Passport pages tip

When I handed my passport to the Immigration officer at Schiphol Airport in the Netherlands in May 2014, I requested he put a stamp on a page that had already been used.

“The page is full,” the agent said. “I can’t put a stamp on top of a stamp.” So he turned the leaf and put a stamp smack in the middle of one of the blank pages, taking up an entire page that also could have been used for a visa or other stamps.

I decided to try to beat the travel officials at their own game. I put rubber bands around pages that I didn’t want stamped.

In the six months that followed, in numerous ports with determined Immigration officials, none of them removed or even questioned the rubber bands. My passport has enough empty sheets now to make it usable for many upcoming visas.

You might want to give it a try.

PHILIP WAGENAAR, Contributing Editor