Getting a passport renewed quickly

woodstock

woodstock

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Given that it's Xmas-time, and, given that I have another Yurpean trip coming up in exactly one month from today, what are the odds I'll get my passport renewed (not merely new pages, but renewed) in under 4 weeks?

It's been 8.5 years since the last time, not sure how much things have changed...

Gracias.
 
Kelvin's right. Expedited service. I used expedited on my last renewal - 10 days post office to door. I used expedited shipping, too. Yes, it costs mor, but better than the risk of not getting it in time.
 
There are companies that will do it for you in about 48 hrs. We had to do that for a guy at work one time for a short notice trip. It costs $$$, but someone physically hand-carries it through the system and then FedEx's it back the next day. That was pre-9/11, so I don't know if that is still available. Otherwise, the expedited service is probably good enough.
 
I don't know if I would count on it, but I renewed mine this summer. Didn't expedite it or anything, I just renewed it. It came back in a little over two weeks.
 
If you are in a city with a passport office you can go in and have it done the same day as long as you show a travel itinerary with an upcoming trip, or a letter from your employer saying it is needed for your job.
 
Everskyward said:
If you are in a city with a passport office you can go in and have it done the same day as long as you show a travel itinerary with an upcoming trip, or a letter from your employer saying it is needed for your job.
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Mari,

They've tightened that up a lot in the last few years. Nowadays the travel needs to be within 2 weeks (I got my first passport years ago at the Washington DC office on a walk-in basis). Yes, there are ways to game the system, but....

You should make an appointment to be seen at a Regional Passport Agency only if:

The U.S. passport is needed in less than 2 weeks for international travel
The U.S. passport is needed within 4 weeks to obtain a foreign visa
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DoS/Passport Services is reporting a 2-3 week time, door-to-door for expedited processing, and 4-6 weeks for regular processing: http://travel.state.gov/passport/processing/processing_1740.html My experience is that those timelines are pretty good.

Beth: a suggestion: ask for additional passport pages when you renew. There's no cost for the larger book, but there is a cost if you add pages later.
 
Everskyward said:
If you are in a city with a passport office you can go in and have it done the same day as long as you show a travel itinerary with an upcoming trip, or a letter from your employer saying it is needed for your job.
Click to expand...

This is what my wife and I did. It worked great, and was relatively painless. Although it was harder to convince them I was flying myself up to Canada - apparently having your own airplane means you don't need to travel as badly as if you buy a plane ticket. Either way, we walked out of there that same day with new passports.
 
If you did it 8.5 years ago, then when did it expire? Should have been good for 10 years unless it was a special issuance or something...

Brian
 
flight2000 said:
If you did it 8.5 years ago, then when did it expire? Should have been good for 10 years unless it was a special issuance or something...

Brian
Click to expand...

It's completely full.

Thanks everyone for the suggestions. Ten days sounds great.
 
wsuffa said:
Mari,

They've tightened that up a lot in the last few years. Nowadays the travel needs to be within 2 weeks (I got my first passport years ago at the Washington DC office on a walk-in basis). Yes, there are ways to game the system, but....



DoS/Passport Services is reporting a 2-3 week time, door-to-door for expedited processing, and 4-6 weeks for regular processing: http://travel.state.gov/passport/processing/processing_1740.html My experience is that those timelines are pretty good.

Beth: a suggestion: ask for additional passport pages when you renew. There's no cost for the larger book, but there is a cost if you add pages later.
Click to expand...
What Bill said.

Also I have heard, but yet to confirm, that you cannot renew until your passport has less than 12 months of validity to it. With 8.5 years you might be right at the hairy edge and might be forced into the new page route.

I just did new pages on mine and it was pretty quick.
 
ScottM said:
What Bill said.

Also I have heard, but yet to confirm, that you cannot renew until your passport has less than 12 months of validity to it. With 8.5 years you might be right at the hairy edge and might be forced into the new page route.

I just did new pages on mine and it was pretty quick.
Click to expand...

Crap.

Being OCD, I want a FULL passport. Once I add pages it won't be full anymore. Pout.
 
add new pages
fill up some pages
passport expires
tear out blank pages
OCD satisfied

:)
 
wsuffa said:
Beth: a suggestion: ask for additional passport pages when you renew. There's no cost for the larger book, but there is a cost if you add pages later.
Click to expand...

+1. I had to have pages added to mine after 3 years. It expires in September of next year, so I'll be getting a new one this spring. I'll start out with the fat one this time. With luck this next one will expire after I retire.
 
Got mine back today...7 days door to door...I paid the post office to expedite.
 
ScottM said:
Also I have heard, but yet to confirm, that you cannot renew until your passport has less than 12 months of validity to it. With 8.5 years you might be right at the hairy edge and might be forced into the new page route.
Click to expand...

Where did you hear that? I've heard from a number of folks that have renewed their PP instead of having new pages added because the the cost of a full renewal is only slightly more than the cost of pages. The PP office fees drive that.

I renewed mine just before the new fees kicked in - mine had 2 years left on it.

One can call the PP help line to confirm, but I have heard nothing at all about renewal only in the last 12 months - quite to the contrary.

BTW, the PP agency is one of the best and most responsive USG entities that I've dealt with.
 
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ScottM said:
The immigration officer who interviewed me for my Global Entry pass and the corporate travel office at my company has said this. But as I mentioned in my first post, I have not verified it myself.
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Interesting. Nothing like that came up at my Global Entry interview, and I did renew mine at 2 years from expiration. The GE folks, though, are CBP, not State, so I'd be surprised if they know the intracacies of passport processing.

Noted that if your passport is lost or stolen, you get a new one with 10 year validity (which the "system gamers" would use to get around any restriction that exists).

The only thing the PP website states is that they "recommend" you renew by about 9 months from expiration.

Probably worth an email to them directly - NPIC@state.gov
 
My daughter's was expired, and she sent it in on December 7th. It was not expedited. She got the new one last week sometime.
 
Hello everyone

Thanks for the help. After all that, given that it was Xmas, I decided to use an expediting service. My trip to Madrid is next week and I didn't want to chance it.

I dropped it off with the expeditor on December 23 (hand carried it in) and the passport office was only open Dec 27 and 28 that entire week (two days). They walked it in on Tuesday last week and they told me they expect to fedex it out tonight to me. IE barely three days turnaround (yesterday they were also closed).

Madrid here I come!
 
Glad it all worked out! Looking forward to your pictures!
 
I know it is fun to rag on the feds and how screwed up they are. Many times they deserve it, but today I was bowled over with efficiency from the feds.

As many of you know I travel internationally, A LOT!

My passport was about to expire in early 2014. Many countries require you to enter with a passport that has six month of valid time left on it. That pretty much means that one's passport really expires six months before the date that states it expires.

I just got back from Austria and have almost 6 weeks without international travel and then I hit the road in May with what will be three months of constant international travel. So I figured renew it now.

I went to the passport site, filled out the renewal form last Monday morning. Printed the form, got my photos, attached them to the form and dropped off the application at the USPS for Express Mail service. I had also request expedited renewal from the Passport Agency. The web site stated the current expedited wait times were 2-3 weeks. I was also worried the sequester could slow things down.

But today, 7 days after I sent the renewal in, I got my new passport in the mail. HOLY CRAP! That was fast. The only time I ever got a passport faster was when I walked into the US Embassy in London and did the renewal there. That took 5 hours.

I did not yet get my passport card, they said that can take longer and will come in a separate envelope along with my old passport.

Got to hand it to them, that was wicked fast!
 
We got ours back in around ten days, without expedited processing. YMMV, but the Passport Agency has always been pretty efficient in my experience.
 
Scott, that comports with my experience a couple of years ago: under promise and over deliver. My only gripe was that they ignored the request for additional pages. I will get them added, but it is extra work (and global entry has cut the number of stamps a lot.)

Now, have you scanned the RF ID chip to actually see the info? Easy with a NFC phone...

Sent from my DROID RAZR using Tapatalk 2
 
The passport office is actually quite good. They consider themselves a customer service organization. Most certainly not to be confused with CBP. They are currently beating the advertised times by about 50%.

The expedite fee covers the time the Passport center and the book production facility are working it and it does matter, although the routine process is also quite efficient these days. You also have the option of express mailing it in and can include an express mail envelope to get it back saving more days. The other advantage of the expedited fee is it is tracked specifically and you can track it pretty easily.

The expeditors (especially around DC) are more for convenience than speed although I highly recommend them if you also need visas. Getting visas can be real complicated if they are required where you are going.
 
wsuffa said:
Now, have you scanned the RF ID chip to actually see the info? Easy with a NFC phone...

Sent from my DROID RAZR using Tapatalk 2
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I have, just for amusement. The app I tried won't show you the actual info, but you can see the chip number or something. The RFID chip in my 10yr passport has quit working apparently, but it picked up the one in the 2 yr.
 
Speed said:
I have, just for amusement. The app I tried won't show you the actual info, but you can see the chip number or something. The RFID chip in my 10yr passport has quit working apparently, but it picked up the one in the 2 yr.
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The app I have shows the whole enchilada. Including the photo of me that's imbedded in the chip.... IIRC, to get all the data you have to input either the PP number and expiration as the access key.... (TagInfo app). It also showed all the data on my stored value SUICA/transit card.
 
wsuffa said:
The app I have shows the whole enchilada. Including the photo of me that's imbedded in the chip.... IIRC, to get all the data you have to input either the PP number and expiration as the access key.... (TagInfo app). It also showed all the data on my stored value SUICA/transit card.
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You are correct! Interesting, kinda...
 
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jbarrass said:
You also have the option of express mailing it in and can include an express mail envelope to get it back saving more days.
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You can't just include an express mail envelope - They don't want you to include any envelope, but you can get overnight shipping for the return trip for an additional $12.85, which is cheaper than the express mail envelope I sent my renewal application in.
 
You people all suck. The only reason my passport isn't gathering dust is because it sits in a drawer.
 
steingar said:
You people all suck. The only reason my passport isn't gathering dust is because it sits in a drawer.
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There are two possible cures for that....

Sent from my DROID RAZR using Tapatalk 2
 
steingar said:
You people all suck. The only reason my passport isn't gathering dust is because it sits in a drawer.
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Sorry about that. Some of us just travel too much for work. Oh, and I'm writing this from Sydney during a break in a standards meeting.
 
wsuffa said:
(and global entry has cut the number of stamps a lot.)
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You must be an East Coaster/Trans-Atlantic type. I noticed those immigration folks stamp you at US entry, but not the West Coasters/Trans-Pacific types (or at least LAX).

--Carlos V.
 
steingar said:
You people all suck. The only reason my passport isn't gathering dust is because it sits in a drawer.
Click to expand...
I have had two trips to Europe this year thus far Vienna was very nice and Geneva was sort of nice, it is a company town and I had to work over the weekend. But the views of the alps were nice. I love that I have seen and travelled a lot. But I am honestly tired of it. Last year I hit my 100,000 death tube miles by the middle of the year. I have almost 3million miles on AA alone. I would like to have sometime at home. I spend at least two weekends a month on the road, it gets old.
 
Unbeliever said:
You must be an East Coaster/Trans-Atlantic type. I noticed those immigration folks stamp you at US entry, but not the West Coasters/Trans-Pacific types (or at least LAX).

--Carlos V.
Click to expand...

I've had it stamped at all the east coast POEs, as well as IAH, ORD, and PDX. I think there is some rule that says it's not necessary (can't "admit" a US citizen, we have admission by right), but plenty of places do. Global Entry does away with that... and makes the process much better. Gives you access to TSA Pre, too, which is immensily better than the cattle chutes.

ScottM said:
I have had two trips to Europe this year thus far Vienna was very nice and Geneva was sort of nice, it is a company town and I had to work over the weekend. But the views of the alps were nice. I love that I have seen and travelled a lot. But I am honestly tired of it. Last year I hit my 100,000 death tube miles by the middle of the year. I have almost 3million miles on AA alone. I would like to have sometime at home. I spend at least two weekends a month on the road, it gets old.
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Ya. My biz travel cut back middle of last year, I can't tell you how nice it was to 1) travel just for pleasure, and 2) stay home a lot more.
 
wsuffa said:
The app I have shows the whole enchilada. Including the photo of me that's imbedded in the chip.... IIRC, to get all the data you have to input either the PP number and expiration as the access key.... (TagInfo app). It also showed all the data on my stored value SUICA/transit card.
Click to expand...
Which app is that?

I don't have and NFC phone but my coworkers do.
 
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