From everything that I have read getting an appointment is nearly impossible.

Very limited numbers, and those that are out there are being grabbed in bulk and being sold for hundreds of dollars per appointment. Which is disgusting.

Yes. A friend did so last week, and got the passport the following day. The strategy was to check the appointments website every hour, 24 hours a day, until a cancellation popped up. Takes a bit of effort but it's do-able.

There is an up post, s/he saw a non-appointment line at passport office. If you do not live far away from a passport office, you may wish to give it a try. Be there before that office opens.

I don't think the appointment system will allow you to just make a non-urgent (outside of 72hrs prior to travel) appointment, as you need to indicate your date of travel. Mind you, I never saw an open appointment in all my refreshing of the appointment system - but it was my impression that I the only available appointments to me (if there were to be any) would be for 72hrs prior to travel. This was somewhat confirmed when I got the appointment from my congressperson - my appointment was for a Wednesday morning and we departed on Saturday.

This is true, seems that you need to be very lucky to snatch an open appointment. But grabbed "in bulk" - whaaat? Where have you heard/seen this??

May have been my post - can't remember if I mentioned that here or over on the huge Reddit thread. At any rate, yes it appeared that at the Miami office there was a separate room/line for folks who didn't have an appointment - as when I got off the elevator, the first question from the security guard was "Do you have an appointment?" Since I did, I was allowed into the next room, but there was a line of folks formed in a separate area that I'm assuming were folks without an appointment. Good luck!

There is a gray market to buy passport agency/center appointments from individuals who have freely booked up some appointment spots and are trying to profit on demand for appointments by selling or even reselling appointment slots.

The State Department isn’t happy about this, but it is what it is and people are still doing this unless and until the government figures out what to do with this situation.

Some passport centers/agencies are somewhat easier to land an appointment for free than most others, but then there is the issue on how to get the applicant/application there.

“I mean, there are people that are going in there and taking three and four appointments and then trading them or selling them or giving them to other people,” said Stovall.

In a statement to NBC 5, The U.S. Department of State wrote,

"We are aware of these issues and are working to prevent them. The Department of State does not charge a fee solely for booking an emergency appointment at one of our agencies or centers. Any request of payment for scheduling a U.S. passport appointment should be considered fraudulent. Further, the department is not affiliated with any third-party appointment booking services, and we have seen numerous instances of falsified appointment bookings through these vendors. We may not be able to honor appointments booked via third parties."

https://www.nbcdfw.com/news/nbc-5-re...-dept/2683574/

I found that I misplaced my passport in June so filled out the form for lost passport, made an appointment at my post office on June 15, applied on that day and sent the passport card back along with two checks for the passport and expedited.

Starting to get a little anxious, though still am pretty hopeful that our trip will go forward.

We have a tour of Greece planned with our air flights leaving on August 12. We just passed the 30 day window to cancel and get a full credit of over $4,000 for each of the two of us.

The trip is three weeks from this coming Thursday. Applied June 15. It was put into processing very quickly:

Application Status: In Process

The U.S. Department of State has received your application for your passport book and card on 06/18/2021. We're now reviewing your application and supporting documents.

You requested expedited service when you applied, which we are currently processing within 6 weeks. Our processing times do not include mailing times, which could add 6 weeks to the door-to-door time.

Your application locator number is XXXXXXX.

Contacted my representative and his staff is working on it. The contact person has been great. Apparently he had to contact them three times as they sent a form letter saying that I had opted for regular processing instead of expedited. The website always showed expedited and I had sent copies of that along with my airplane tickets showing the needed date to the representative.

I had not paid for overnight but two days ago contacted them and filled out the form requesting that they charge me the $18 and overnight.

Six weeks that they say they are processing by will be the 30th of this month. So like I said I feel somewhat optimistic, but will be anxious until the passport is in my hands. Just seeing it go from processing to approved would be wonderful. I check several times a day.

Thank You, we did pay for tracking.

We applied on 4/22, didn't get to processing until 6/8...still waiting and we travel this Saturday.....

I applied April 22nd.....Still no passports and we are supposed to Travel 7/24.

Did you expedite? If not you could have called and upgraded to expedite.

The only chance that you have at this point is to call your congressperson and see if they can secure you a last minute meeting to get a passport within three days of travel.

Hi everyone, thought I'd share my experience renewing my passport to help alleviate some anxiety.

- Application sent out 6/18 to the Pennsylvania facility from Kendall County, IL. Photo taken and application was looked over by a post office worker. Requested expedited service.
- Arrived 6/22, check cashed and went into processing 6/23
- Passport received 7/19, from the processing facility in Arkansas (apparently this facility gets passports processed really fast)

A few things to note:

- According to the official status page, my application is still 'in process' even though I have the new one in hand.
- Just out of curiosity I wanted to see if I could get an appointment somewhere in the midwest. I was able to make an appointment (now canceled) for the Minneapolis processing location at around 6am several days in a row.
- Informed delivery lets you know approximate date passport will be delivered, some USPS locations allow you to pick up the package before its delivered.

Best of luck to everyone.

Has anyone tried going to a passport office without an appointment recently?

Which office is processing your application?

We are in the same boat; a lost passport reported and application in on 6/29, along with a trip to Greece planned for Aug 18th. It's been in process since 7/6, and we contacted congress-person last week. Good luck!