Every week someone writes to GetETA the night before a flight: “We are five, four got approved, my husband’s is still pending, what do we do?” Almost every one of these stories starts the same way — tickets bought first, eTA left for later. Here is the order that avoids it.
The short answer
eTA first, tickets second. Or at least: eTA before anything non-refundable.
The eTA does not need a flight number, a date or a hotel. You can apply the moment you think you might go. It is valid for five years, so applying early costs you nothing — and it removes the one thing you cannot fix at the airport.
The right order, step by step
- Decide who is going and make sure each person has a passport valid for the whole trip.
- Apply for an eTA for every traveller — including children and babies; every passport needs its own. Most are approved in minutes (what to expect).
- Wait until everyone is approved. For most families that is the same evening.
- Now buy the tickets — with clear conscience, non-refundable fares included.
- Keep the approval emails together in one folder on your phone.
If you already bought tickets, do not panic — just apply today, not next week.
Why “I’ll fix it if something goes wrong” does not work
Most people assume: if there is a mistake, I will just apply again, it takes minutes. The first time, yes. The second time, no. A new application on a passport that already has a refused or pending one gets flagged for a manual look — and that can take one to two weeks, not minutes.
Picture it: flights, hotel and car booked for five people. Three days before departure you notice one passport number is wrong. You reapply immediately. The corrected approval arrives ten days later. The other four fly; you do not. Nothing at the airport can fix it, and no fee — ours or anyone’s — can speed it up.
That is the whole argument for doing two things: apply before you spend money, and have a second person check every passport against every form before submitting. A family of five typed by one tired parent is exactly where a digit gets swapped.
How early is early enough?
- Ideal: the day you start planning, before any money is spent.
- Fine: two to three weeks before departure. Leaves room for the rare slow case.
- Risky: less than 72 hours. Most people still get approved in minutes, but if you are the one who does not, there is no time to fix anything.
- Last minute at the airport: possible, sometimes works, often ends in a missed flight. Do not plan for it.
Five of you applied, one is not approved — what now?
First: nobody else is affected. Approvals are individual. Four approved eTAs stay approved.
For the fifth person, find out which situation it is:
Still “pending” after a few hours. Normal. Check spam, confirm with a status check, and wait — most come through within a day. Do not submit a second application for the same person; it makes both slower.
Pending, flight within 72 hours. Contact the processing office through their web form with the flight details. Then decide as a family: does everyone wait, or do the four fly and the fifth follows? If the tickets are refundable or changeable, move only the one ticket, not all five.
“Refused” because of a data mistake (wrong passport number, swapped names, wrong birth date — by far the most common with families, because one person types for everyone). Submit a new application for that person with the correct data, checking it against the passport. Usually approved within minutes again. Guide: how to fix a mistake on your eTA.
“Refused” for eligibility (a past refusal, a “yes” on a background question, a passport that needs a visa). That person needs a visitor visa, which takes weeks — the trip dates may have to move for them. See what a refusal means.
The child’s eTA is missing or refused but the parents’ are fine. Check two things on the child’s application: that it used the child’s passport number (not a parent’s, copied from the previous form), and that the date of birth is really the birth date — not the passport’s issue date. Parents know their own birthday by heart; for the kids they read three dates off the passport in a row, and one slides into the wrong box. This is the single most common family mix-up we fix.
Two or three children? Use the one-passport-at-a-time checklist — it exists because of families exactly like yours.
Other family mistakes we see every week
- One email for everyone. Fine — but then five approval emails arrive and one gets missed. Check that you have an eTA number for each passport.
- Applying for the family under one passport number. Every person, every passport, separately.
- A parent with a new passport using the eTA from the old one. It does not transfer — here is why.
- Assuming the baby does not need one. Every age needs an eTA to fly.
- Ordering for relatives who live abroad and reading their passport over the phone. Always work from a scan — how to do it for parents and relatives.
- A grandparent with a different citizenship assuming the same rules apply. Check each passport separately: eTA, visa, or nothing.
What GetETA does for families
You upload the passports; we fill and cross-check every form against them, submit them together, and tell you the moment each one is approved — or catch the swapped digit before it becomes a refusal and a two-week wait. If one application is slow, you hear from us, not from a check-in agent. Apply for the family or check the status of an existing one.
Official information: eTA facts