Simon Calder outlines five tips for booking a staycation online

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Although the family made four passport applications in January, the family’s daughter, 11, never received hers back. The family may now have to cancel the family holiday to Fuerteventura in July.

Paul Edwards,53, told Wales Online: “To be honest this situation has been a nightmare and we are feeling completely frustrated at this point.

“We sent off for the passports at the beginning of January, four in total for my wife and three daughters, and while three of them came back in less than 10 weeks, the fourth for my daughter Keira has still not been returned.”

Many Britons have faced delays at the Passport Office with tourists advised to apply for passports ten weeks before they are needed.

Despite Paul applying well in advance, the family may still be forced to cancel the holiday due to the missing passport.

Paul said: “The main thing now is sorting this for our daughter, and it’s ridiculous because no matter what we do we can’t seem to get any answers about it.”

Paul said he and wife, Jan, had called the office over 100 times in the last few months but had been “fobbed off”.

He added: “The worst thing is we have a family holiday to Fuerteventura coming up in July and even though we’d sent them off with plenty of time we are worried now that the holiday could end up cancelled as as a result.

“The trip has already been delayed a couple of times due to the pandemic, so for it to get cancelled because of this would be devastating for us.”

The family said they were feeling very “let down” by how the issue was handled by the Passport Office.

Jan said: “We even offered to drive up to Liverpool where the application and documents were sent, to get it sorted in one go, but two weeks on and we’ve not even had a response for that.

“Has it been lost or misplaced? We just don’t know but overall this situation has caused me a lot of stress and we want to get it sorted.”

Daughter Kiera has even offered to stay with her grandmother to allow the rest of the family to go on holiday which Jan said broke her heart.

A HM Passport Office spokesperson said: “Since April 2021, we’ve been advising people to allow up to 10 weeks when applying for their British passport as more than five million people delayed applying due to the pandemic.

“We urge people who need a new passport to apply for one as soon as possible, with the vast majority of all passport applications being dealt with well within 10 weeks.

“To deal with this demand, we have increased staff numbers by 500 since April 2021.

“This has helped us to handle more applications than ever before, with more than one million passport applications processed in March 2022.”

British tourists will need to make a passport application this week if they want to be able to holiday at the end of July.

Britons are also advised to double check the expiry date on their passport due to new post-Brexit rules.

British tourists must have at least three months left on their passport after the last date of their holiday in the EU.

UK citizens can only stay in the EU for 90 out of every 180 days without a visa since Brexit.

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