What a nightmare!

By Jason Moore I CONTINUE to hear horror stories regarding residence permits on the island. The actual card was phased out last year and replaced by a useless certificate which is no longer proper identification. I have heard stories of people, quite rightly, trying to use the certificate as identification and being told that it wasn´t proper ID and that they should use their passport. However, their passport doesn´t contain their NIF or NIE number. Things can therefore get very confusing to say the least. The latest case I heard was a family travelling to Barcelona. Although they had lived on the island for many years they let their residence permits expire because they thought they didn´t need them any longer. Last week they went to Barcelona to watch the big Celtic game. As full-time residents they were given the resident discount. At Barcelona the check-in girl informed them that they were not entitled to the discount and therefore the air fare for three people would now cost 600 euros, instead of the original 100 euros return. If they had been told in Palma before they boarded their aircraft, then the situation would have been different but they were allowed to travel but not return. The residence discount for flights and ferry travel is controversial. One British couple were told at the airport recently that they were not entitled to the discount because Britain was not part of the European Union! I just think that at the moment it is a nightmare situation and the authorities should do more to ensure that expatriates are informed about any changes to documents and the overall procedure.