Passport issues July/August 2023 thread

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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.

OP here. Did you call to try and get an in person appointment, since your now two weeks? Or just sitting tight and hoping for the best?

I am trying to be chill about this but it's hard. Our plane tickets are non-refundable or transferable (it's the only way we could afford international flights). Everything else we'd get our money back but everyone involved will be extremely sad. We do not travel internationally very often and this was to be a special trip we saved up for.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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/

Thank you to you both for this, I'll check it out. A friend at State also said a lot of people are getting them right before travel date. If I need to cancel accommodations and other costs and get refunded, I'd need at least a couple days notice, though.

Trying to figure out if there are many people who simply don't get them and can't travel. It seems like most stories are stressful but turn out okay, though some involve flying cross country to get them in person and I honestly don't know if we have the funds/ability to do that.

[Anonymous]

There was a story in the Post last week about a dad who missed his daughter’s wedding due to not getting his passport in time.

Fwiw, I renewed by kids’ passports the first week in Feb (but for kids it’s like a new application) and got them back end of March/early April. Did not pay to expedite.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

OP here. Did you call to try and get an in person appointment, since your now two weeks? Or just sitting tight and hoping for the best?

I am trying to be chill about this but it's hard. Our plane tickets are non-refundable or transferable (it's the only way we could afford international flights). Everything else we'd get our money back but everyone involved will be extremely sad. We do not travel internationally very often and this was to be a special trip we saved up for.

Not yet, just sitting tight but will certainly go that route if we're only a few days away.

[Anonymous]

ok, today 7/24/2023 the travel.state.gov website tells me my passport application that I submitted about June 10th has been approved. I paid to expedite it and it's still taken about 7 weeks. It went to the Philadelphia office. Haven't actually received the new book yet, but I paid for express delivery for that too.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

OP here. Did you call to try and get an in person appointment, since your now two weeks? Or just sitting tight and hoping for the best?

I am trying to be chill about this but it's hard. Our plane tickets are non-refundable or transferable (it's the only way we could afford international flights). Everything else we'd get our money back but everyone involved will be extremely sad. We do not travel internationally very often and this was to be a special trip we saved up for.

Not yet, just sitting tight but will certainly go that route if we're only a few days away.

I am the PP, crazy I just checked again and now it's approved. My wife's is still in process, but I sent everything at the same time so hopefully her's will be approved soon .

[Anonymous]

OP here and happy to see the positive updates. We have one too! I just logged on and my DC's passport is approved. I was literally in the process of updating to expedited shipping (it was too late for upgrading to expedited processing to make a difference, according to the call center) but now won't even bother because we're still 3 weeks from travel and it's supposed to be here by next Friday.

So our total processing time with regular (not expedited) processing was 14 weeks plus shipping. This is actually only slightly outside what they are reporting is standard (10-13 weeks) so in retrospect I think going regular processing was a totally fine choice. It's just hard when you get to within a month of travel and you still don't have it, when you applied what seemed like very well in advance.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP here and happy to see the positive updates. We have one too! I just logged on and my DC's passport is approved. I was literally in the process of updating to expedited shipping (it was too late for upgrading to expedited processing to make a difference, according to the call center) but now won't even bother because we're still 3 weeks from travel and it's supposed to be here by next Friday.

So our total processing time with regular (not expedited) processing was 14 weeks plus shipping. This is actually only slightly outside what they are reporting is standard (10-13 weeks) so in retrospect I think going regular processing was a totally fine choice. It's just hard when you get to within a month of travel and you still don't have it, when you applied what seemed like very well in advance.

OP - I am so happy you have a good update. ITA on the rest. This seems to be an ongoing problem that Congress should address.

[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.

How would they even know? When I renewed our passports, I didn’t have a trip planned, nor was there a place to note one that I recall.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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.

How would they even know? When I renewed our passports, I didn’t have a trip planned, nor was there a place to note one that I recall.

There is a line on the form which asks if you have a travel date.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP here and happy to see the positive updates. We have one too! I just logged on and my DC's passport is approved. I was literally in the process of updating to expedited shipping (it was too late for upgrading to expedited processing to make a difference, according to the call center) but now won't even bother because we're still 3 weeks from travel and it's supposed to be here by next Friday.

So our total processing time with regular (not expedited) processing was 14 weeks plus shipping. This is actually only slightly outside what they are reporting is standard (10-13 weeks) so in retrospect I think going regular processing was a totally fine choice. It's just hard when you get to within a month of travel and you still don't have it, when you applied what seemed like very well in advance.

I would upgrade the shipping if it's still possible.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

How would they even know? When I renewed our passports, I didn’t have a trip planned, nor was there a place to note one that I recall.

There is a line on the form which asks if you have a travel date.

Oh I never noticed. I just always renew when it’s within 6-9 months.

[Anonymous]

Applied for first time passports for my kids on April 2nd, just got them delivered three days ago (July 24th). Did not have any travel planned, didn't write anything for planned travel on the form. So, 14ish weeks, non-expedited.

[Anonymous]

Just so you know, the congressional inquiry cases gum up the system for everyone else. Instead of having people who could be doing other work towards processing, the agencies are having to devote staff just to find the paperwork for each specific case from within the big stack of applications.

[Anonymous]

We booked a cheap hotel in Mexico to get the process going with a date 2 weeks out. No need to show plane tickets because you can say you’re going to drive. We have no intention of going to Mexico, we’re really going to Italy.