Title says it all I suppose. Let’s say I fly to Vegas this weekend and misplace my driver’s license. How do I get home? I suspect this is a pretty common problem.
Get to the airport early and be prepared to be extensively questioned. I’ve heard that people were seated without an ID but only after an investigation.
This is why you carry a copy of your id hidden someplace. I was robbed of plane tickets and passport in England once and had little trouble getting new tickets and getting home because I had photocopies of both.
This happened to my wife. In Vegas, no less. She lost her driver’s license on the way to the airport to fly home. She arrived plenty early and had to go through a lot of extra screening, but she was allowed on the plane.
Where did you fly from? If it was from outside the country, then whether or not you have a driver’s licence is irrelevant, since it’s your passport they’ll want to see. If you find yourself in a foreign country with a lost or stolen passport, then you should contact your country’s nearest embassy, consulate, or high commission, who will issue you a temporary replacement.
Really? That seems like a major loophole in security. I could scan my ID, make changes on the computer, and photocopy the result; presto, fake ID that is hard to detect, because it is photocopy.
A quick, easy phone call to the traveler’s local PD or DMV to check on the facts of the ID does much to prevent obvious fraud.
Simple answer: you don’t. 
Well sure, that’s what you do when you are abroad. I originally thought it might be easier to deal with abroad, as your consulate can get you a new passport. However, Texas doesn’t have a consulate in Nevada, and the Nevada DMV couldn’t do a thing for me I presume. But, from other poster’s accounts, it sounds like it’s not impossible to go aboard without an ID.
Wait, you were in England and they let you fly to, presumably, the US on just a photocopy of plane tickets and a passport? How long ago was this? The usual procedure, as far as I’ve ever known, is to visit the US embassy and get a temporary replacement. I’m positively shocked that you would be allowed entry back into the US on a copy of a passport. Maybe the procedure has changed or maybe the travelers I know who’ve lost their passports abroad were misinformed.
First of all, Canada. Secondly, since Canada is a member of the Commonwealth, we didn’t (and, I expect, still don’t) need a passport to get back home from there. Third is that I didn’t fly home on the photocopy of the tickets but took the copy to the airline office and was able to get replacements for a hundred bucks instead of having to buy a whole new ticket.
I didn’t put all my ID in the same bag (you never should do that - keep your driver’s license and passport in separate bags and also don’t store all your money together - just good sense) so I could prove I was me.
Had I been in a country other than a Commonwealth nation, I could have called the Canadian consulate and gotten a replacement passport but since I had the photocopy, they’d be able to call up the actual passport by number, match the photo to my face and I’d be good to go, I should think. Either way, getting replacements will be made much simpler if you have copies of the originals or can get someone at home to fax you copies of the originals.
I think he means that because he had photocopies, he was able to get replacements very quickly.
Ah, never mind, I see he’s beaten me to it.
That’s pretty standard advice for anyone travelling abroad. At any rate, thanks for the clarification, because your original post made it sound (to me at least) that you just hopped on a plane from one foreign country to another with just a photocopied passport. The fact that you were travelling from one Commonwealth nation to another and, thus, did not require a passport is an important detail.
A few years ago I went to Vegas and when I got to the airport I realized that I didn’t have my ID on me (I had changed wallets for the trip, and forgot to move my ID card along with my credit cards). The airline still checked my luggage, and when I got to security I had to go through extra screening, just short of a strip search. After I got to Vegas, I called the friend who was taking care of my cats while I was gone and had him express-mail my ID card to me at the hotel.
This just happened to Mrs Blather. She was in transit in Germany on the way from Italy to the US. Through a series of circumstances too long to go into, her passport was out in checked luggage and they would not let her on the plane. I got a frantic call at 4:00 AM and had to FAX copies of birth certificate, old passport, etc. to the US consulate in Frankfurt. A very nice woman called the airlines and eventually got her on the flt. It was interesting when she got to the US, but they decided the story she told was too improbable to have been made up and let her in.
If you’re in china, they won’t let you on a plane. But you can take a train without ID.
If you need to go international, need to fill out a police report, then go to the US embassy. The US embassy will issue some sort of one time travel document good only to get you out of China and back to the US, do not pass go.
If you’re flying within the US, be prepared for extensive screening. It won’t be at the “rubber glove” level but will be thorough.
A couple of months ago, I lost my diver’s license and went to Chicago O’Hare with a bus pass. Since it had my picture on it, they accepted it. There was no further hassle.
I’m pretty sure you can use nearly anything with a picture if you look non-threatening. Its all up to the person with the stamp at the security check in.
As long as it is government issued.
I used to sell a lot of firearms. And one thing that always made me laugh was that if a person showed me a driver’s license with his old address on it, I could not accept it as ID. But if they used their City Pool Pass (with Photo), that didn’t even contain an address, it was a valid ID.
So I could sell them the pistol with a Pool Pass for ID, but the driver’s license is no good to use because he hasn’t updated his address. (Making it invalid)
:rolleyes: