I ran out of pages in my passport. My passport had an expiry date of April 2007. One option was to get new pages added. The second option was to get a brand new passport. I went with option 2, so that I would not have to go through the whole process again in 2007 - and who knows where I will be then to have a new passport issued! The brand new passport has a 10 year life. I went to the San Francisco passport agency, showed them my int'l travel ticket, paid them around $115, and picked up my new passport the following afternoon.