UK ETA

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OldConch

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Heading to Portugal for a couple weeks this evening and I was thinking about backup plans in case our travel is disrupted or diverted. Quite a few possible alternatives included transit through London Heathrow and I realized that we now need a UK ETA.

The good news is that DW and I were both approved within minutes of completing the application. The bad news is that the iPhone app is a hot mess. It crashed so often that as I was finishing DW's application I got an error message that warned I have 3 more tries and if not successful I'll be locked out for 24 hours. A couple of tips: you need a solid white/light background with good lighting for the selfie and we took off the iPhone cover and finally got the chip to scan on the inside back cover of our passports. YMMV.

BTW, it's good for two years.
 
Last edited:
I too paid just a bit over $26 for the ETA for my wife and I. Just for transiting through Heathrow later this month. No plans to enter the UK for any reason in the next two years.

I just read that the UK has reversed it's position that transiting flyers need the ETA.

I suspect that they won't be offering refunds.

www.independent.co.uk

Government reverses visa rule for Heathrow transit passengers

Heathrow jubilant as ministers back down on plans to require visa from every passenger changing planes at Britain’s busiest airport
www.independent.co.uk www.independent.co.uk
 
I decided to book a cruise out of Southampton, UK for May 2026 (I originally thought it was for 2025, but that's another story), and figured I should probably get my ETA before committing money to the trip. I used the app to submit it, but had problems with my phone scanning the chip in my passport. So I did that part manually in the app even though it warned me I might have to answer more questions. I had a few questions to answer and then it submitted fine. I got my approval email about 15 minutes later.

I did a little reading afterwards, and it appears I should have been scanning the rear cover of the passport instead of the front cover (as mentioned above). My bad.
 
Blue Poles said:
I too paid just a bit over $26 for the ETA for my wife and I. Just for transiting through Heathrow later this month. No plans to enter the UK for any reason in the next two years.

I just read that the UK has reversed it's position that transiting flyers need the ETA.

I suspect that they won't be offering refunds.

www.independent.co.uk

Government reverses visa rule for Heathrow transit passengers

Heathrow jubilant as ministers back down on plans to require visa from every passenger changing planes at Britain’s busiest airport
www.independent.co.uk www.independent.co.uk
Click to expand...

Thanks for this information. None of the points/miles blogs I follow have reported this yet. Seems that BA and LHR were afraid they were going to lose business to CDG and AMS.

I'll not be expecting a refund but that's OK, we're spending 4 nights in London in July on a Norway/Iceland trip.
 
I am really shocked that the UK will require this from us here in the USA...

Do we have something like this? It looks like UK can come here without anything.... says 42 countries...
 
In fact, the USA has had its own ESTA since 2008. So the rest of the world is just catching up.

I saw an article that also says the UK is going to raise their price at some point in the future -- from £10 to £16. No date for the price increase was specified, however.
 
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