Vietnam visa & adding pages to my US passport
 

We were just about to buy tickets for a late Dec. trip to Vietnam, and I just looked at my passport. I've only got one clean page. I just e-mailed the Vietnam embassy to ask if one page will do, but I want to know if anyone here has a Vietnam visa in his/her passport. If so, is it spread out over 2 pages?

Next question. Has anyone renewed a US passport recently or added pages? From the govt. website it sounds as though getting pages added will take as long as getting a new passport. Anyone dealt with this agency recently? How long did it take to get your passport back? Do I really need to pay for expedited service? Thanks much. We've been discussing the possibility of this trip for quite some time now but hadn't acted yet. I can't believe that I never even thought to look at my passport until now.

A Vietnamese Visa takes a single page. It is a stick on Visa, so it shouldn't spread over two pages.

Can't help you with the US Passport questions, but I thought adding pages to a Passport was a thing of the past.

Thanks for the quick reply Tangata! I'm feeling a bit relieved. I don't think adding pages is a thing of the past since the US govt website has a special section on this and also on how to apply for a passport that has more pages than are typically issued.

I mailed mine in for extra pages, and got it back about a week and a half later (regular, not expedited service)!

Greetings from HCMC. The VN visa, as stated above, takes up one entire page. I got the visa by express-mailing with the VN embassy in D.C. I dropped it off at the P.O. in California on Friday, it was scanned in as signed at the embassy on Labor Day (Monday) and I got the pp back that Saturday.

I got pages added to my US pp by going to the pp agency in D.C. Dropped it off on Monday and picked it up on Wed. or Thu (this was the week before Christmas 2004). Had to pay $50 or so to expedite it (versus free if you go the normal route). Don't know what I would do in your case if you are not close to a pp agency office that can add the pages. Get the full 48 extra pages, or however many you can get.

The visa will take one page. The entry and exit stamps takes half of another page. I get extra pages put in at the embassy in Bangkok. It's the one and only thing you can get from them for free, and takes 10 minutes. By the time my passport expires, I reckon it will be at least half an inch thick.

Yes, I was also going to recommend that the poster try to get pages added in a US embassy outside the US, as you can do this for free and usually in less than an hour. But first, with regard to the pages that are “used” in your passport, remember that just because there is one stamp on a page, this does not mean that you can’t have other stamps added to the same page, this is done all the time (you should see mine), and immigration officials don’t have any problem adding a 2006 entry stamp for Vietnam to a 1998 entry stamp for the Czech Republic.

However, if every single page is really so full that new stamps can’t be added, and you have NO blank pages at all then you should have pages added, as the immigration people in Vietnam and elsewhere will not want to stamp over the Vietnam visa itself; as in my experience no one uses that page after a whole-page visa has been added.

If by “one clean page” you mean that there is still a blank page on the REVERSE side, then you are probably OK, and you can have pages added to it at the US consulate in HCM go to http://hochiminh.usconsulate.gov/, or the embassy in Hanoi, go to http://hanoi.usembassy.gov/. On either, click on “US Citizens Services”. You sometimes have to make an appointment (like in Hong Kong), so do check the website.

It’s also very easy and very quick to get a new passport at the US embassy, so if you are ever abroad and your passport is getting old, consider applying for a new one if you will be in a city with a US embassy or consulate for 2-3 days, that is usually all it takes.

No appointment necessary at the Consulate in HCMC. Just walk right in. My friend applied for a new passport in HCMC earlier this year. It took 2 weeks since the passport came from the USA.

Hmm, I applied for a new passport here in Hong Kong about 6 months ago and it took 36 hours. Not expedited, no special fees paid. Can't explain the 2 weeks it took in Vietnam. It also says "issued by the US passport center" for place of issuance, although I suspect it wasn't physically printed or made in the US.

We are getting a new passport next month for my 9 year old daughter. The consulate in Osaka has told me that now the passports are actually made in the US and we will have to wait at least 2 weeks for it to arrive. Last time we got new passports it took only a few days...and we could use the mail. Now we have to physically present our daughter to the consul in Osaka...but adults can still use the mail service for renewal. I was told this was for security purposes....though what kind of security requires only children to apply in person escapes me.

Hate to say it, but I think it is kidnapping and child abduction that requires you to present the child. As for the new rules, I was told when I got my new passport that it was one of the new US-issued ones since the rule change which was imposed some time ago, so I can't explain the 36 hours. May be different for different embassies.

My friend applied for his passport in July. It was physically printed in the USA.

The rule is that if you've lost your passport, the embassy can replace it with a temporary document within a day or two. Otherwise, it has to come from the US and takes two weeks.

lily3--when was it that it only took a week and a half for your pages to be added? Was it recently? If I really need more than 1 clean page, as much as I hate to, I'll probably end up paying for the expedited service.

I just looked again, and one page that I thought had been stamped actually just had bleed through onit from the other side, so I have one side of two different pages that are completely clean. Some pages with just 1 or 2 stamps and others that are completely full. I'll probably just end up calling the Vietnames Embassy in D.C. because of course they did not bother to read my e-mail question about whether or not a page is enough and just sent me the typical pasted in info sheet about obtaining a visa.

Kim, even in the US, you have to physically present minor children to get a passport or renew one. It was a real pain in the neck (timewise) to renew our younger daughter's passport the last time.

I'd heard the the reason is the idea that a family would submit a picture of a kid, then wait a few years and use the passport for a different person, saying "they've changed with age".

Who knows??

It is a total pain for us here in Japan. We must go to Osaka, which is not an inexpensive trip whether we drive, bus or train, from Kanazawa. Then we must be there during the assigned time, which means we either spend 8 hours in one day of travelling there and back, or spend more money for a hotel....basically, a new passport for her will cost us over $400.00 even if we don't spend a night in Osaka. And to think that there are many people who are even farther from a consulate or embassy than us, with a newborn...even more crazy.

Julies,
It was in August - so yes, recent. I mailed it in to the office in NYC (you can't take it there in person unless you want the expedited service). I read what they said on the website, so really wasn't expecting it back so soon! Since I've never done it before, I don't know if that's normal, or I was just lucky.

Just did all of these: get the new passport now, before 1 Jan 2007 when RFID chips will be embedded in ALL newly issued U.S. passports. (I've read some security concerns about data being lifted via RFID readers while you have your passport out in hotels, airports, etc. Perhaps I'm too much of a Libertarian, but I'd prefer the governments of the world have less information about me in their databases.) I used an expediting service that operates in Manchester, NH and it was superb. PassportAmerica??? I'm not sure, but it was very efficient. The Vietnam visa is one page, the Cambodian visa is one page. Because I live in the Washington, DC area I hand-delivered my passport and Visa application to each consulate/embassy. The Cambodians were very fast, using the express mail envelope I provided. They would accept personal checks for the expedited service (I had gotten a money order for the visa fee). The Vietnamese were less timely, in part because of the volume of traffic to get visas. One week, using express mail return to me, and no expediting fee.

Brina - interesting that it's taking them so long to get RFIDs in all passports. I renewed my passport LAST December for the same reason - sounds like I could have waited a while.