I’m organizing a holiday in the US at the end of August and my passport expires next February so there will be less than 6 months before expiry when I return. Also it’s not one of the biometric passports. I’ve looked on the US government website and the UK is excluded from the list of nationalities which need more than 6 months before expiry on the date of return travel, but every time I book something it warns me about this.

I’m thinking it might ease my travel if I were to renew my passport early which would also mean I had a biometric passport. Do the biometric passports make any difference when traveling to the US?

Nope, biometric makes no difference on the way out to the US or passing their borders.

Will make it easier when you get back into the UK though.

edit: US TSA are a pain though so make sure your passport is sorted or you can show that your flight back is booked before the expiry of the passport.

Make sure you have your ESTA done before you travel and take the paperwork with you aswell 8)

You should just get a shorter visa if you don’t have 6-months or less on your passport left. As jd said, get the ESTA as soon as possible. Finally, biometric is irrelevant but if your passport is not machine readable you will NOT get into the US without a struggle.