Booking a first family holiday just got a bit cheaper. easyJet holidays is running a promotion that covers the £66.50 cost of a first child passport for babies up to 18 months old, when parents book a package holiday with the operator.
The offer exists because, apparently, plenty of parents are caught out by the rules. In a survey of 2,000 parents commissioned by the company, one in ten admitted they had no idea their baby needed a passport of their own until they started planning a trip. And even once they knew, the paperwork could be painful: a quarter of parents said it took up to six attempts to get their baby's passport photo approved. Anyone who has tried to photograph an infant against a plain white background will understand why.
How it works: the promotion covers the standard £66.50 online application fee for a child up to 18 months at the time of booking. Details on claiming are at easyjet.com/firstpassport, and the offer closes at 11pm on 26 November. It's worth remembering that a first child passport in the UK costs £66.50 online or £80 by paper form from the Post Office, is valid for five years, and currently takes around three weeks to process — so factor that wait into your booking plans.
The passport giveaway lands alongside another family-friendly change at UK borders. Since 8 July, children aged eight and nine have been allowed to use the automated e-gates when returning to the UK, a change announced by the Home Office. Previously the cut-off was age ten, meaning families with younger kids were stuck queueing at staffed booths. There are a couple of conditions: children must be at least 120cm tall so the biometric scanners can see them, and they have to be accompanied by an adult.
There's clearly a market for all this. easyJet holidays says the number of infants travelling with it this year is up 10 per cent, suggesting more parents are willing to fly with very young children than before.
Why it matters: baby's first holiday is one of those milestones parents actually remember, and a free passport knocks a real cost off it. If your child is under 18 months and you were already eyeing an easyJet package — a Canary Islands beach week or a short-haul sun break, say — it's worth booking before the 26 November deadline and reclaiming the fee. Even if you miss the promotion, the wider message is that travelling with small children is getting logistically easier in the UK: cheaper paperwork windows, faster border crossings for eight and nine-year-olds, and shorter family queues at the airport as a result.
