Passport worries
 

My husband and I have a trip to Paris scheduled to leave 5/12. I knew that I should apply for my passport early, so I applied for it the moment I decided to take the trip, which was nearly 15 weeks in advance. I submitted an application for a passport the first week of February. At that time I was told by the clerk that because I was planning travel in mid-May, there would be no need to request expedited service. I was also assured that I would get my passport within 6 weeks of the application date.

I was beginning to get slightly worried that I had not gotten my passport in the mail yet. Then I heard a story on the news that passport offices are so backed up that it's taking 10-12 weeks to get a passport. I am particularly concerned because I just looked at my bank account and saw that the check to the state department did not even get cashed until last week! I tried to check the status of my application online, and it says that there is no record of my application. Calling the national passport information number does no good either, as you get put on hold for a long time, only to get hung up on.

I heard that applications taking 10-12 weeks from the time the checks are cashed. Could that possibly be true? If that's the case, I will miss my trip for sure. I would have paid the extra money for expedited processing had they been honest with me about how long this would take.

Has anyone missed a trip because of the longer processing times for passports?

I know there are regional passport agencies that can get you a passport quickly if you are travelling within two weeks. I plan to do this if I still don't have my passport by the end of April. Has anyone had any experience with these? If you go to a regional passport agency after you have already submitted an application the standard route, do you have to pay all the processing fees all over again?

I do not know the impact of new passport rules on the length of time for a passport but we needed to renew one last year and it was on it' s way to us as soon as the check cleared. To give yourself some peace of mind. you may wish to try talking to the people at one of the regional offices if you are close and ask them when you should start to panic and what the process would be if you need to work through them. I think you should be fine but checking out the alternatives is always a good idea. Good luck

Call your congressman and request assistance. It worked for me. Do a search with "passport" in the search box and read the stories other people have told on the same subject.

Relax! All is well. I think the passport office is open until midnight or some such thing. Call them late at night. I had no trouble getting a person on the phone and they can expedite your passport no problem. I had mine a few days later. And there didn't ever seem to be a record of it on-line until after it arrived. The people on the phone are super nice once you get ahold of one of them. You have to pay more, but it is worth it!

When I was young and irresponsible ( I know this is not the case with you) I waited until 8 weeks before my first trip to put in my passport app. They said it would take 5-6 weeks I figured I was golden. Well, the night before I was to leave for London no passport. I was in College and the next morning ,day of my flight at 9 pm , in my P.J.'s (true story) I drove to the airport in Syracuse boarded a Peoples Express flight, got a bus into NYC and stood on line at the passport agency only to find out I needed to show my plane ticket for them to issue one on the spot. One problem, left it in my apartment , so only armed with my wallet I went to British Airways got a new ticket and back to passport agency and got the passport that day, exactly 5 hours before my flight. My first trip to Europe and I arrive at Heathrow in Pajamas, boots, leather bomber jacket and no luggage for a 10 day trip. When my dad got his credit card bill that was for emergency only he pitched a fit, it took me 2 years to pay him back. LOL So in an emergency I think with plane tickets in hand you can have your passport issued on site. At least you used to be able to.

http://travel.state.gov/passport/abo.../npic_898.html

Only you can determine the best course of action. You do have quite a bit of time before it's necessary to panic or pay fee to expedite.

I don't think they were being dishonest, only optimistic...

Recommend calling until you get through...

HA laartista. The best part of the story.....stylin' in your pjs on PEOPLES EXPRESS.

Here you go:

1-877-487-2778

Please note that representatives are available from 7:00 a.m. to 12 midnight, ET, Monday-Friday, except federal holidays.

Call right before you go to bed. They can tell you exactly where your application is in the process and when it will be delivered.

They must have hit the wrong button when they hung up on you. I swear they are really nice! My husband accidently threw out our passports about 6 weeks before our Caribbean trip. I did have to end up expediting them in the middle of the process.

You will have a great time in Paris.

Hi J,

I wouldn't panic until mid-April.

Then I would call my MC's office and tell them about the unconscionable delay.

Members of Congress are pretty good about helping constituents.

((I))

I applied 2/9, the message on the above link says: "Your application is still being processed, but the timesframe for issuing your passport has increased due to workload.

When you applied, you requested Routine Service and Routine Delivery of your passport. Passport Agencies use Priority Mail.

This means you should receive your passport within 10 weeks from the date you applied. Depending upon how the facility where you applied forwarded your application, you should receive your passport on or about 04/02/2007."

My daughter applied 3/9 and there is no record of it.

There was an article in The Washington Post just this past weekend which indicated that due to the new passport requirements the processing time is likely to double and that even the "expedited" time of two weeks or so will probably double to four.

Oh, you poor people. I recently applied for a new Dutch passport from the Dutch consulate in Antwerp. Applied in person on Monday. It was delivered registered mail by the postman on Friday. The same week. This was not express service, but regular service.

Apparently because of the new rules about needing passports the number of applications has skyrocketed.

Was there a place on the passport application to specify your expected travel date? (There is on the Canadian passport applications.) If so, then I wouldn't worry until later in April, as I expect that they will keep your travel date in mind.

I would suggest you don't panic. We are traveling in July and we applied on 2/20/07 with regular service. I have kept diligently checking online at the link provided by the State Department and our applications just showed up this week. It gives us an ETA of 4/30. Since you applied 2-3 weeks before I did, I would imagine that your passports should arrive within the next 2-3 weeks, still in plenty of time. If it reassures you to call though, by all means, I would call them! Keep us posted.

Kellye,

Just out of curiosity, when was your check cashed? It seems that they are not processing things in the order in which they were received, nor are they taking into account travel dates, because I sent mine in 3 weeks before you did, my travel date is two and a half months before yours. I am still not been entered into the system, whereas you have been entered and have an ETA for your passports. It seems they are just processing things willy-nilly.

I tried calling several times today. No luck. Hung up on every time. I also tried emailing them, but their website says the turn around time for that is 2-4 days.

So I guess I'll wait until closer to my travel date, but I fear that if even the expedited service is taking 4-5 weeks, it will be too late come April.

Thanks to advice on an earlier thread, my daughter contacted our Congresswoman's office when we realized that her family's passports (sent for on 2/4) would most likely not be here before leaving on 4/4.

They were incredible! Tracked them down, had them expedited and FedExed to her within one week of asking--no additional charges, either.

My husband just became an American citizen 2 weeks ago and applied, after the naturalization ceremony, for an expedited passport. The cost was an additional $60 and it was worth every penny since the new passport arrived today !!!

You might also consider using private passport expediting services, e.g., passportsandvisas.com and passportexpress.com - I once had to do this several years ago and my new passport arrived in time although the cost was higher (somewhere between $150 - 180).

Good luck !!

My husband and I applied for an expedited passport renewal on March the 8th. I received mine back on the 16th and my husband received his yesterday. I must assume that renewals go a little quicker. I also Fedex'ed it and put in a Fedex envelope to send back to me. It was worth the extra money but it seems that it varies wildly in terms of their response. Good luck.

I recently had to get a new US passport and it took me less than three weeks. I applied in Salvador, Bahia, and the passport was issued through the American Consulate in Rio de Janeiro. But my Brazilian passport (I have dual citizenship) I had done in just one day...

My daughter just had to renew her passport. Six weeks after she applied they cashed our check. Two weeks after that she got her new passport, a total of eight weeks.

It left our post office on 2/20 with express mail and was signed for on 2/23 at 2AM according to the post office tracking. The check cleared my bank on 3/13, which means they probably deposited in their account on 3/12--I'm sure there is absolutely NO float on checks going into a government account. :-) It showed up on the tracking at the end of last week--so probably 1-2 days after the check cleared. To give a feel for the difference in service, my husband has a business trip in April to the Bahamas (lucky guy) and we applied for his passport on the same day and paid for the expedited service. He had it in his hands in 8 days. I didn't feel compelled to pay for that service for me and my daughter since we weren't travelling until July.

Last night I was talking to my husband about this thread, he got a funny look on his face and said, "I wonder when my passport expires?" March 2007.

I'm curious to see how long his renewal takes in comparison to mine & our daughter's. He & I can be flexible, our daughter has a summer class scheduled in Costa Rica.

We applied for my sons' passports on January 22 and received both of them by March 12 (8 weeks). We didn't request expedited service. I'd also recommend waiting until mid-April before panicking. Good luck! We leave for Europe May 2.

I had the same problem with my daughter's misplaced passport for a trip to the Caymans next week. I had applied 1/19 & routine service was recommended. Called frequently, check cashed very late, online estimate of passport arrival kept getting pushed back (to the return date of our trip!). They were not prepared for >1 million apps. in January. They can't change to expedite until it appears online. Even then, after giving my credit card number & thinking all was well, it did not get charged & is only sent through as a routine request until 2 weeks before. I stopped being able to get through on their phone.

They recommended calling every 3 days. Finally, the post office recommended just showing up at passport agency with my tracing records in hand. They may not allow it anymore, but I was seen, daughter's file pulled & it was fedexed to me about 5 days later. Good luck!

I am trying to get some encouragement from reading these posts. Last night I was on hold for over one hour and nobody ever came on line. They do close at midnight but I had called before 11pm.
I just sent in my application last week and wanted to pay the extra fee for an expedited process. My departure is for May 18th.
I've contacted my congressman and we'll see if he can do anything.
Karina

Now the recording says they only want to talk to you if you're traveling within 10 days.

When I called a few weeks ago to try to pay by credit card over the phone to change to expedited service, I was told that they would only do that for those traveling within 2 weeks. So, for those of us who have already mailed our old passports in (unexpedited), there's nothing more we can do until 2 weeks before before the trip.

My question is: if my passport doesn't arrive 2 weeks before my trip, and I end up going in person to the office in NY, will they be able to locate the old passport that I mailed to Philadelphia? Or will I have to start all over as a first-time applicant? For new applicants, they required an UNEXPIRED driver's license as an ID, and mine is an expired out-of-state one. (I need the new passport as ID to get a new driver's license, but maybe also vice-versa!)

Those of you who have succeeded in getting help from your congressmen-- where do you live? Do congressmen in large cities bother to get involved with things like this?

laartista,
When you went in person the day of your trip, did you need a new set of photos and a new application form?

They took the photo there and filled out the apps there. Once I showed my plane ticket it took maybe 2 hours to have the passport in my hand.It was at the main passport office in NYC. I was flying that night so they super fast-tracked it. This was about 20 years ago though. LOL

This thread brings back smiles to me when I think about my drama in replacing my lost passport last May. From my post about the experience last May at the end of a very long day:

"I got a wretched surprise this morning when I woke up at 5:00 a.m. and began packing in preparation for our departure tomorrow from Spokane to Portland for our flight to Munich the following morning.

"NO SIGN OF MY PASSPORT! I knew I had it about 10 days ago, because I used it for ID on a flight from Seattle to my home.

"After a fruitless search, by about 10:00 a.m., I dedided I had no choice but to book an 11:45 a.m. flight from my home in Spokane, to go to the Seattle passport office and see what I could do. Before leaving for the airport, I was able to schedule a 1:30 appointment through the mechanized voice mail system, arranged for my sister to immediately take me to the airport for my flight, and was able to get in touch with my son in Seattle to pick me up at Sea-Tac at 12:45 and drive me to the federal building in downtown Seattle for my appointment.

"Fortunately, I'd brought my birth certificate with me, but I didn't know I'd need a copy of my travel itinerary (to show proof of the emergency need for expedited service) and I didn't bring passport photos, assuming they could be taken there, as they are at my local passport office. The guard/receptionist sent me off a couple of blocks away to Fed-Ex/Kinko, where I got my passport pics taken and logged on to Travelocity and printed my travel itinerary. Sprinting back to the passport office a couple of blocks away, my son helped me fill out the paperwork, because I'm partially blind, the result of a stroke caused by heart surgery a year ago, which maked all of this much more stressful and challenging.

"About an hour from the time we finally had our act together enough to present our paperwork to an agent, we walked out the door with my new passport, in time to comfortably manage my 4:50 flight back home, home within about 5 hours from start to finish.

"I was amazed by how helpful everyone had been and by how it had all fallen into place so beautifully. what a relief!"

Botton line: Were I you, I would not panic until a couple of weeks before your trip. In the meantime, find out where your regional passport office is and find out the protocol for getting emergency service on your passport. If you go to their office, you'll need to call and make an appointment ahead of time. Bring with you your driver's license, a certified copy of your birth certificate, your ticket or a copy of a printout of your e-ticket from the website where you booked it, and a photo.

As noted above, once we were able to meet with the folks at the passport office, it was just an hour later that we walked out with passport in hand.

Final tab for my carelessness:

State Dept., emergency processing fee: $157
Kinko's, passport photo: $14
Kinko's, computer access to print out itinerary: $4
Southwest Airlines, round trip Spokane-Seattle: $200
Total cost of bonehead carelessness: $373

I felt only elation, however, in being able to pull myself out of the hole I'd dug for myself, with time to spare.

I sent my passport renewal information express mail on Tuesday. Express Mail lost the package. With all of my information. My old passport, my pictures, my check... I have no idea how long it's going to take them to find it and I have no idea what I do now.

Hi Fifi,

>Do congressmen in large cities bother to get involved with things like this?<

Absolutely.

((I))

That's right, It was 100$ for a rush back then.

We had to get our passports renewed as they were expiring in August (but our trip to China in May meant we needed 6mo remaining on them. On January 22, we sent in ours -- figuring that a May departure would give us plenty of time so we didn't do it "expedited." Within 3 days we were terrified and kicking ourselves for not taking that route. However, after three weeks of when we figured they had recieved them, the check was cashed. We turned up in the on-line system with a projected date of March 11...then March 12...then March 13.

Then they changed the "6-8 weeks" language on that site to "10-12 weeks" although they did not change the date of March 13. We got them in the mail on March 16. This was early enough for our tour company to handle the China visas for us (cheaper that driving to DC from NC). You will probably be fine. What ever date they are giving you when you check on-line is probably about when you will get your passports. Since you don't need visas for Paris, you should have plenty of time before departure.

Do they give you an "estimated date of arrival" on the State Dept site yet? I forgot to ask you that!

Since you only sent yours in 2 weeks after we sent ours, I would hope you should get more definitive info from that status checker by now. (I know how distressing it is to get that other message about no record...)

I had to renew my passport before one of my trips to Ireland one year. I did not pay for expedited service and it was getting close to the departure date so I was getting worried also. I called the passport office and was able to request the expedited mailing on the phone and paid with a credit card and it came quickly. As another poster suggested, try calling late at night when they are not inundated with calls. Hopefully you will get it in time!! If it gets too close, I would go to the local passport office and appeal!! Good Luck.

I don't mean to alarm any of you, but I think a lot of these posts are trying to create, from people's personal experiences, how the Passport Agency works, and how long it takes -- and trying to take comfort from that. My husband's current experience contradicts a lot of these stories. We fly April 2.

My husband applied for a RENEWAL on February 2, in person at a post office in the DC suburbs. At that time, we didn't know exactly when we'd be flying, but we expected it to be between April 1 and May 15. He did NOT expedite (though I would have recommended it just to be safe, had I known).

They cashed his check just 2 business days later, February 6. Still, he had heard nothing for weeks. When he called the number, at all hours, he was often unable to get in. The one time he got in previously (in mid-March), he was told there was NO RECORD of him in the system yet. Every other time he tried to call back, he could not get in - no option of waiting on hold, just kicked out. In fact, the number is supposed to be open until midnight, but the recording has said the line is closed at 10 p.m. He even returned in person to the post office where he applied to see if they could help, and of course they could do nothing because once it leaves their hands, they can't do anything about it.

Then, this past weekend, this story hit the national news, and there are reports of it taking twice as long as expected, with no real end in sight.

Likely because of this, the hotline now seems to have a little more staffing. On Monday morning, my husband was able to call in at 6:57, float around the system, and then get in the queue to wait on hold for 40 minutes prior to speaking with someone. The guy found his passport, and said it was scheduled to be sent April 2 (our travel date). That's two months from his application date - though it sounds like most of you applied with more time to spare. The guy on the phone said there was nothing he could do to speed up the processing, but of course, he said my husband could switch to expedited service (pay the $60) and get it a week earlier (in time for our trip). So, you can switch to expedited service, at least in certain situations, and the agency doesn't really feel compelled to do anything to help you without charging you extra.

My point is - check cashing date doesn't mean much at all. Many applications aren't in the system until they get close to actually being processed, and the agency doesn't really seem to be concerned with hiring more people to get the work done. You can switch to expedited service (maybe they require an impending travel date), but they probably won't speed it up otherwise, unless you call your congressperson.

At this point, I am thinking that I may end up trying to get our passports from the passport office in San Francisco within the prior 2 weeks of departure. I am getting the certified birth certificates that I will need to prove my identity since the old passports have been sent to Philadelphia.
Someone correct me if I am wrong, but I was told that I cannot pay the "expedited fee" UNTIL my application shows up in the system and this may take 4 weeks. Is there any way around this process?
I could just kick myself for not paying the expedited fee when I mailed in our passports.
I am optimistic that things will work out but it's very frustrating because I am not a person who usually waits until the last minute to make my travel arrangements.
I did get a call from my congressman's office the day after I faxed him a letter. Their office is looking into it but I don't know if THEY can do anything until my application shows up in the damn system !!
To everyone on this site, please keep us posted on the progress of your applications.
Karina

Monday morning, pick up your phone and call your Congressman's office. Explain that this UNACCEPTABLE!!!! (It is!) Ask them to assit you. They have some poor person whose job it is to deal with these idiot moves the US Goverment makes that affect thier voters. (Senators do to, but my understanding is that they don't seem to feel as urgent about it. I guess it's something to do with a two year election cycle!)

Call your congress person DAILY (Heck hourly) if need be. After all YOU are paying them, thier staff and the idiots at the Passport agency

If they cashed your check then you are in the system. My application wasn't showing up on-line, but when I called them, they had the record right there and allowed me to pay the expedite fee right there. They even held up my son's so they could go out in the same envelope and save me $.

This was all at the end of last year before the huge crush.

And my husband's passport application didn't show up on-line until I actually had it in my hand.