On my round the world trip with dad, we flew Qatar Airways’ Airbus A380 first class from Doha to Perth. We had a bit of an issue during our check-in process at Doha Airport, and I’m curious if any OMAAT readers have insights into what might have caused this issue…
In this post:
My dad’s incorrect passport number on application
Qatar Airways has a gorgeous first class check-in area at Doha Airport, so we had a seat while the friendly agent processed our check-in. Australia requires an electronic travel authority (ETA) for visitors, which I had completed for both of us through the Australia ETA app prior to travel.
Usually check-in can be completed within a couple of minutes, but in this case it took the agent some time. She then called over a colleague. And another colleague. And another colleague. Soon enough, there were five people standing behind the check-in desk. That’s never a good sign.
At that point she broke the news to us:
“Sir, it seems that your travel authority doesn’t have the correct passport number on it. It has an extra ‘8’ on the passport number, and the system isn’t accepting it.”
I pulled up the email containing a PDF copy of our ETA, and sure enough, my dad’s passport number showed as ending in “W8,” rather than in “W.” There was indeed an extra “8.” I was angry at myself for a moment, for not being more careful while filling out an application like this, which is usually something I pride myself in.
And of course at that point my mind started racing. While these applications can often be approved quickly, I wondered if this might jeopardize the rest of our trip.
I then opened the Australia ETA app, which is the only place where you can complete the application, and prepared to submit another one. But I first pulled up the application I had already submitted for my dad, and I actually hadn’t made a mistake. As you can see below, his passport number showed as ending in “W” (as it should have), and there was no extra “8.” I hadn’t modified it either — there’s a “lock” symbol, so that’s exactly how it was submitted.
I showed this to the five agents huddled around the desk, and they were as confused as I was. They did some more typing, they made some phone calls, they talked among one another… and soon enough they sent us on our way and said “it’s fine, don’t worry, we’ll figure it out.” I’m not sure what was actually done in the background, but we boarded our flight without issue, and didn’t have problems entering Australia.
How could something like this happen?
Obviously this isn’t a huge deal, it’s just… weird. The Australia ETA process is automated, I entered the correct passport number, and then the approval came with a passport number that had an en extra “8” on the end.
Was the system just glitching and randomly entering an extra number? Is adding a number to the application just standard in Australia for some kinds of passports, and the check-in staff weren’t familiar with it?
All’s well that ends well, and this wasn’t a big deal at all, but it has left me curious.
Bottom line
With the number of people completing ETA and visa applications, travelers are going to make mistakes once in a while, and that can cause issues. I’d take full accountability here, but oddly Australia just decided to change my dad’s passport number on the application, in a way that it wasn’t entered on the application.
Fortunately the Qatar Airways staff were gracious with minimizing the impact on us, though I’m still confused.
Anyone want to take a guess as to how this happened?
Just curious, is the passport number on the upper right the same with what you can see on the lower left that is usually scanned by some readers? Mine had an extra number too on the lower left and maybe that is the one that was returned instead of the number on the upper right.
Next time use Pickvisa.com, they’ll handle this kind of things.
If you have a German passport - why not apply for a free eVisitor, instead of paying 20 AUD for the ETA with your US Passport?
I had exactly the same issue travelling from Europe to Australia van SIN with SQ. My name was called while we were in the lounge during the stopover. The agent first said "It seems like you don't have a valid visa for Australia". I showed him my print and he was also confused. After many calls and several agents they also noticed the discrepancy with my passport number (similar to your situation in Doha). They...
I had exactly the same issue travelling from Europe to Australia van SIN with SQ. My name was called while we were in the lounge during the stopover. The agent first said "It seems like you don't have a valid visa for Australia". I showed him my print and he was also confused. After many calls and several agents they also noticed the discrepancy with my passport number (similar to your situation in Doha). They said they would fix it during the flight and that I was good to go. So seems it happens more often.
May be not a huge deal but wasted a lot of time. If the airline made a mistake I would have complained.
US passport? The "nationality" line, blocked out, looks longer than USA. Canada, perhaps?
I believe his father is German
Qatar documents don't reflect your submission to Australia - how (un)surprising.
Clearly Qatar once again screwed up a passengers documents but because you are you and flying in F they took the time to fix it.
In 2022 QR changed our 777 plane from DOH-SEA and did not properly update my ticket number issued by AA on our award. They updated my wife's but screwed up mine. They provided no assistance as I was in...
Qatar documents don't reflect your submission to Australia - how (un)surprising.
Clearly Qatar once again screwed up a passengers documents but because you are you and flying in F they took the time to fix it.
In 2022 QR changed our 777 plane from DOH-SEA and did not properly update my ticket number issued by AA on our award. They updated my wife's but screwed up mine. They provided no assistance as I was in J, not F. They continue to claim that they cannot change seats on their own aircraft so it's not their problem.
Evidently Qatar has a problem in IT or documentation. Not Australia.
Australian government IT is some of the worst in the world.
In many aspects Australia is a third world country with first world luck due to resources. One plagued by mediocrity in the government and corporate world.
If Australia is third world then the US is fifth world - Australia has exceptional healthcare infrastructure, education system and far lower rates of crime and of course no mass shootings and it’s not politically divided like the Us is.
!00% correct!
If you want to see 3rd world, look no further then the US banking system, which has not moved beyond 1980.
Also, fax machines are still a thing in the US! LOL!
Very true. The US has such an antiquated banking system, and they still use cheques. I’ve not seen one for around 15 years. Indeed they still uses faxes and public phones. We have few pay phones in Europe however I cannot recall the last time I ever saw anyone using one.
@glenn t, yeah, so antiquated that you have free real time/instant money transfers (before we got any of that in almost all the rest of america) with Zelle! almost half of the economy in Venezuela still moves and survives thanks to the ppl who have the privilege to have US accounts. Zelle is the de facto payment method in Venezuela.
@Morgan , as a Venezuelan who fled from my country for almost 40 years. I'll take Freedom a million times over the points you make. And take it from my very own experience, we are not trees! why be so unhappy in your country? it's not like you are in Venezuela were it's almost impossible to get a passport or a flight, you can go to Australia to be happy. Just pray we don't have another pandemic.
You stated the truth and the left mob wasted no time to shoot from the waist. Imagine ppl loving to give unlimited power specially to that kind of Government. They dare to compare it to the US and conveniently let out the part were they government held all the people literally hostage.
Exactly. You have many in Australia who have a “look over there” mentality when mediocrity is flagged to them.
Ignoring the fact there are shootings almost every night in Sydney. Where crime is rampant in Queensland and the government does nothing. And as you mentioned imprisoning citizens in and locking expats out for several years.
For many in Australia, they just want Daddy to govern them harder.
What did you do in Perth ? I hear it’s in the middle of nowhere.
Perth and Western Australia are wonderful places to visit. Margaret River wine region is special. Perth is a great visit. North of Perth are great beaches (Coral Bay for example).
East of Perth are areas with ranching etc.
Between Perth and Adelaide is the area called the Nullabor which means "no trees" And for most of the 2700 km there isn't much. A once in a lifetime trip in a mini motorhome.
Indeed not to mention fantastic weather restaurants beaches etc
Cool. Sounds like a stark contrast to Sydney. I’m more of a city person. I would go back to Sydney if there’s a price drop in airfare.
Booked a trip for a good friends mom who is 82. Applied for a visa 3 weeks before departure. Got notice of required health exam. Paid the $450 for the health exam within a week. Waited and did not get the visa and I had to cancel outbound (Alaska miles on Fiji business for 55k). A week later approved and I found SFO-MEL the next day on busienss so she still went but a week...
Booked a trip for a good friends mom who is 82. Applied for a visa 3 weeks before departure. Got notice of required health exam. Paid the $450 for the health exam within a week. Waited and did not get the visa and I had to cancel outbound (Alaska miles on Fiji business for 55k). A week later approved and I found SFO-MEL the next day on busienss so she still went but a week shorter and it was 87.5k aeroplan miles instead of 55k Alaska (and paid pre position United flight LAX-SFO to avoid a long 7 hours at SFO on an award ticket…so if you have someone 70+ vong to Australia apply for the visa asap…
Thanks to those that commented below and advised the 10 digit technicality. I was to basically commute to Australia for work and never had any issue...other than of my own doing...I never remembered the validity of my ETA and a few times found at check-in that it had expired. Never took more than minutes to submit and receive the ETA.
Some airlines will process it for you at the counter (Qantas and Malaysia come to mind)...I'm glad that QR took care of you!
We visited Australia this past February. Both of our US passports have 9-digit numbers and both were listed correctly (i.e. 9-digits) in our Australian eTAs.
Perhaps the problem occurred when scanning your father's passport with your phone using the eTA app. When I scanned my wife's passport, not all of her passport's data transferred correctly. I was able to manually correct it in the app. Perhaps that's where the extra digit originated. That extra...
We visited Australia this past February. Both of our US passports have 9-digit numbers and both were listed correctly (i.e. 9-digits) in our Australian eTAs.
Perhaps the problem occurred when scanning your father's passport with your phone using the eTA app. When I scanned my wife's passport, not all of her passport's data transferred correctly. I was able to manually correct it in the app. Perhaps that's where the extra digit originated. That extra digit might not have been displayed in the app due to an edit mask.
Bottom line, I completely agree that it's best to always carry hard copies of all key travel documents. Once we used the operating airline's app to get mobile boarding passes for our flight. When we tried to board, the gate agent told us that the airline only accepted paper boarding passes. Fortunately, I had also been able to get paper boarding passes so we used those.
It's not wrong adivce, but the extra number got added by the system even back when you simply entered the data manually and (verified) correctly. An inquiry of mine with the AU Immigration brought me an official letter from theirs, saying exactly that and also it not being an error.
Only having and printing that reply would have made things easier with that QR agents.
So, for anyone ending up in a similar...
It's not wrong adivce, but the extra number got added by the system even back when you simply entered the data manually and (verified) correctly. An inquiry of mine with the AU Immigration brought me an official letter from theirs, saying exactly that and also it not being an error.
Only having and printing that reply would have made things easier with that QR agents.
So, for anyone ending up in a similar situation: no need to doubt yourself, but that might not help if you don't have it in writing and the station crew outright refuses to accept this ;)
Has Australia ever launched an app for anything that wasn't completely over budget and completely buggy? The last electronic arrivals app got withdrawn as it was so terrible.
They changed it deliberately so they'd make you have to W8 at Doha airport
How long from application to visa grant? Thanks
For a 651 in my case: 15 Minutes.
But that doesn't really help you... a butterfly and its wings might change it to a day or days.
And it might be different for another country, or any other datapoint.
So, better allow days (or weeks, for another type of VISA).
Lucky that the staff at DOH was at least competent enough to let you board. Can imagine there could be whole bunch of places and countries (What was up with the LOT Polish fiasco reported this week!) that would've outright denied boarding!
In case of documents with less than 10 digits, additional check digits will be added to the number as per the MRV modulus specified in ICAO document 9303. This is fairly common so not sure why QR staff were confused by it.
Useful to know as I’ve never heard of that. It used to be that airlines could submit a request for an ETA via their booking system and the response was usually pretty fast.
@Sean M
What this guy said
Indeed, it's pretty shocking that five separate ground staff at DOH all wouldn't know this! A lot of my QR flying gradually moved to EK over time because if you fly QR enough there are just way too many of these incidents where the ground staff's need to follow the rules exactly smashes into them not actually being trained / knowing the rules properly and then refusing to accept when you suggest they have got...
Indeed, it's pretty shocking that five separate ground staff at DOH all wouldn't know this! A lot of my QR flying gradually moved to EK over time because if you fly QR enough there are just way too many of these incidents where the ground staff's need to follow the rules exactly smashes into them not actually being trained / knowing the rules properly and then refusing to accept when you suggest they have got it wrong. Life's too short to have to deal with this with any frequency. Glad it worked out here.
ALWAYS carry paper copies of documents with you. Recently, I was caught up in India, trying to enter the terminal, which is restricted to passengers only. I had an e-ticket but no internet because wifi in Indian airports is restricted to those with Indian cell phones. I had a printed electronic authority to Singapore but it was for the next day when the flight arrived while it was not midnight yet in India. Logic would...
ALWAYS carry paper copies of documents with you. Recently, I was caught up in India, trying to enter the terminal, which is restricted to passengers only. I had an e-ticket but no internet because wifi in Indian airports is restricted to those with Indian cell phones. I had a printed electronic authority to Singapore but it was for the next day when the flight arrived while it was not midnight yet in India. Logic would not sway the security guard.
Luckly, I had a itinerary that I printed on Word. It was just a piece of paper with flight numbers, hotel names and addresses, dates. However, it showed a date and flight number (even though it was just something I typed out!). The security man accepted that as documentation!!!
I always print everything.
I always bring a copy . Run into FedEx kinkos and printout. Even though there’s the app and emails. I’m paranoid.
Wouldn't really have helped here, though: the grant letter indeed can carry an added number for the passport, which makes it differ from the passport itself.
The QR crew should have known better, but here it'd only have helped to inquire with the Immigration and Border Protection beforehand and have their reply printed out. Something that I did, but didn't even need with EK several years ago.
Reminds me the days when the volcano in Iceland grounded all the traffic over Europe for several days and I got stranded in Delhi.
We had to come to the check-in desk every day to check, whether the flight would operate and every day I had to create a new “ticket” in Word, so that the security would allow me inside the terminal.
In India, always have a hard copy, otherwise you might not be allowed to enter the building.
I had a similar problem with my electronic New Zealand transit authority about a week ago when departing Australia. the first letter on my passport number was an F instead of an A. I got called up to the desk at the gate in Melbourne and the problem was resolved in a few minutes; however, as a result, my bags didn't make it onto the flight and I didn't receive them until two days later....
I had a similar problem with my electronic New Zealand transit authority about a week ago when departing Australia. the first letter on my passport number was an F instead of an A. I got called up to the desk at the gate in Melbourne and the problem was resolved in a few minutes; however, as a result, my bags didn't make it onto the flight and I didn't receive them until two days later. The New Zealand App was glitching throughout the application process which is what I attribute the problem to.
A few years ago the family was flying to Australia on separate flights and we all seemed to have some sort of tech issue with the travel authority as well. I had filled out almost everyone's online myself (no app back then).
We all had connecting flights to west coast cities and even though everyone was allowed on the first segment flights without issue, most of us got stopped by the gate agents on...
A few years ago the family was flying to Australia on separate flights and we all seemed to have some sort of tech issue with the travel authority as well. I had filled out almost everyone's online myself (no app back then).
We all had connecting flights to west coast cities and even though everyone was allowed on the first segment flights without issue, most of us got stopped by the gate agents on the SYD segment because of "visa" issues. I luckily had hard-copy print outs of the electronic authority because they also claimed they couldn't see the electronic version on their side.
Seems the Australians haven't sorted out their IT issues on this front.
How many digits is his passport number?
As per a reply to an inquiry of mine from the Immigration and Border Protection support, that's indeed the reason. They automatically get added an extra number if shorter than 10 digits.
Had to go look at my passport and it's 9 digits... guessing most, if not all, US passports are 9 digits long so they all would get that check digit at the end.
I had a problem going to Australia in May also - at Delta One check in at JFK it involved a handful of agents, the global support desk, and that desk was on the phone with the Australian embassy. Didn't ever find out what the issue was exactly (I had approved on my app and an email PDF approval), but after 45 minutes (and a missed connection JFK-LAX) the 'authorization' finally came through on Delta's...
I had a problem going to Australia in May also - at Delta One check in at JFK it involved a handful of agents, the global support desk, and that desk was on the phone with the Australian embassy. Didn't ever find out what the issue was exactly (I had approved on my app and an email PDF approval), but after 45 minutes (and a missed connection JFK-LAX) the 'authorization' finally came through on Delta's end. Australia's system seems a little wonky. Delta claimed they couldn't override the checkin block and at least get me on my way to LAX although that seems to not be the case given this scenario. Stressful as I was on standby for the last flight to LAX that wouldn't result in a missed connection to SYD but fortunately made it, even though it ended up being an economy seat.
I actually saw this on an immi grant letter quite a few years ago, also.
My inquiry to them resulted in this reply in a formal letter (for a German passport number):
"Thank you for emailing the Department of Immigration and Border Protection.
There may be an additional digit added to the passport number recorded on your Visa Grant
Notification (VGN). This is not an error. This is a system generated number taken...
I actually saw this on an immi grant letter quite a few years ago, also.
My inquiry to them resulted in this reply in a formal letter (for a German passport number):
"Thank you for emailing the Department of Immigration and Border Protection.
There may be an additional digit added to the passport number recorded on your Visa Grant
Notification (VGN). This is not an error. This is a system generated number taken from the
machine readable zone on the bottom left hand side of the personal information page of your
passport."
Flying with EK, who didn't bother and as expected, no issue whatsoever at immigration.
Surprising that QR staff at their main base still doesn't know about this.
Just looked at my (UK) passport and indeed the "Number" is 9 digits, but in the machine-readable section at bottom left there is an extra digit added.
Thank you so much for sharing this.
Guessing they wouldn’t have afforded the same benefit of the doubt to an economy-class passenger.
Umm, actually you didn't enter without problems. Didn't you end up having at least two extrta checks on arrival in Australia?
I hate computers. When everything works smoothly, they're great. But more often than not, one ends up in some stupid "computer says no" situation, like this one here. I wonder if a statusless Y pax would simply have been denied boarding.
Boi, just be thankful you didn't have to use that app with your newborn. Spent 2 hours combined trying to get that auto-face detect to accept my 1 and 3 year old. Thought it was amazing at first, but there are way too many bugs/lack of thought in the app to make it useful. Ridiculous.
I checked the ETA PDFs of our family of five, which we used for a trip to Australia in April and all of them show an extra number at the end. So, maybe this is just general practice and Qatar staff didn’t know about it or never noticed? Maybe it’s also something new. I don’t have older ones to compare to right now. Glad your travels worked out, though.
It's really been the same 5 or more years ago.