I'm sorry to hear this but I'm also confused, as on the passport application website I thought it specifically says to allow eight weeks or longer unless you expedite.

As another poster mentioned, it's possible to get one in two days but you must have an appointment at your regional office (sometimes a few hours away) to do it. They Fed-Ex it back to you. This being mid-day Wednesday I don't know that this is still an option for you.

Get your husband to call about the passport as noted while you make another call to push your flight back.

OMG! I could feel my blood pressure rising as I read this! Good luck, I hope they come in time. Maybe you can ask your Post Office (if it isn't a giant one) to hold the passport and call you when it arrives?

I trusted what the agent at the post office told me, so we didn't pay to have them expedited. You tend to trust the person who deals with this on a daily basis. But I learned my lesson.
Also when you call their 877 # you get different agents on the line with different answers. My passport they had received the information to expedited last week and my husbands yesterday morning even though the request was done at the same time. My husbands was done in a day and overnighted, mine is still sitting there. According to them I didn't authorize to be charged for an overnight delivery. OMG! I'm calling all day to have this done a few days away from our vacation and I am going to mind paying another what? $ 25 or $30. They actually had the nerves to charge us the $60 for a passport that according to their records should had gotten to us by today.
The supervisor from the post office where I apply for the passport called me and I told her what had happened of course, I was not upset I just told her what we were going through because of the information given to us and she was surprised. Was very helpful and said to call our local office by friday morning becaue if it's sent today Priority Mail then they could have it by Friday morning. She looked the # up so I know which branch to call. Then called me back to tell me that if they still had my passport then they should be able to still overnight it. I am on hold yet again, to see if I can get a helpful person this time to try to overnight it.
I'm at a point where if we don't get mine on time then we are going to have to pay whatever needs to be paid in order to still go. It is our anniversary and I won't let people who do not enjoy their jobs and do not have the heart to understand what we are going through ruin our special time.
Nicky

Let us know how it goes. Hope everything works out well. Have a great anniversary.

Hope you made your flight...make sure to let us know how it all went when you get back (assuming you've left)

Sure hope you got your passports in time and made it on your trip. Too late for this situation, but in the future, you can get an appointment with your local passport agency to go in in person if you are traveling within 2 weeks. Get an appointment, get in there, take your travel info as proof of travel, and get it sorted out in person next time.

If you can't get to the passport office yourself, use a service that does it quickly.

nicky26 hasn't posted back so hopefully they have their passports and are on their way. Maybe she'll let us know on her return.

Well, that's not the case. My husbands came via FedEx yesterday and we were hoping and praying and hoping that mine came this morning but it didn't. I even had the people at the Post Office searching all over for it but it never made it.
Since we were not guaranteed that we would get it by tomorrow then we just opted to go skiing instead. Not Rome, or Paris for sure but had no choice. It had to be somewhere where I didn't need my passport.
We still have our plane tickets to use within a year so next trip we are gonna try our best to go to Europe. We'll definetly have our passports by then.
It was so heart breaking not to get it on time.
It would have coust through USAirways over $1700 to change dates. And checking everywhere else it would have cost over 1300 per ticket to go. And since we weren't sure when it would finally get here, then we had no choice than to go with plan B. Hey! it's not bad, we've never been skiing before. And for a change we'll actually know what winter feels like. We live in Florida after all, today was in the 70's. Tomorrow there is going to be in the 30's during the day, it's suppose to snow while we are there and a few nights in the minus.

It was so nice to log in and see that you guys were still keeping an eye out to see if we had made it. Thank you again for that.

We will be going to Europe, just not this time. Hey at least my husband doesn't have to go to work, and we get to spend time together. Again, it is our anniversary and we are going to enjoy it no matter where(I have to be positive at this point)
Nicky

Good attitude, Nicky~ You've made the best of a bad situation,,,and you do have your European trip to look forward to (just at another time).

I think the passport office is really bogged down lately with the Jan. 23, this coming week, deadline for passports required to go to Canada, Mexico AND the Caribbean.
YOUR passports should have been taken care of.......but I know you'll have a great time on the ski trip.
Again...what a great attitude you have!

Nicky, I'm so sorry, and I admire you for that positive attitude.

Bureaucracy is as sticky as flypaper, as you found out the hard way.

I am afraid your PO man forgot to allow for statutory holidays when he made that blithe reassurance - and statutory holidays applied during your application period. In the period Dec 7 through Jan 19, you had only 29 working days - and six weeks (period given on US site - I assume you're American) requires 30 working days, plus any mailing time. For 'busy times' the allowance stipulated is 8 weeks and one would thus need 40 working days plus mailing time.

I'm afraid your PO man also forgot to account for the looming January 23 deadline for which entry into the US by air (including for US citizens) from Canada, etc., will require a passport. (Entry by land or sea still has a year's grace.) This new regulation is causing havoc in passport offices on both sides of the border. Over the last couple of weeks, Canadian news shows have reported people standing in the corridors outside the passport offices for hours.

Again, I'm so sorry. You have probably helped other people avoid the same mess, by telling your story.

Note to those reading: be sure your supporting documents are in order. This time last year we thought we had plenty of time to get passports - then found out spouse needed a reissue of Quebec birth certificate, as Quebec BCs issued prior to 1994 are no longer acceptable. This new wrinkle added several weeks to the whole project of renewing our passports.

Nicky, so sorry to hear about all your troubles. But I'm hoping you are/did enjoy your Plan B vacation.

I was just thinking of posting a question re passport last night. I'm dropping off my husband's renewal to the post office this week. Our trip is on last week of April. I think I have a comfortable amount of time to get the passport BUT I was wondering how many people are applying for passports with the new law affecting entry from Mexico and Canada, and therefore if the State Department is meeting its 6-8 weeks time frame.

I applied for my daughter's first passport Dec 7 and we received it Jan 15th. The website and the written form we received when we applied both stated a time frame of 6-8 weeks to receive a new passport.

She's a minor and there were extenuating circumstances that prevented us from being able to get her father's signed consent. I was worried it would take a lot of extra time, and it seems to have gone to the State Dept for processing but we did receive it in a timely manner.

We had to go to San Francisco to get a new copy of her birth certificate. Seems the "short form" certified copies they were giving out 13 years ago aren't acceptable anymore. Apparently somebody stole a bunch of the special paper and has been printing fake ones. It would have taken 30 days to get it by mail so I just drove the 8 hours to pick it up personally. Really stupid. They should have been giving out the real copies all along.

I'm sure they are very busy right now; allow 3 months if possible to get your passport. Double check your supporting documents. Getting copies of that stuff took even longer than the passport.

It's unfortunate you received so much bad information initially and then repeatedly during this saga. Write a letter of complaint; some additional training is obviously required for a few people.

I'm glad you decided on a fun snow holiday. I hope you had a great time.

I'm sorry, Nicky, I hope you have a wonderful time skiing and you have the trip to Europe to look forward to later in the year. Thanks for letting us know. Joan

Hey Nicky! ((R)) Have a great time and enjoy your anniversary! Europe isn't going anywhere and you'll be there before you know it! :)>-

Good atitude, Nicky.

Have a great trip now, and another great one in Europe.

((I))

while it is very unfortunate about your trip getting post-poned, I will have to agree with others on what the time frame states. In fact, with the Jan. deadline fast approaching, you should've figured that would add additional time to the original 6-8 weeks. After all, it's been in the news for sometime. In addition, while the PO employee should'nt have make you lean toward not expediting your passports, you should know that they are not passport agents. They are just an interim person accepting the applications on behalf of the passport agency. I doubt they have much training and certainly aren't updated regularly with news from the passport agency. It does bite that the passport agency didn't offer much assistance either; but that can be said for any number of agencies or businesses these days. My suggestion to anyone is to just make sure you have double the amount of time that is required, then you should be pretty safe.

Not trying to add fuel to the fire, just being realistic.

Hey, who needs Paris when you can cuddle by the fireplace in a ski lodge on your anniversary! Just don't forget the cheese, wine, bread, strawberries, cream, and a French CD when your by that fireplace.

Namaka summed up the situation very well. At least once weekly clients of ours need to renew their US passports since Russia requires that the traveler's passport be effective for at least six months after the end of the Russian visa. We ALWAYS recommend at least expedited service (clients who don't do this have waited anywhere from 2 weeks to 9 weeks for their passports).

For those who need their passports renewed faster, we always recommend going to an expediter (we subcontract this) in the interest of time.

The US Department of State has good coverage of these issues at

www.Travel.State.gov

I join others in thanking Nicky for being so open about the problems that she experienced as hers is a model cautionary tale for the current situation with passport renewal. Through no fault of her own, she got caught up in the crunch that is going on because of changed regulations.

Incidentally, some destinations in the Caribbean affected by the new regulations are paying for people to get passports for their trips to particular resorts.

Sorry about your bad luck. But that person in the Post Office should have never been giving advice about something they clearly have no clue. They don't work for the Stated Dept. so they should not be dispensing "advice" about what's not their area.
You dealt with it with a lot of calm and poise. I would have been like a lunatic !

Have a great time wherever you go!

Hi Everyone

I feel Nicky's pain. To make a long story short, I had a similar situation this week and it was the most frustrating situation i have ever been in. I had sent in my passport in early Jan for a name change/renewal and was assured it would be completed by the end of Feb since I would traveling the 2nd week in March. The person I spoke to was reassuring me up and down that everything would be taken care of and that there was no need to expedite my renewal. Of course this didn't happen and I AM still waiting for my passport and will be leaving in less than 1 week. I still need to apply for a visa which will give me even less time before my departure date.

Here's the kicker: I called last week to expedite my renewal since the status online said i would getting my passport the last week in March, which is when i would be returning from my trip. The rep on the phone was really accomodating and told me i would have to pay a processing fee to expedite my request (which i did). He then gave me a tracking number (it was sent Postal express) and ASSURED me that my passport would arrive by on Saturday (3/3) and the latest Monday (3/5). I tried tracking the package online (USPS.com) and the package didn't exist. So i called on Monday and today 20x each day since its always BUSY because of high call volume. When i finally got a hold of a rep, they said that it was sent out Friday by Fedex AND US Postal with 2 different tracking numbers. I screamed "WHAT"??? The rep "John" than assured me that it was definitely sent by USPS but probably never scanned and he didn't know what the FedEx number was about and couldn't really help me further.

After doing some further research, the Fedex tracking # "John" gave me was also incorrect. So i called 1-877-487-2778)again to see what the deal was. This time, the rep who answered the phoen seemed really non-chalant and said that "it is not the responsiblity or accountability of the agency" to get my passport to me. WHAT???? This was turning out to become a complete nightmare. I explained that basically my passport was out there in LIMBO with 2 tracking numbers that were completely useless since no one knew where this package was. The rep kept saying, "i don't know what to tell you."

These people are absolutely ridiculous not to mention inept. NEVER will i go through a renewal by mail again with these people. It is so upsetting to know that they don't care.

After a few more calls to try to get a rep that could've helped, my husband finally called our congresman to see if they can locate my passport.

But all is not LOST: After being persistent for the last couple of days, i refused to let these inept jerks get the best of me and wanted to resolve this with a reasonable answer and not just get the run-around. I finally called FEDEX and USPS to see if they can locate the package by my last name and address and wouldn't you know it, it turned out that FEDEX had it and couldn't deliver it because the passport agency gave them the wrong ADDRESS and gave me the wrong tracking number! So tonite, I will be picking up the package at Fedex to end this nightmare.

I know this is a long posting, but i just needed to vent to show how disappointing and inept these folks are!