Originally Posted by
Moderator2
I was talking with an American friend of mine this past week (an occasional Flyertalk contributor), who has lived outside North America for the last 40 years. They currently live near Essen Germany. His wife's passport is expiring and he sent it to the American Consulate in Frankfurt for renewal. While these datapoints are unlikely to help more than a small group of people who are working on renewals, thought it might be of interest to some readers. Received this email overnight:
"The DHL Deutsche Post mailman just delivered D*****'s new passport. I had mailed off the application on 26 April and we got it on 12 May. A total of 16 days, including transit both directions and processing time at the U.S. Consulate General in Frankfurt.
I noticed that the date of issuance is 30 April, so I surmise that they waited a week for the Cashier's Check to clear before they sent it out last Friday."
Frankfurt probably still advises that it's 4 week turns for passport applicants in Germany; but if it takes close to that long, then I would think that something has likely gone wrong somewhere.
I have often been dealing with passport applications submitted at US embassies/consulates in Europe. Even for in-person payment for applications -- with payment clearing immediately via cash or bank card payment -- but relying upon mail or courier service for the passport to get back to European residential addresses, a total of 9-16 days is within the range of what I've seen for in-person application submitted at US embassies/consulates in Europe on the beaten track. That's a part of why I am inclined to think that the above passport's return time was unlikely to be delayed after being issued to wait for a cashier's check to clear. Given the pandemic-related delays that have been hitting some applications submitted in Europe, and 16 days to get a passport back is actually good when not doing it all by mail/courier.
Was it a USD-denominated cashier's check from one of the US credit union branches in Germany that current and former US military personnel and family members use there? Not sure if it's still this way, but at least previously cashier's checks in the US would clear via a somewhat different process than checks written against regular current accounts at US banks.