Photo: RNZ
Travellers are in a tailspin after they discovered new passport rules for travel to Britain - and some are now working out if they are even be classed as UK citizens.
Passport wait times are also becoming a key concern for dual-national New Zealanders travelling soon, who need UK passports before they can fly.
For some, it's first a question of finding whether they are in fact British citizens.
New Zealanders Heather and John Wiltshire are booked on a holiday to the UK and Europe in 10 weeks' time - but she's not even sure if she will get on a plane.
She has only ever had a New Zealand passport, but as she was born in the 1960s to UK-born parents, she discovered only in the last few days that she could be classed as a citizen and refused boarding.
"I was so stressed that I just felt like vomiting. It was awful," she said.
"I was phoning travel agents. Nobody knew. Everybody was ducking for cover and saying that they were waiting to find out themselves. So this was last Saturday morning. I didn't sleep at all on Friday night.
"I was just sick, absolutely sick to the stomach because we're leaving in 10 weeks and I've spent 30k on this holiday. And I'm still beside myself because I don't know whether I'm getting this passport or not."
Even armed with her parents' birth certificates, wedding certificate, and her mother's passports, she cannot tell whether she was ever given UK citizenship, as she was born in Aotearoa.
As young children were simply added to parents' passports in the past, she doesn't know if that means she is now classed as British.
Photo: Supplied
"I went to the UK when I was five. I assume that my mother got me a New Zealand passport - but I could have travelled on her British passport," she said.
Getting someone on the phone to c
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