Will a passport card work as identification to get you on a plane? That’s a definite maybe. Here’s how to know

Question: My passport is 100 pages, so thought I could avoid carrying it on domestic flights (especially when our California driver’s license is no longer accepted) by getting a passport card. I paid for one, and when the card came it was accompanied by a letter stating that it’s not good for air travel. What’s the point? And thanks for the tip about the Global Entry Card, which I already have.

Michele Burgess

Huntington Beach

Answer: Burgess’ question offers an opportunity to revisit what is looming: ensuring you have proper identification for your travel situation.

The quick answer for Burgess is that you can use a passport card, which is sort of Passport Lite, for identification on a domestic flight, “domestic” being the operative word.

There shouldn’t be anything difficult about having the correct ID, right? Not so fast, Lucille.

Say you want to fly to North Dakota. You show your driver’s license to Transportation Security Administration at the airport checkpoint. End of discussion.

You want to go to Tahiti? You carry your passport to get into the country and to come home. End of discussion.

But the conversation is opening up because of driver’s licenses that don’t meet federal law based on recommendations by the 9/11 Commission. That may create a need to verify your identity with a different document.

Passport cards are one, but they seem to create confusion, as Burgess’ question suggests.

Burgess submitted her question as a follow-up to a Feb. 19 column on Real ID, the federal legislation that mandates states strengthen their policies and procedures for getting a driver’s license.

This legislation has been in place since 2005 so it doesn’t have the urgency of a 10-alarm fire.

Or it didn’t. But now, deadlines are looming that mean you may need to take action to ensure you can get on a plane because not every state meets the standards.

Nor does every state want to. You can find out which ones are which at Department of Homeland Security’s compliance map.

When you look this up, you’ll see that some states, including California, are still working on it.

“No driver license issued by the California DMV [Department of Motor Vehicles] will be considered compliant with the federal law until California is deemed fully compliant,” the DMV said in an emailed statement. In other words, we are not golden until the feds say we are, and that is not yet.

Many of those states that don’t meet the standards have received extensions (including California) so they can work toward implementing whatever they need to fix or strengthen to comply.

Right now, you can still use your California driver’s license to get on an airplane.

But some states have put their foot down and have said they are never going to comply, citing cost to the state and, often, privacy.

The world is now divided into compliant, noncompliant and outright defiant states. Those last two categories mean your license one day won’t get you on a plane or into a federal facility such as a military base. To see how long you have until you will have the ID blues, see that compliance map.

If your license doesn’t comply, you will need to carry another form of identification. You can see what the TSA deems acceptable here.

The wallet-size passport card is on that list, both the TSA and State Department confirmed, and will work for domestic flights but not international air travel.

The card is designed for entry at U.S. land and sea ports from Mexico, Canada, the Caribbean and Bermuda. A new passport card costs $55 for adults 16 and older, $40 if you’re younger than 16 and $30 if you’re renewing by mail.

Which should you have — the book or the card? Depends on your travel needs and your budget.

Let’s say you’re a family of four, two adults and two children younger than 16, and you’re taking a cruise to Mexico. You don’t have a passport or a passport card, so you’ll need one or the other for this trip.

The total cost to acquire four passport cards for the family will be $190. Acquiring passport books, which are good for air, land and sea travel in any country (assuming you have the proper visa if one is required), will cost $480.

Both are good for 10 years for adults, five years for children.

Burgess also mentioned the Global Entry card, which is an acceptable form of identification, the TSA’s website says (but you’ll still need a passport for international travel). Global Entry is a Customs and Border Protection program that gives you expedited entry into the United States from abroad and also gives you TSA Pre-Check, the expedited screening at many (but not all) U.S. airports.

It costs $100 for five years, and you get a Global Entry card.

Given the confusion about which driver’s licenses won’t work for getting on a plane as early as 2018, you may be tempted to secure a license from one of the 23 states that has met the federal standards. Unless you’re planning to move there, establish residency and apply for a license, don’t even think about getting a false ID, said Andrew Meehan, policy director for Keeping IDentities Safe, a nonprofit that wants stronger identification policies and procedures to thwart terrorists and ID thieves.

Penalties vary from state to state; in Florida, having a fake ID is a felony, Meehan said; in other states, you can face a hefty fine, jail time and loss of your license.

Consider all of these complications an early distant warning of what could lie ahead. I’m not borrowing trouble, and I’m not urging you to do so either.

But being prepared? It’s not just for Scouts anymore.

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