Passport Renewal Problem
 

I know I'm posting on the Europe forum, but that's where I do most of my traveling. I have time before I travel again, however I thought it best to get an early start on the renewal our passports. I went to the post office, filled out the application,attached pictures, and turned in the old passports with a check in the amount of $134 for the 2 renewals. I asked the post office clerk if this was correct and she said yes. Now 7 weeks later my check has not been cashed and our names are not in the government's system. A nice man at the 800 number did check for me and explained perhaps they were not able to process the 2 passports together with the one check. So here I sit with no passport and I don't know, nor does anyone seem to know where they are. I am not in panic mode yet, but I do have tickets to travel in March and certainly hope this can be resolved before then. Does anyone have any experience with renewals and sending 2 renewals in one envelope with one check?

Hi opaldog,

I don't have the answer to your question but I went through an ordeal earlier this year to get my daughter's passport renewed. The following is a very helpful forum that deals with passport issues. Maybe if you post your question there you'll get some answers. They were very helpful to me

http://whirledview.typepad.com/whirl...rts-conti.html

Good luck!

My husband and I were just talking about this the other night. My passport expires in 2009. With all the long delays in getting a new one, I thought about applying early. But I wonder if I have to give up my current passport and don't get a new one for another year, (even though it is still good thru 2009), what does one do to travel outside the country.

Thanks cruiseluv. I'm going the us representative route and I am emailing the passport center in nh. Hopefully this will get resolved.

nanabee, you have to surrender your current passport when you renew. I think you are thinking of renewing way too soon. However, that's a good question about what to do in that case.

I don't have an answer to opaldog. I do know that it took me less than 30 days to get my new passport. My old passport would have expired in late November, 2007.

I saw another post here a day or so ago saying that it took him 3 weeks to get his back. So it appears that now is a good time to renew.

However, I wouldn't send in a passport that doesn't expire until 2009. But I probably wouldn't wait until March, 2008 if my passport expired in March - especially if I was traveling in June.

How efficient the passport office will be when the busy travel season occurs again is anyone's guess.

So sorry, opaldog, about your trials. I don't think there's a backlog right now, so I would assume the check may indeed be your problem. Or perhaps there may be NO problem--there seems to be a lack of coordination about where the passports are in the system.
Let me explain.

I posted recently that my two passport renewals' turnaround time--I applied before Sept 1. 2007--was less than 3 weeks. I did check "expedite," but I expected I still would wait longer since we had no definite travel plans in the near future.

I paid for mine with money orders (paid for by a VISA) because I had forgotten my checkbook. The man at the post office said, "Whatever you do, make sure you get a money order for each and write on each of them a reference name."

However, I have no concrete information that one check or money order can't cover two passports--my youngest child couldn't "renew by mail" and I could, so that could have been the reason for two separate money orders.

A belt and suspenders person from birth,I also sent my passport by certified mail. It certainly seemed as though the renewal was going to take awhile because the delivery comfirmation was posted six business days after my express mailing.

And what was even more confusing was consulting the passport office's online "application in process" every single day after receiving the delivery confirmation. Nothing. In fact, my name NEVER showed up as being processed. I was getting worried but my passport arrived before I took the issue to the 800 number.

And as I posted here, my daughter's passport, the passport one would assume would take longer, arrived one day earlier than mine.

In addition, today I got in the mail a postcard for her that said, "Your passport is being processed." We've had her passport for days now. I received no notice about mine.

So given those circumstances, perhaps your passports are winging their way to you as we speak.

I would love to have the passports just show up, but somehow I don't think that will be the case. My check has not been cashed. I wish that I had gone to your post office. My postal clerk said one check would be ok and that not to send it certified. I certainly should have sent it certified. I did email my representative and I did call Portsmouth, NH and emailed to an address that they gave over the phone. I will call my rep on Monday as I really think the passports are in the dead letter post office.

Opaldog: My heart goes out to you. Hope Monday's phone calls get results.

Thanks, josephina and to everyone else who has posted. I will be pursuing this until I receive the passports.

opaldog
again, i am sorry for your predicament.
do you think you might be able to get ahold of the same post office clerk who gave you the information?
and definately talk to his/her supervisor to find out why the checks/passports are not anywhere in sight.

Opaldog,

Good move to contact your congressman. That's what helped us. After waiting for over 12 weeks for my daughter's passport we contacted him.

I would also go back to your post office and find out to what passport office do they send passport renewals. At the very least they should be able to give you that information!

Good luck!

When you are talking to the congressional office you might want to urge your representative or Senator to support proposed legislation that would delay implementation of the requirement to have a passport for land and sea travel from Canada, Mexico, the Caribbean and Bermuda until June 2009.
The special travel accomodation that allowed people flying to the US from these areas to travel w/o a passport if they had an application pending is set to expire October 1st. The land and sea requirements will go into effect in 2008 unless the law is changed.
The state dept claims that passport processing has been restored to the standard times as of Sept. 7

Good luck getting your passport problems resolved quickly.

Thanks all for the advice and support. I will put in a plug for not enforcing the requirement for passports for all travel within North America and at least US Carribean. Why not be like the European Union?

The latest update on my renewal problem: I emailed Portsmouth and received a reply that that was an email address only for Congressman and Passport agencies. I spoke with my Congressman's local office and I was able to get help. The gentleman I spoke with was also unable to locate our passports, so now I am instructed to mail 2 new passport renewal applications in the same envelope with 1 check (for both) and copies of our old passports and duplicates photos for each to Boston and I have a contact. I also have to cancel my original check, which carries a bank fee of $20.00. If this all goes well the $20.00 means nothing. I'm keeping my fingers crossed. Thanks for all the advice and comments. I'll let you know when (I'm being positive) we receive our passports.

You're a trooper! Hope all goes well.

Another encouraging passport story: we applied for a passport for our son on August 27th and just received it (from the NH center) today. this was considered a new application since he had a children's passport due to expire 12/07 and could not renew by mail.
so there is definitely hope that even if you assume you are starting over completely with the second applications you will get the passports back relatively quickly

The expedited fee for a passport is $127 per passport. I don't know where you got the $134 for two passports, but that IS INCORRECT.
dave

DinPa, I think opaldog did two standard renewals. They are $67 per renewal, for a total of $134.

My husband applied for his renewal passport and regular mailed it, within 8 weeks he had his new passport.

Yes, I did do the standard renewal for $67. I'm hoping all is well for my applications which should be somewhere in Boston as I write this. As it turns out I did nothing wrong with the first try at renewing. I just had the bad luck of having my applications and passports vanish. I do hope someday to get back our old passports as they were stamped with all the places we have traveled in the past ten years.

Sorry, I thought you were talking expedited. I posted earlier tonight that I sent my renewal (expedited)in on Monday, Sept. 10 and today Wednesday, Sept. 19 we received our new passports in the mail. I did use two separate checks though. Don't know if that would really make any difference. Hope you resolve your problem. Guess I got lucky.
Dave

Dave- I too questioned the second time I sent the applications,whether to send one or two checks. My Congressman's office told me one check, so that is what I did. I triple and quadruple checked everything, being a bit paranoid at this point, and sent it off in the mail. My fingers are crossed.

I woke up this morning and had an email that my passport has been mailed priority and that I should expect it on 9/25/07. I also was emailed a locator number. Sometime it does pay to contact your representatives office. This is actually the first time I have ever had to do that for any reason. So, I have to assume that barring any postal mistakes, we will receive our passports next week.

Fabulous!

Thanks!

glad things are working out for you.
dave

I came home today after being away for one day and voila! the passports had arrived. Granted I'm out $20 for a stop payment charge by the bank and I don't have my old passport, but I can live with that. I am happy to have a passport. You never know when you might want to take advantage of a great travel deal. Moral of the story: if you are having passport problems seek out help from your elected officials.

My two daughters sent in their first passport applications through our local post office. We didn't pay the extra charges for quicker service and both their passports showed up TWO weeks later at our home. So far only one of their birth certificates have been returned in a separate envelope but I was pleasantly shocked at how quickly they came.

Good to hear a (reasonably) happy ending to opaldog's story.

I have a question, based on this and several other passport threads. What method should I use to send in an application?

When I brought the required documents to our post office's Passport Office for my husband's renewal, they didn't require any postage fees, just took the application and everything else, and said "You're all set!" Is this because the office has a passport facility? It's almost time to renew my own, and I think I may want a little bit more in the way of delivery confirmation, given all I've read on Fodors....

For my husband's passport renewal, we just sent it in, regular mail and he received the new one in about 8 weeks. I mailed it with 2 41 cent stamps on it. My daughters were getting theirs for the first time so the USPS person witnessed their ID's and said he would ship them. I didn't give him any extra postage. Now I've mailed mine in for renewal with regular postage and hopefully won't be waiting for more that 6-8 weeks either. I paid $67 each for our renewals and for the girls I paid $67 each and $30 each to the USPS for their service.

I still have not received my old passports and don't expect to ever see them again. I mailed them as I stated earlier, regular mail with no receipt. That was the post office's recommendation and when I mailed the application in the second time the recommendation by my rep.'s office was the same. The person I dealt with in that office said in no terms to request a return receipt.

They've had some news reports recently that supposedly they are over the backup and the time is back to normal, about 6 weeks.

I've never gone to a post office to renew a passport, I just mail it in myself. There is no reason to go there, although I guess if you don't have to pay the postage, that's something. Maybe, it wouldn't be to me as I hate my local post office and you'd have to wait in line forever, they don't even have parking available so you may have to walk a block or so. (I live in a small town and the post office is on the main street and doesn't have a parking lot). Anyway, I would never trust my local post office to send it correctly over myself. I just always try to cut out middlemen from transactions who don't do anything, more chances for things to go wrong.

There are various types of delivery that you can get delivery receipts for (certified mail or something) by regular mail, but they cost, of course. Certified mail receipts are around $2 (confirmation of delivery).

Thanks for your advice; at least I have plenty of time before I go overseas again. I hope I don't have any sagas to report.

(As a quick aside to Christina, if you're still reading: I've always appreciated your posts, especially about Paris. It must be about 8 years ago I was asking about sacred music in Paris, and you doubted my screen name was my real name. You're the only poster who has ever commented on it. And you're right....)

It is possible to check online to be sure the passport application has arrived. The information on the State Dept. website says this information should show up about 10 days after you mail the application.
http://travel.state.gov/passport/get...atus_2567.html

I did this for my son's application in September and was able to confirm it had arrived and was being processed. His passport (which was considered a new application because he is 16 and could not simply renew the passport he had as a child) arrived in 3 1/2 weeks regular processing.

Vttraveler: I posted above on this very same item and since we are now so far down the thread, so to speak, it bears repeating. I'm glad the Confirmation URL worked for you. It did not for me.

The confirmation URL NEVER listed my passport or my daughter's passport into the system. We received our passports quite quickly--no complaints here!--but the processing URL never registered us.

In addition, several days AFTER we received my daughter's passport, she received a postcard saying, "your passport is being processed" with a statement that it would arrive soon. Although I received my passport a few days after her, I never received a similar postcard.

So the Confirmation URL sounds good in theory, but in practice, has not been reliable. I am thrilled, however, that it took almost no time to get our renewals.

This is not meant to be criticism: just a naive query, I guess. I can renew my Australian Passport ONLINE. There is a website where you can make such a request and the details you enter are checked against the national data base, and thus verified or not, as the case may be. The procedure is much quicker and more efficient than the previous one, of which the US one mentioned above is reminiscent. The USA invented the Internet, and most of the protocols used therein. How come you don't use the Internet for this purpose?

josephina--I am not surprised the tracking system does not always work properly. I know people tried to use it over the summer when proof of application was allowed for travelers flying from Canada and Mexico

My son also got a postcard confirming his application had been received the day before the actual passport arrived.

I think there has been a big, largely successful, effort to get processing times down. I know the Bush administration is very invested in implementing the Western Hempisphere Travel Initiative which requires passports for land and sea travel effective early 2008. This is very controversial in states along the Canadian border as it is expected to hurt tourism and business. We go back and forth to Canada quite often because our older son is studying at McGill and I was very nervous about getting our younger son's passport renewed on time.

Abeden--the main reason for the US processing system we are all describing is a belief it is more secure than an online data check. I think in the case of passport renewals by mail it works pretty much the same way except that the old passport has to be turned in and is returned with holes punched through the cover and a big stamp saying "cancelled"