Passport renewal
 

Pardon the tenuous relevance to UA but I think a lot of people here share my annoyance.

I have never renewed a US passport in the USA. I found out that it takes 6 weeks (!) if you do it stateside. You can pay $100+ extra to expedite it to 2 weeks (!) or you can make a special appointment at the local (DC for me) passport office and you have to cough up the extra fee. Oh yeah, you can't ask any questions without calling a 900 number. ...? How do we let these thieves get away with this nonsense or maybe its unpatriotic to leave the country? And unfathomable that a 6 week window is not plenty of time?

My wife told me that it really only takes a couple of weeks with the standard service. (She renewed in 1998.) Is this still true? Otherwise I think I will renew at the consulate when I am in CPH.

My local municipality advised me that it would take 2 – 3 weeks to get pages sewn in. Just pages. OK I said and off it went to an office in SC. I figured it would be safe to do that since I had 7 weeks before an international trip. Nope. AT 6 weeks they hadn’t done a thing.

It was $5 a call to them and then it was $35 to get it expedited plus the FEDEX charges. $ 60 in the US or FREE at the HKG embassy while you wait. I was very sorry to do it in the US. They are clearly not at all ready for the influx of work they got. Something about them re-arranging what each office does….

I paid the charges and wrote them a real nasty letter and they refunded the fees PLUS the phone charges.

OK, I give up. WHAT is the 'tenous connection to UA' in this post? http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/wink.gif

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It can take up to six weeks depending on how busy they are, if they are not all that busy then it will take less. I believe currently they are running two to three weeks from what was posted in another thread here.

The fee for expediting it is only $60 additional, not $100 additional. If you have six weeks then you pay less then if you need it in two weeks, if you need it overnight you have to pay more for that and go to a passport office, or pay an expediting service even more.

They are not theives, and it's not nonsense, If you need telephone information then you have to pay for it, there isn't any reason for me to pay for it for you. If you need it in a hurry, you have to pay an extra fee (just like getting a visa with most countries, dollar amount is based on how quick you need it back) for your application to go to the head of the line.

I had to call 3 times and got different answers each time. He final answer was that the passport was done and just sitting there longing for a damm stamp. The service is a sham when you consider travel plans out of the US to bring money back to the US is in the cards. A real hindrance to enhancing the trade imbalance.

I wouldn’t bank on the 6 week turnaround. Better to do it overseas.

When will your passport expire?
Some countries require that your passport be valid for at least six months to let you in

AndrewM

Please continue to follow this thread in Travel Buzz.

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cblaisd Moderator

It's not just the passport people who are only contactable via 900 numbers. In the UK, if you want to talk to the US Consulate regarding visas (and I think US passports as well), you have to call the equivalent of a US 900 number (around $1 a minute) and then go through a series of computeried menus before actually talking to a real person (if you call during the correct hours of course)...

... what about starting the topic in the UA board and apologize for that ... ?

I'm glad we could get our daughter's passport in MUC - we would have trouble with the 6 week wait as she was 4 weeks old when we flew!

I have NEVER had any problem getting my passport well within the promised time (and I ahve used both reguler - when not in a hurry - and the expedited 2 weeks sevice).

Before you plan to do this, please check that it is still possible to have a one-day turnaround. As far as I know, the State Dept was putting in a new system for the photos and many consulates are NOT equipped with the machines. They have to send the paperwork to the US and have the passports done there.

According to the US Consulate in Paris:

Beginning on April 8, 2002, American citizens residing or traveling abroad who require issuance of a U.S. passport will be issued the latest, state-of-the-art passport incorporating a photo-digitized image and other enhanced security features. These passports will be issued at the National Passport Center (NPC) in Portsmouth, N.H. and returned to the Embassy/Consulate abroad by express mail. U.S. Embassies and Consulates will continue to issue passports for emergencies requiring immediate travel.

For passport renewals: U.S. Embassies and Consulates will forward the approved passport applications to the National Passport Center by express mail and the new passports will be returned in the same way. Processing time from application to
delivery for the new passports should be no more than 10 days.

While the added document security will benefit all Americans, especially those overseas residents who are frequent travelers, we recognize that this procedure will take more time than our previous same day service. As this new security initiative is introduced, let's work together to make the transition smooth and effective. We ask that you take the time to please check your passports to see when they expire and be sure that you apply for replacements well in advance. If at all possible, please renew your passport by mail instead of making a time-consuming personal visit, which is usually not required. You may refer to the Embassy website for further instructions on how to renew your passport by mail."

After reading this thread, I went to check hubby's passport. It expires May 23rd, 2003, and we will be leaving for Germany on Oct. 13th, (seven months to expiration), will there be a problem?

Thanks in advance for any advice.

Many countries require 6 months' validity remaining at the end of your trip, so this depends on how long you plan to stay.

Regarding expidited passport renewal, I used a private expiditer company that was able to turn the whole thing around in 4 business days (1 to overnight to them, 2 for the passport office to renew, and 1 to overnight back to me). It was well worth the extra cost. In addition to making it go very quickly, they make sure that all your paperwork is in order before taking it to the passport office, so you have little chance of a stupid error on your part delaying the reissue.

Actually, the pages are attached with tape wings are are pre-attached to the page-insert. At least, that is the way they've been doing it for a number of years. FWIW, pages are added while-U-wait for free at most foreign consulates. I've had 7 inserts added to my present passport in Asia... totally hassle-free.