am freaking out. I am leaving in two weeks. I had to renew my passport for a name change. I did not get it expedited.(I truly did not know the length of time) I thought I had time. All they said they would do is send in a request to get it here. It's in New Hampshire. Do I have any other options? Are the applications for applying at Regional Centers for new passport people only? Can I start over and apply again? Please help. Thanks

On the news today - if you have proof of application for passport you should be ok, depending on destination. Deadline for having passport for cruises has been extended. There are LOTS of people waiting for their passports, the backlog must be huge! If you are really panicked, call your senator or congressman, sometimes they can help with red tape.
Joy in Virginia

Thank you, but it doesn't help me. Traveling to Europe. Did call congressman, still will be 4 days before they know anything. this is just terrible. i cannot believe I have the potential to lose thousands of dollars because they thought it was necessary to add several places at once that you must have a passport to go to. Did they not think of the consequences?

I can't find in any of your posts how long ago you sent your application in...

Hi. I sent it in first thing April. I know probably not enough time. However, when I sent it in it said 8-10 weeks, now it is 10-12. This is my second passport. THis is a name change only. I guess I was just thinking of before, when it only took 6 weeks. I should have expedited it, but honestly had no idea of the consequences.

I would suggest getting all your info and going to the passport office with your tickets, they may be able to issue you a passport since you have your ticket for travel.

It will take at least all day to get this done.

Good luck.

My friend is leaving for Mexico this week. 2 weeks ago she had not received her son's passport (after 10 weeks) and was freaking out... this was before the announcement.
She contacted her Congressman and seriously, she had it in TWO days.
If I were you, I would head straight to my Congressman's office tomorrow morning with all your documents and BEG for help.
DON'T CALL. It is probably close and it is much harder to turn someone down who is pleading right in front of you.
I am sure there are people who will disagree with me... but if you have the time, what do you have to lose?

I am in complete shock. I sent my passport in for renewal with new pictures about three weeks ago. I expedited it and shipped via FedEx.

I'm not leaving until October, but had put August on my form just so I wouldn't have to freak out over it if it were late.

Well, lo and behold, my new passport arrived today - less than three weeks later. I guess I'm one of the lucky ones.

If you have two weeks to go, I would give the Congressmans office the four days they asked for, but I would call in two to jog their memory and again on day four for my answer (nicely of course) and if there isn't one, then I'd go with TXTravelPro's advice and get down to your Congressman's office asap - a friend of mine had to go on a 14 hr road trip to DC to pick hers up and that was with the help of her Congressman ----- and I would just fess up to the Congressman that you messed up - saying you didn't know the length of time, etc, etc with all the publicity that has been out there and how long it is taking to get passports - and all that is published online and with the applicaiton - I just think you are better off saying you just messed up but now can he help -

And I'd also leave out the comments about them thinking " it was necessary to add several places at once that you must have a passport to go to. Did they not think of the consequences? " - I think it's a combination of them not being prepared for the onslaught and people leaving it till the last minute - they did not add several places all at once, they've been announcing this for quite a while, I think people just thought they could still wait until closer to the deadline - So I'd just be soo sorry you are bothering them and can't they please help you......

Good luck and I hope it all works out for you -

We are suppose to leave Sunday to go to Ireland for our honeymoon. We sent in our passport application almost 14 weeks ago(when sent in said 6-10 weeks). We have already spent thousands of dollars on our trip that we don't really even have and have not yet received or passports yet. We lave been on the phone to the passport agency starting the 14 days before or departure date. I had no idea you could call your congressman until reading this thread. I don't know what to do. We don't want to continue to hold out then not be able to go anywhere for our honeymoon and we don't want to loose all that money. The nearest passport agency is over 8 hours away and were getting married Saturday. Does anyone have any advice to offer? I can't believe this is happening.

sbarry -
1. congratulations!
2. get on the phone with your congressman's office ASAP and do not hang up until you speak with someone (whose name you should write down) and give them details. Explain that you are getting married Saturday and leaving Sunday, and need the passport sent via overnight express, morning delivery - than make sure that someone is around to receive it. Ask the staff person whom you should call if it is not delivered - get a name and phone number.

Then assign someone to keep calling that person every hour until they have a fedex tracking number. Then have that person keep checking the fedex website to make sure it got picked and is on its way. If something appears to go wrong while it is in transit, immediately call fedex and explain the situation. Sometimes they can work wonders.

Keep in mind, that it probably will take them some time tomorrow to track it down, so it probably won't go out until Friday. Make sure the staffer understands that it has to go out for Saturday delivery. Keep emphasizing that point every time you or your assigned person talks to them. Also, I'd give them an address that you know will be manned 24/7 (e.g. the hotel where your reception is being held or your guests are staying). Do not give them a house address. Residential delivery is much less reliable.

Check around with your friends and family to see if anybody has a political connection. It could help....a lot!

Thanks so much for the advice. Can they send it to a different address then what you put on the passport? This is so horrible. If I make it through this weeding alive it will be a miracle. Do I just call the Congressman first thing in the AM?

Yes, call as soon as their office opens. All the congressional offices are dealing with this every day, so each one has a point person. Be polite, but do not take no for an answer.

May I ask where you are located?

Btw, if they can't change the address, pay someone to sit at the house and wait for the fedex delivery. Give them access to the computer so they can keep checking it's progress. And if it seems to be stuck, have them call fedex as many times as it takes.

I called my congressman in Ohio this AM. The lady called the national passport agency for me. She said she asked for it to be done same day then sent fed ex to arrive tomorrow. She said that she hopes it gets done for us but their are no guarentees. She said that if the status doesn't say completed by 5:30 this evening it will not be coming. Is their anything else we can do at this point? Should we call another congressman's office?? Thanks for all your help.
Sarah

Keeping our fingers crossed for you!

If, god forbid, they don't come, maybe you can go to the airport with your tickets and trade them in for something in the continental US. If you have an amex, get their travel department on the phone right away and let them work their magic. I've seen them do amazing things at the last minute.

p.s. just reread my posts. I'm such an idiot! Apparently, I thought yesterday was Wednesday, not Thursday. Sorry for my confusing post.

This is now after the fact, but another example of the current application problems.

On June 6 my husband and I both applied for "expidited" passports through our local post office. The state/travel.gov website stated then and still does, that an expidited application was taking 2-3 weeks.
Our travel to Canada was July 24th. A day after we applied, the government announced that a passport was now not needed for travel to Canada and Mexico, due to the overwhelming amount of applications. All that was required was ID such as drivers license and the printed application receipt from their website with the locater number.
I immediately called our post office to enquire about a refund of the additional $192 we had paid, but we were already in the system so told; "no luck." Had we applied a day later we would not have had to pay it.

A week prior to our departure (no passports & 5 wks. after application) I went back to the gov. website to print our receipts for travel purposes. My husband's application wasn't even there. I called the passport office, on hold for 35 minutes before speaking to a rep, who eventually found the record of my husband's application using the SS #. They had entered his birth year incorrectly so the locator receipt that I would prin,t and he would have to use to travel, would have a different dob than his drivers license. The gov. rep suggested that we also take our birth certificates, which I reminded him we no longer have as they'd been mailed in with the applications.
Like most folks, we had thousands of dollars of non-refundable travel expenses at stake. the gov. website states, very clearly, that they are not repsonsible for any lost travel expenses associated with this.

It's a 3 hr. drive to our departure airport (Las Vegas that is always sooo busy)so we allowed even extra time for explaining at the ticket counter and kept our fingers crossed.
Philippine airlines (to Vancouver) staff and service were great in handling our problem, even having us wait while they hand carried our documents to US customs to verify our re-entry on the return. I would highly recommend them to anyone traveling between LAX, SFO, LAS & VAN to Manila.

Everything worked out, but did take additional explaining, time and a bit of anxiety, at each departure and entry.
Actually, US customs, on our return, were the most nonchalant about the whole thing and waived us through with no hesitation. They're very familiar with this story.

My husband's passport finally arrived the end of July....you guessed it....wrong birth date so is now re-submitted and we're still waiting. Apparently the expired passport that was sent in with his application wasn't cross referenced for correct data. So much for Homeland Security.
I still have not received my EXPIDITED passport and it's been over two months. I have also not had any acknowledgement to either the email or letter that I sent 3 wks. ago, to the gov. office for a refund of the expidited fees.

The moral of the story is; forget the gov. info on the time it's taking for all forms of application. They're wrong.
Apparently they didn't do their homework on projected travel and the shear number of folks who have been going to Mexico and Canada, in years past, w/o passports, who have now completely overwhelmed the system with these new requirements.
Apply early, early, early if possible, and make your travel plans once passports are in hand.

Hopefully I'll get my EXPIDITED passport for more travel this fall, but I'm not holding my breath!

I applied for an expedited passport on January 1st for a trip to Germany on during the last week of March. I expedited my application because I wanted to be sure I would receive my passport in time for my trip even though, at that time, the State Department's Passport website still indicated that an expedited passport would be received two weeks after it was sent in.

I won’t bore you with all the details (believe me, there are a lot of details regarding my experiences with the National Passport Center) but I will say this…I received my EXPEDITED passport 13 weeks after I had sent it in. Needless to say I missed my trip to Germany.

Several months later I stumbled upon some people that were experiencing what I had experienced (and what many of you are now experiencing) and they had advice for people who were still waiting for their passports.

A lot of folks who needed their passport ASAP called the US Consular Task Force and got results.

US Consular Task Force (WATCH DOG) 202-647-7948

If you are having problems with the National Passport Center (1-877-487-2778) you should try the number listed below. The individuals I have spoken to have had much better luck using this 606 number.

Passport status requests 1-606-526-7600

If you call the National Passport Center number (1-877-487-2778) and continually wind up getting hung up on, you may want to try this trick (I used this trick while trying to reach a human being and it actually does work.) It is called the “1-3-1, 9-3-1- Trick”.

Here’s how one commenter explained it:
“The ‘9-3-1’ trick...when they try to kick you off the 800 number with ‘All our agents are busy and we can not answer your call at this time’....hit ‘9 ‘, ‘3’ and then ‘1’ and it takes you back to ‘please hold’ without having to redial. It worked for me several times and I got through in about 20 minutes. Then you get music but that is a good sign, a real person comes soon after.”

And another: Here's the toll-free number trick: Don't listen to the recorded voice garbage. Just move through the prompts by pressing 1-3-1. Then when that lovely male recorded voice tells you that they can't answer your call and to call back, hit 9, then 3-1 to go back in the loop. It may take you a while of doing that continually before you actually get through to someone, but this is not a process for the faint-of-heart. There is no call queue, so one is left with no choice but persistence - if you actually want to speak to a living human being.

Below is a link to a website that lists all of the internal phone numbers at the passport processing facilities:

US Department of State phone directory unclassified
www.state.gov/documents/organization/82073.pdf

Anyone with the initials "CA/PPT" by their names works in passport processing. Find out the area code for the passport facility where your passport is, i.e., 603 for New Hampshire or 843 for Charleston, etc. and start dialing until you get someone to help you.

The following is a list of the abbreviations you will see next to the employees name in the directory. Assuming you know where it’s being processed look for the following. Once you have found someone make sure you have your passport locater number, name, DOB, SS# ready.

CA/PPT…………………………………………………….Office of Passport Services
CA/PPT/BN…………………………………………………..Boston Passport Agency
CA/PPT/CG………………………….……………………..Chicago Passport Agency
CA/PPT/HH……………………..…………………………Honolulu Passport Agency
CA/PPT/HN……………………………….………………..Houston Passport Agency
CA/PPT/LA………………………………………….…Los Angeles Passport Agency
CA/PPT/MM…………………………………………….……..Miami Passport Agency
CA/PPT/No…………………………………...……….New Orleans Passport Agency
CA/PPT/NPC……..……………………National Passport Center, Portsmouth, NH
CA/PPT/NY……….……………………….………………New York Passport Agency
CA/PPT/PA…………………….………………………Philadelphia Passport Agency
CA/PPT/SE……….………………….……………………….Seattle Passport Agency
CA/PPT/SF……………………..……………………San Francisco Passport Agency
CA/PPT/SIA…………………………………………….……Special Issuance Agency
CA/PPT/SM……………………….……………………….Stamford Passport Agency
CA/PPT/WN……...…………………………………….Washington Passport Agency