Passport issues July/August 2023 thread

[Anonymous]

I know there have been other threads but I'm really looking for current experiences and tips, since this is a moving target.

We are traveling mid-August. Applied for two renewals (including one child) in March. Received the adult renewal in mid-June, still waiting on the child renewal.

It's so frustrating because it's just a black box (status has said "In process" for four straight months now) and there is nothing else we can do until we are 14 days out, but it's just nerve-racking to wait. Also frustrating because even once we're in the 14 days, since it's a child's passport, we will need to ensure both parents and the child can be present for any appointment we can get and the logistics of that are stressful as well (what if we have to travel to an appointment? we'll all have to go which means more days off work and even more money)

A friend suggested maybe booking a refundable international flight for less than 14 days from now so that we could claim travel in under 14 days and maybe get an appointment at an agency sooner. Has anyone done this? Does it work? I am paranoid about it. Also, again, since it's a child's passport we'd have to book multiple tickets. I don't know, maybe we should suck it up and do it.

[Anonymous]

If you're in Virginia, Sen Mark Warner's office has made it priority to help constituents with passports. Call 703-442-0670 to speak with the passport specialist.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If you're in Virginia, Sen Mark Warner's office has made it priority to help constituents with passports. Call 703-442-0670 to speak with the passport specialist.

We are in DC. Anyone had luck with Eleanor Holmes Norton's office? If we have family in other states would there be any benefit to having them call their rep?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If you're in Virginia, Sen Mark Warner's office has made it priority to help constituents with passports. Call 703-442-0670 to speak with the passport specialist.

I just heard on WTOP that his office has had more calls this year than over the past decade...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you're in Virginia, Sen Mark Warner's office has made it priority to help constituents with passports. Call 703-442-0670 to speak with the passport specialist.

We are in DC. Anyone had luck with Eleanor Holmes Norton's office? If we have family in other states would there be any benefit to having them call their rep?

No.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I know there have been other threads but I'm really looking for current experiences and tips, since this is a moving target.

We are traveling mid-August. Applied for two renewals (including one child) in March. Received the adult renewal in mid-June, still waiting on the child renewal.

It's so frustrating because it's just a black box (status has said "In process" for four straight months now) and there is nothing else we can do until we are 14 days out, but it's just nerve-racking to wait. Also frustrating because even once we're in the 14 days, since it's a child's passport, we will need to ensure both parents and the child can be present for any appointment we can get and the logistics of that are stressful as well (what if we have to travel to an appointment? we'll all have to go which means more days off work and even more money)

A friend suggested maybe booking a refundable international flight for less than 14 days from now so that we could claim travel in under 14 days and maybe get an appointment at an agency sooner. Has anyone done this? Does it work? I am paranoid about it. Also, again, since it's a child's passport we'd have to book multiple tickets. I don't know, maybe we should suck it up and do it.

We are traveling this weekend. I called today, the only appointment they had available was in Honolulu. A friend of mine bought refundable tickets and made an appointment at an agency. She was able to get the passport issued in the same day and cancelled her flights later. But I think you can do this only if you haven't applied yet. I could be wrong though. You said you applied in March so I don't know if this will work in your case.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I know there have been other threads but I'm really looking for current experiences and tips, since this is a moving target.

We are traveling mid-August. Applied for two renewals (including one child) in March. Received the adult renewal in mid-June, still waiting on the child renewal.

It's so frustrating because it's just a black box (status has said "In process" for four straight months now) and there is nothing else we can do until we are 14 days out, but it's just nerve-racking to wait. Also frustrating because even once we're in the 14 days, since it's a child's passport, we will need to ensure both parents and the child can be present for any appointment we can get and the logistics of that are stressful as well (what if we have to travel to an appointment? we'll all have to go which means more days off work and even more money)

A friend suggested maybe booking a refundable international flight for less than 14 days from now so that we could claim travel in under 14 days and maybe get an appointment at an agency sooner. Has anyone done this? Does it work? I am paranoid about it. Also, again, since it's a child's passport we'd have to book multiple tickets. I don't know, maybe we should suck it up and do it.

We are traveling this weekend. I called today, the only appointment they had available was in Honolulu. A friend of mine bought refundable tickets and made an appointment at an agency. She was able to get the passport issued in the same day and cancelled her flights later. But I think you can do this only if you haven't applied yet. I could be wrong though. You said you applied in March so I don't know if this will work in your case.

Can you clarify? You called today looking for an appointment before this coming weekend? And the only appointment available was in Hawaii?

And your friend who bought the refundable ticket, was she able to get an appointment near her or did she have to travel? What was the timeline for this?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you're in Virginia, Sen Mark Warner's office has made it priority to help constituents with passports. Call 703-442-0670 to speak with the passport specialist.

We are in DC. Anyone had luck with Eleanor Holmes Norton's office? If we have family in other states would there be any benefit to having them call their rep?

Our passports were taking forever to turn around. Her constituent services didn’t help.

However, we did get our documents back in time for our vacation to Israel, which was absolutely wonderful!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you're in Virginia, Sen Mark Warner's office has made it priority to help constituents with passports. Call 703-442-0670 to speak with the passport specialist.

We are in DC. Anyone had luck with Eleanor Holmes Norton's office? If we have family in other states would there be any benefit to having them call their rep?

Our passports were taking forever to turn around. Her constituent services didn’t help.

However, we did get our documents back in time for our vacation to Israel, which was absolutely wonderful!

Can you give us your total waiting time, when you received passports, and your date of travel (or at least how far out from your travel dates you finally received your passports)? Trying to figure out how panicked I should be, and whether I need to acclimate to the idea that we might eat the cost of these plane tickets. And maybe whether I need to think of a vacation plan B since if we have to cancel this one, my family is going to be absolutely devastated.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you're in Virginia, Sen Mark Warner's office has made it priority to help constituents with passports. Call 703-442-0670 to speak with the passport specialist.

We are in DC. Anyone had luck with Eleanor Holmes Norton's office? If we have family in other states would there be any benefit to having them call their rep?

Our passports were taking forever to turn around. Her constituent services didn’t help.

However, we did get our documents back in time for our vacation to Israel, which was absolutely wonderful!

Can you give us your total waiting time, when you received passports, and your date of travel (or at least how far out from your travel dates you finally received your passports)? Trying to figure out how panicked I should be, and whether I need to acclimate to the idea that we might eat the cost of these plane tickets. And maybe whether I need to think of a vacation plan B since if we have to cancel this one, my family is going to be absolutely devastated.

We submitted our renewals on the first week of February. Received the passports after Memorial Day. Traveled to Israel in mid June - that was close!

[Anonymous]

From what I’ve heard, people are getting passports right before their travel date. It sounds like they are processing them in travel date order. R/passport on Reddit is very active, you may want to look in there and see how it’s going for others. I would try your rep’s office and see what they can do.

[Anonymous]

We did mid April for 2 adult and 2 child renewals. Got them mid May. Did pay to expedite there and expedite back. I guess we were really lucky. GL to you

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We did mid April for 2 adult and 2 child renewals. Got them mid May. Did pay to expedite there and expedite back. I guess we were really lucky. GL to you

We did not have any travel planned.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:From what I’ve heard, people are getting passports right before their travel date. It sounds like they are processing them in travel date order. R/passport on Reddit is very active, you may want to look in there and see how it’s going for others. I would try your rep’s office and see what they can do.

Looks like r/Passport went private. Think you meant r/Passports (with the s at the end):

https://old.reddit.com/r/Passports/

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:From what I’ve heard, people are getting passports right before their travel date. It sounds like they are processing them in travel date order. R/passport on Reddit is very active, you may want to look in there and see how it’s going for others. I would try your rep’s office and see what they can do.

I follow the Reddit mega thread and there are a lot of cases like that.

Oddly, I have heard several stories of people in no particular rush who did not expedite and received them recently in 3-4 weeks. Very odd.

I'm less than 2 weeks out from our travel date and still holding out hope that we will get them in time.