I applied for renewal (2nd renewal) on April 24th (my expiration is April of next year). I was conditionally approved at 1:40 AM this morning, but required another interview. This wasn't surprising as it's been nearly 10 years since my initial application and I disclosed travel to Cuba last year. I could select the Zoom interview option but there weren't any appointments available when I checked this morning, nor any in person appointments at nearby locations that I could book for the future (however Guam was wide open &#128514.

I was planning to try interview on arrival after my next international trip, but I decided to check the appointments again around 1:00 PM ET. The entire afternoon was available via Zoom (it seems like the agent was Los Angeles based and appointments were added day of during Pacific time business hours). I scheduled a Zoom for 1:30 PM ET, the agent joined the call within 1-2 minutes, and the entire call took about 5 minutes. She asked my authorized reason for traveling to Cuba and approved me instantly. I received an approval letter by 1:45 PM and my status shows as approved in the portal.

I was fully prepared for a longer wait based on many of the data points, so I was pleasantly surprised how quickly this renewal was wrapped up after conditional approval.