If you need to renew your US passports this year, read my story.
The passports for my wife and I expire this year in September. Since we plan to travel to South America in June, we applied for new ones in March. At the time, the website said it was taking 10-12 weeks to do renewals. Little did I know there was more to it than that.
Since they are very important documents, I paid for tracking when they were mailed. They arrived 2 days after they were sent. Based on this date, I was sure we would get the new ones in time.
A couple weeks later I went online and checked the status. It said it would be at least 4 weeks before they would be logged into the system. Also, the processing time was 10-12 weeks. I was concerned about this. If they were done in 10 weeks we were ok. Not if it was 12.
I called the number on the website and spoke to a gentleman who stated the 10-12 week time frame was based on when I sent them in. This seemed odd but I accepted his word. This was about 2 weeks ago.
Yesterday I felt I needed to call again to ask if I should pay an additional fee to expedite the process. After being on hold for 3 hours and 19 minutes, I finally spoke to someone. She told me the 10-12 weeks is based on when they renewals were logged into their system. As of the day we were speaking, she said the new passports would probably be received in late July. Needless to say, I asked if I could do the expedited service.
She stated I should do it if I want them in time. (As of today, we leave in 3 weeks and 6 days.) Also, she said IF (emphasis on if) they decided to accept the expedited service, they should be done within 4 weeks. Since it seemed we had little choice, I offered my credit card to pay the fees.
I should mention they will only speak to the adult for each passport. Therefore, I had to do a 3 way call since my wife wasn’t at home. I guess this is good for our security but it was a nuisance at the time. My time with the phone agent was 10 minutes.
I am happy to say that yesterday the application status website had USPS tracking numbers. Oddly enough, today they don’t appear. However, the application status is Approved. Also, they should arrive by late next week. (I also paid for 2 day mailing.)
Im simply sharing my experience in hopes someone else will have a smoother time of it. If you need to renew your US passport this year, do it sooner than later.
May 22, 2021 at 5:10 PM
****Update****
The new passports arrived today. Not the old ones though.
