An international airline is letting travelers use veteran cards as ID

Issued to many veterans who've served in the nation’s military, a Veteran Health Identification Card (VHIC) from the United States Armed Forces has a pair of purposes — together with qualifying one for certain government benefits and discounts from some deepest businesses, it truly is miles in a position to also serve as TSA-approved identification on domestic flights.

Veteran IDs do no longer qualify for international flights for which a passport or passport card is required.

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Over in the UK, flagship carrier British Airways just announced a transformation in policy wherein individuals who served in that u . s . a .'s Armed Forces can use their veteran card to board flights. This makes the carrier the first airline in the UK and possibly the area to have created a policy curious about the sort of identification. A U.S. airline would no longer be able to change acceptable ID rules: Policy changes are dictated by the TSA.

Here is how British Airways is changing the sport for acceptable ID

The change applies exclusively for domestic flights within the UK. International commute, with some rare exceptions, would no longer allow ID aside from a passport. During the past, one needed either a passport, a driver's license or a residency card to board British Airways flights within the UK.

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Some of the reasons for the change in keeping with British Airways comes your entire way down to honoring the "link to their military careers" that many former defense force members carry at some stage of their lives.

"All of us know through our conversations with veterans that this card provides them with one way of asserting a tangible link to their military careers," British Airways CEO and Chairman Sean Doyle said in an announcement. "I'm delighted that now we have been in a position to make this change as it underlines our commitment to recognizing their sacrifice and service.”

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Which card do I should fly? Domestically, things are changing

Within the United States, qualified veterans can get either the regular veteran identification card or the VHIC that serves as proof of medical insurance benefits and lets in a single to get treated at dedicated veterans hospitals. While both are issued by the Department of Veterans Affairs, the latter requires a more verification and thus is accepted as ID on domestic flights.

Given the differences in requirements for obtaining a driver's license from state to state, the Department of Place of origin Security and the TSA have been pushing people to change their licenses to be Real ID compliant. The premise turned into introduced by then-President George W. Bush as a single same old of identity verification.

While the goal is to at last require the sort of ID to board domestic flights and enter federal facilities, the cut-off date for when this may happen has ben pushed back over and over through the years — from 2008 to 2011 after which to 2015, 2018 and 2020.

Probably essentially the most up-to-date cut-off date set by the TSA is May 7, 2025 but there are already reports that this shall be pushed back at some point of the world again until 2027 caused by impossibility of meeting it caused by both strain on issuing agencies and travelers who've gotten used to constant extensions and do no longer feel the urgency to renew their IDs.

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