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Current US passport wait? (Merged Threads)

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Old Mar 1, 2022, 6:35 am
FlyerTalk Forums Expert How-Tos and Guides
Last edit by: CKDGM
Passport Agency Appointments (same day expedited service)
Appointments for same-day expedited service often go quickly. It is best that you schedule your appointment with the passport agency exactly 14 days before your trip. You will want to call the passport number before the center opens at 8am EST as they will have just opened up one day (14 days out) of appointments at all agencies. Appointment times start at 8am. It is important that you have enough buffer in your travel schedule. For example, if you make an appointment for a new passport at 11am and your time of travel is at 2pm, there will not be enough time for you to get your passport. If you book the 8am slot you may have to wait until the end of the business day to get your new passport or it may only be a few hours.

You will want to have your date of travel, time of travel, your flight itinerary number, name of destination, full name of applicant, and applicant's birth city, and the zip code of where you live (to help them find the closest available center with open slots). Use the following steps to increase your chances of success to booking an appointment as they can go very quickly:
  1. 14 days before your trip, you need to schedule an appointment with the passport agency.
  2. At 7:55 am call the passport number 877-487-2778 (This have to be exactly 14 days before your plane ticket or less. If less, it will get harder to find an appointment)
  3. Click 1 (For English)
  4. Click 2 (New Passport)
  5. Continue to Click 7 to repeat, and keep doing this while watching your watch or using Time.gov to get the exact time down to the second.
  6. When your it hits exactly 8:00 am Click 2 (for traveling within 14 days option)
  7. There will be a delay of 3-4 second and you will wait for the next available agent. If you are very lucky, you will be put straight through to an agent. You may be waiting few minutes or maybe as long as 15-20 minutes.
  8. If you did not click 1 exactly at 8 am, you may have to wait for more than an hour and half
After the appointment slot has been reserved you will be provided with a unique identifier code and reservation number. These details will also be emailed to you.

Credit: chgoeditor

Known office locator numbers (not complete)
Note: The office code (first two digits of your application locator number returned by Passport Status) is the office reviewing your documents and approving your application. It isn't necessarily the address you mailed the forms to (always Irving or Philadelphia for renewals) nor the facility where the book is physically printed and mailed (often Tucson or Hot Springs).

10: Boston
11: NYC
12: Honolulu
14: Stamford, CT
15: Portsmouth, NH
17: Aurora, CO
18: Chicago
19: Washington, DC
20-29: Portsmouth, NH
34-39: Charleston
40-42: New Orleans, LA
45: Portsmouth, NH
50: Los Angeles, CA
51: Miami
53: Seattle
54: Minneapolis
55: Dallas
56: Detroit
57: San Francisco
58: Philadelphia, PA
61-64: Tucson
65: Hot Springs, AR
67: San Juan, PR
68: Portsmouth, NH
69: Portsmouth, NH
71: US embassies/consulates abroad (possibly Portsmouth, NH)
74: Atlanta
75: St Albans, VT
76: San Diego, CA
77: Buffalo, NY
78: El Paso, TX
79: Houston, TX
80: Special Issuance Agency ("Issues diplomatic, official, service, and no-fee regular passports, and facilitates visa processing for those traveling on behalf of the U.S. government.")
95: Online

A list of agencies and their locator numbers is listed on this page under the heading, "List of passport agencies and centers with locator numbers."

H/T Nayef, txviking, and various individual posts both here and on Reddit. If you have a locator not in the above list, check the return address agency name or postmark/ZIP on your returned citizenship docs, or passport card if you applied for one, which may be the processing office, although the address itself is likely to be a PO Box in Sterling, VA in all cases (which appears to be a lockbox location that processes mail for all locations). The passport books are printed in fewer locations, often Hot Springs and Tucson, and may not correspond to the agency where the processing steps occurred. If it doesnt match the list above, please add or correct.
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Current US passport wait? (Merged Threads)

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Old Sep 3, 2021 | 12:30 pm
  #1591  
 
Join Date: Nov 2007
Posts: 26
I hope I don't get smacked for a topic drift, but is there a post with office locations based on locator number? Trying to locate 53. Search feature is not playing nice.
Here is what we got, regular processing submitted August 2nd to Philly Office. Checks cashed and processing August 23rd.

Twindad: 42 (New Orleans! The Big Easy! Have some gumbo)
Twinmom: 68 (New Hampshire. Hey! She wants granite countertops, perfect)
Twin1: 53 (cant find this one. Secret government research facility on twins?)
Twin2: 53 (well they are together, as usual. But where?)

I cant find any threads that tell me where 53 is.

We have a family competition on whose will get back first. We are not traveling till late December so pretty sure it will be by then, but a week of dog poop scooping is on the line for the last returned.
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Old Sep 3, 2021 | 12:33 pm
  #1592  
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Old Sep 3, 2021 | 12:55 pm
  #1593  
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Originally Posted by zephyr17
No need to get excited.
d'oh! :-) Thanks. I'm good, thankfully both of ours came.

Our passport cards arrived yesterday 9/2, a couple days after the passports. Now just need our old passports back and we'll be all set.
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Old Sep 3, 2021 | 3:23 pm
  #1594  
 
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Originally Posted by Nayef

Thanks! 53 is Seattle, about an hour away from us. The twins might win this one!
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Old Sep 6, 2021 | 12:37 am
  #1595  
 
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2 Passport renewal routine service ( New York )
1 minor passport routine service done at post office

*My Renewal /Routine Service
Mailed in : August 12th
Delivered as per Usps tracking: August 16th
In process: August 27th
Locator #: 14 ( first 2 digit )
Approved : ???
Shipped : September 3rd
Estimated delivery: September 7th ( Usps tracking #)

I really didnt expect routine service to be less than a month !

* My mom Renewal / Routine service
Mailed in : August 12th
Delivered as per Usps tracking: August 16th
In process: August 27th
Locator #: 14 ( first 2 digit )
Approved : September 3rd 2021
Shipped : not yet ( says printing)
Estimated delivery: September 11th 2021

* My son passport was done at the post office same day ( August 12th) .

*My son ( minor)
Post office application
Delivered : dont know
In process: August 26th
Locator #: 34 ( first 2 digit )
Approved :
Shipped :
Estimated delivery:
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Old Sep 7, 2021 | 9:23 am
  #1596  
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Reporting my experience making an urgent in-person passport appointment in San Francisco (for which you have to call within two weeks), with international travel on Sept 17. Had to call four times before the system was willing to put me into the queue to speak to someone. After 50 minutes on hold, I got an agent who offered me appointment slots on the 15th or 16th. I was skeptical there would actually be an appointment available, but there was!
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Old Sep 7, 2021 | 11:55 am
  #1597  
 
Join Date: Sep 2021
Posts: 2
Wow, you are so lucky. I submitted my passport application (expedited) on 8/17, it shows as in process since 8/24. My work meeting has been moved up to 10/3, so I contacted my congressman on 9/1. Since then, no update...
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Old Sep 8, 2021 | 5:44 pm
  #1598  
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Originally Posted by Moderator2
I'm not completely clear on your reference to "1-2 day return". That seems to me as if you are intended that the State Department ship it back to you Express. Two weeks ago I went into the local USPS to mail out of my wife's passport renewal, and the branch clerk charged me $7.95 to Priority envelope it to the Passport office PO Box, which I charged to a debit card. I enclosed a check to the State Department for a total of $187.56 ($110 for the renewal, $60 for expedited handling, $17.56 for Express mail return). From your photo, there did not appear to be a $7.95 charge for outgoing Priority, which would included the 18 digit tracking number.
My wife's passport arrived today via Priority Mail, one day short of five weeks. The USPS envelope had a Portsmouth, NH return address. When I enter the tracking number in the post office's system, the earliest date benchmark is yesterday, which was a sorting facility about six miles from my local post office. Nonetheless, no complaints about the processing time, which from reviewing the last month's posts in this thread seems to be about the mean for those who used expedited service and round-trip Priority Mail.
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Old Sep 9, 2021 | 10:57 am
  #1599  
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It's possible that an urgent trip might be coming up for me. If I do elect to contact my rep and senators, which info should include initially aside from travel date, name, DOB and locator number? Don't know if I'll be comfortable including my SSN in an email unless they contact me and I give it to them verbally, or if it'll be needed at all.
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Old Sep 9, 2021 | 11:22 am
  #1600  
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Originally Posted by Nayef
It's possible that an urgent trip might be coming up for me. If I do elect to contact my rep and senators, which info should include initially aside from travel date, name, DOB and locator number? Don't know if I'll be comfortable including my SSN in an email unless they contact me and I give it to them verbally, or if it'll be needed at all.
The assistance forms I’ve seen over the years do include a field for SSN, but I also know that they have assisted Americans with passport facilitation even when the US passport applicants don’t/didn’t have an SSN or left the SSN field blank.

Here is a sample assistance release form: https://www.cornyn.senate.gov/sites/...orm%202021.pdf
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Last edited by GUWonder; Sep 9, 2021 at 11:32 am
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Old Sep 9, 2021 | 11:31 am
  #1601  
 
Join Date: Nov 2007
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Originally Posted by Nayef
It's possible that an urgent trip might be coming up for me. If I do elect to contact my rep and senators, which info should include initially aside from travel date, name, DOB and locator number? Don't know if I'll be comfortable including my SSN in an email unless they contact me and I give it to them verbally, or if it'll be needed at all.
My reps, who I have not contacted yet as my travel isnt till December, have a contact form on their website. Passport issues is one of the selections, it then asks you for tracking number and some other info, such as which passport office is processing it. I would imagine most senators have similar forms. It also auto-generates the privacy form that you sign and email or fax to them so they can look into your case.
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Old Sep 10, 2021 | 3:22 am
  #1602  
 
Join Date: Apr 2021
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Hmm I have the super secret 76xxx locator

they also have my email correct but havent gotten any updates that way. Last passports they sent me an email when it was in process
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Old Sep 10, 2021 | 10:00 am
  #1603  
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Originally Posted by Moderator2
My wife's passport arrived today via Priority Mail, one day short of five weeks. The USPS envelope had a Portsmouth, NH return address. When I enter the tracking number in the post office's system, the earliest date benchmark is yesterday, which was a sorting facility about six miles from my local post office. Nonetheless, no complaints about the processing time, which from reviewing the last month's posts in this thread seems to be about the mean for those who used expedited service and round-trip Priority Mail.
Just under 5 weeks for me also door to door, using the method you describe. Passport arrived yesterday.
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Old Sep 11, 2021 | 8:10 pm
  #1604  
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About 4 1/2 weeks door to door for passport renewal. I paid for expedited service and 1-2 day delivery.
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Old Sep 11, 2021 | 8:41 pm
  #1605  
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Originally Posted by duluthDL
About 4 1/2 weeks door to door for passport renewal. I paid for expedited service and 1-2 day delivery.
Congrats. What are the first two numbers of your locator number btw?
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