Hi Everyone,



I wanted to come out of the shadows and share our journey through passport hell…I have spent weeks reading all of your stories, scouring the information you have provided, and utilizing many tips you’ve shared. THANK YOU! Your information allowed us to remain realistic yet optimistic through the ups and downs of this entire process.

Our story began with a screaming deal we found online at the beginning of March, just after our first COVID shots, so we knew we’d be funny vaccinated in plenty of time for a summer trip to Mexico. My boyfriend has never had a passport (first timer!) and mine was stolen from my car (never again) last September. I’d immediately filed the necessary paperwork declaring it stolen, so I figured that it would be easy to book us appointments at the post office and apply for new ones. Boy was I wrong.

The soonest appointment I could get was on April 6th. It was 12 weeks to the day before our travel date of 6/30. We had already decided to expedite from the get-go so we wouldn’t have to worry as our travel date approached. At the time routine service was 10-12 weeks and expedited was 4-6. When we told the lady that we wanted to pay to expedite she checked the travel date on our applications and said that they weren’t allowing people to expedite unless they were 10 weeks or less from travel. So we did the routine service. I didn’t know anything about anything then and didn’t pay for the tracking to the facility or any of that. I feel like our appointment was within a week or two of .... going WAY downhill with the passport facilities.

After 2 weeks my boyfriend’s information showed up on the passport status website. Mine didn’t. On April 27th our checks were cashed. On May 4th my information still wasn’t showing up, it had been 4 weeks, and we were 8 weeks away from travel, so we felt it was a good time to call to check on things and pay to expedite. My sweet, sweet naive little mind was shook that I was on hold for 1.5 hours that time. If I’d only known…..

So I finally got through, she couldn’t figure out why my information wasn’t showing up but said that everything had been received and was in process and she did allow us to expedite over the phone. Our card was charged immediately for the fees and off we went into LaLa Land for another month having no idea our applications were swirling around the black hold of doom, god knows where.

Once we leapt into June I started having some anxiety that we hadn’t heard anything and our trip was THIS MONTH. But also knew that they could arrive anytime in the following two weeks.

But I had this persistent feeling that something was wrong so I subjected myself to another call to the number that apparently has only 2 people answering to about a million people on June 3rd. It took me 55 tries to even get into the queue and then a 4 hour and 25 minute hold. Lawd am I glad that I persisted because the lady I spoke with that time could not find my info in the system at all. Only my cancelled passport from last year. Using my SSN she finally found my application only to tell me that they had ENTERED MY LAST NAME WRONG on their end. It was off by one letter. WHY, when I called the first time and paid to expedite did that lady not catch it?! This lady told me I was very lucky I called when I did because it would have been “flagged” in printing. Anyway, she corrected it in their system but actually my information never did show up throughout the rest of this .... show.

That’s when I finally started giving this all a Goog. I had three sites I was visiting daily trying to figure out if we were going to make this trip.

So on June 14th, a little over two weeks away from travel, I started contacting representatives. I’m in Northern CA so I reached out to Feinstein’s office, filled out and faxed the privacy form and did the same with Rep. Matsui’s office. Never have heard back from Feinstein even after sending our stuff a second time later in the week and leaving messages. Matsui’s office sent me a generic response two days later and then on Thursday a caseworker from her office reached out. She said that they booked an appointment for me in San Francisco on 6/28. The problem was that I didn’t know if I could go to the appointment without my birth certificate which I submitted back in April when I applied for the passport. Also, on the confirmation she sent me it had “1” listed on the “Number of Attendees” line. So I emailed her back asking about those things and she emailed me back and said that no, I couldn’t go without my birth certificate and that she cancelled the appointment. Haven’t heard a word from her since.

Friday was the surprise federal holiday but I had been seeing people were having luck with Alex Padilla’s office so I called and left a message and also emailed him. I followed up with a call on Monday, got right through, and they have been WONDERFUL. My passport arrived this morning and my boyfriend’s shipped out today arriving tomorrow.

We are so relieved and thankful to Padilla’s staff who were able to locate them and get them out to us. (They were in Tucson, btw.) my advice is to contact your representatives. Keep trying but don’t be aggressive or annoying. Another thing I’ll say is that I feel like one of the big reasons they got involved and got it done was because we had applied in plenty of time. 12 weeks to the day for routine and then expedited 8 weeks out. I have seen a bunch of people on these boards applying or renewing 4-6 weeks before travel, and that should ONLY be done in a life or death situation. Do not book anything any sooner than the longest part of that window.

Thanks again for all the advice and I’m happy to answer any questions anyone may have.