt story altogether I have heard horror stories about Turkish Airlines by the way

See safety ratings here
http://www.airlineratings.com/ratings/1 ... l-airlines
http://www.airlineratings.com/ratings/3 ... h-airlines

zeusmagnanimous wrote:Thanks for the reply akhurshid. I will speak with my agent.

As for going with the PIA is concerened I pretty much agree with you but the dates I am travelling are the start and end of the children's summer holidays plus it concides with Eid. I agree that PIA is not very good in terms of service and times etc but they have a direct flight which reduces the travel time and I am going with family and they allow 40K baggage which is more than other airlines. I will do a short stay but family will stay for the entire duration which means on the way back they will be travelling alone so direct flight will make a lot more sense. Also I have checked with other airlines but for the dates I will be paying a lot more and PIA seems to be the cheapest for these dates. Due to school holidays and other commitments I have to stick with the dates.
I am no fan of PIA but I think their safety rating is no worse than any other airline - service is a differnt story altogether I have heard horror stories about Turkish Airlines by the way

See safety ratings here
http://www.airlineratings.com/ratings/1 ... l-airlines
http://www.airlineratings.com/ratings/3 ... h-airlines

I agreed with non-stop benefit. Luckily we always travel together so stop over actually helps. You can stretch your legs and walk about. Kids are fresh and not tied to their seats.

Turkish airline is much better than PIA in my own experience.
And Turkish airline was never banned from Europe due to safety issues(remember that? ). They have good clean planes. Their service is much better. Better in flight entertainment. To be honest, any entertainment will better than PIA's. Not as good comparing to Emirates but Turkish airlines is alot cheaper too. I bought return ticket for 2 adults, 1 child and 1 infant, from Edinburgh to Bahrain in Ramadhan for £992. I bought the tickets last month and got 40KG allowance too.
Airline ratings are determined by number accidents and fatalities. With PIA's safety record, anything can happen.

Come to think of it, Turkish airlines should offer me job after selling their airline with so much passion

Good luck bro.

hahaha .... I am not going to defend that which cannot be defended I agree with what you have said and whenever I travel alone I do tend to avoid PIA.
The turkish flight I was getting for return journey around these dates was around 31hrs with a 21hrs waiting at the airport and it was costing much more than PIA. In the end I just booked PIA. I asked the agent about the passport number issue and he said its no problem. I booked using the british passport number and he also said that he can even change it later if I give him a call.

Thanks for the help.

zeusmagnanimous wrote:hahaha .... I am not going to defend that which cannot be defended I agree with what you have said and whenever I travel alone I do tend to avoid PIA.
The turkish flight I was getting for return journey around these dates was around 31hrs with a 21hrs waiting at the airport and it was costing much more than PIA. In the end I just booked PIA. I asked the agent about the passport number issue and he said its no problem. I booked using the british passport number and he also said that he can even change it later if I give him a call.

Thanks for the help.

Yeah I actually heard that from a family friend as well that there is long stop over on Turkish airline flights to Pakistan.
But again, I see it as another visit to Istanbul and try amazing Turkish food
Luckily, our transit is only few hour each way.

A propos Turkish Airlines, has anybody used the Free Touristanbul service that they provide? I would love to get some feedback befoe planning a flight around the transit

http://www.istanbulinhours.com

Your son does not actually need a Pakistani passport to travel if he's got nicop which they normally make before issuing passports. Nicop is valid for 10 years usually as far as I'm aware and is more than enough to prove that he's a Pakistani citizen and doesn't require a visa to travel to Pakistan.
You can use his British passport and nicop card that's about it. No need for Pakistani passport.

secret.simon wrote:A propos Turkish Airlines, has anybody used the Free Touristanbul service that they provide? I would love to get some feedback befoe planning a flight around the transit

http://www.istanbulinhours.com

Damn it, I wish I had 6 hours or more stay. Family would have loved Istanbul...

akhurshid wrote:

secret.simon wrote:A propos Turkish Airlines, has anybody used the Free Touristanbul service that they provide? I would love to get some feedback befoe planning a flight around the transit

http://www.istanbulinhours.com

Damn it, I wish I had 6 hours or more stay. Family would have loved Istanbul...

Ah well .... the turksish ticket was more expensive anyway ...... but would be nice to have a free tour, might try it next time.

[iD] wrote:Your son does not actually need a Pakistani passport to travel if he's got nicop which they normally make before issuing passports. Nicop is valid for 10 years usually as far as I'm aware and is more than enough to prove that he's a Pakistani citizen and doesn't require a visa to travel to Pakistan.
You can use his British passport and nicop card that's about it. No need for Pakistani passport.

Thank you, I know and the travel agent told me the same thing. My son has NICOP which was made just after his birth and apparently it is valid for 18 years. I would still renew his passport, no real reason though.

zeusmagnanimous wrote: My son has NICOP which was made just after his birth and apparently it is valid for 18 years.

How did you manage to get a NICOP which is valid for 18 years? The validity was reduced to 7 years from 10 about 4 years ago.

akhurshid wrote:

zeusmagnanimous wrote: My son has NICOP which was made just after his birth and apparently it is valid for 18 years.

How did you manage to get a NICOP which is valid for 18 years? The validity was reduced to 7 years from 10 about 4 years ago.

I don't know, I mean I did not do anything special. I applied in 2010 a little while after my son was born. I have just rechecked the dates and it is indeed valid until 2028.
It will be quite funny in future when my 18 yrs old will travel with a NICOP with his baby picture on it

zeusmagnanimous wrote:I am in a bit of a mess. I was booking airline tickets this morning with a travel agent for the whole family and he has asked me to send him the passport numbers and expiry dates to finalize the booking. I was just checking the passports and my son's passport is going to expire in June 2015 - We are travelling in July 2015. My son is 5 years old. I have enough time to renew the passport before actual travel but the problem is that I have to give a valid passport number and expiry date to the travel agent. If I wait for a couple of weeks to book the tickets then chances are that prices will go up because it is school holiday period. The airline I am booking with is PIA.

1. Can I give the current Pakistani passport number to the travel agent (even though it will expire before travel) and change it later when I have the new passport?
2. My son has british passport too which has a long expiry date. Can I use British Passport to book the tickets and then use the renewed pakistani passport for travel?
3. I would prefer travelling on Pakistani passport, does it really matter which passport I use to book tickets and which one I use to travel? I mean they both belong to the same person and have same details.

Please help.

Simple Answer is, it does not matter which passport you use to book tickets, in your case just use British Passport to book the tickets. You don't even need to renew Pakistani passport at this stage since your child has NICOP which entitles you to enter the Pakistan free (Stated on the card).

Hope this helps..