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UK passport renewal time - ŁŁŁ ouch

nick205 - 27/7/22 at 03:46 PM

[RANT]

Just had to send off renewals for mine and my 3 kids UK passports.

1. They'd all expired in 2021.
2. Eldest son is now 16 so moves from a child to adult passport (more expensive).
3. Twins are 14 1/2 yrs old so get another child passport valid for 5 years. From what I can see these will remain valid for the 5 years, then need renewing as adult passports.

A child passport (valid 5 years) is Ł49
An adult passport (valid 10 years) is Ł75.50
Also had to post each expired passport back using Royal Mail "Signed For" so another smudge of money

Just venting as life seems to be costing more and more by the minute right now

[/RANT]

Slimy38 - 27/7/22 at 04:04 PM

I wouldn't worry about it, it's not as if you can get anywhere through the jammed airports or via the traffic queues at Dover...

nick205 - 27/7/22 at 05:00 PM

True enough!

The twins happened to Nedd theirs as proof of ID earlier this year though. Their expired ones didn't count.

Epilepsy means I don't have a driving licence so again it's photographic proof of ID for me.

Eldest son is hoping to go abroad with a mate so needs a passport too.

David Jenkins - 27/7/22 at 06:10 PM

Get them ordered ASAP - there's currently a huge delay in processing applications...

nick205 - 27/7/22 at 06:22 PM

quote:
Originally posted by David Jenkins
Get them ordered ASAP - there's currently a huge delay in processing applications...

Sorry if I wasn't clear...they were ordered yesterday and expired passports returned today.

Aware there's a backlog.

Fortunately no immediate foreign travel plans.

Don't want to caught out if any of us do decide to travel. I have to occasionally for work for example.

Mr Whippy - 28/7/22 at 05:41 AM

I'm in the same boat except one less kid I'm curious how long it's going to take for them to arrive, summer seems a total shambles this year.

nick205 - 28/7/22 at 09:48 AM

quote:
Originally posted by Mr Whippy
I'm in the same boat except one less kid I'm curious how long it's going to take for them to arrive, summer seems a total shambles this year.

The Gov website says "10 week service".

When I phoned them to check this the guy indicated "14-16 weeks due to the backlog".

As above, cost aside, I've done all ours now to get them underway. No immediate foreign travel plans, but I need to be prepared for work and eldest son may want to try and go next summer so needs to be prepared as well.

indykid - 28/7/22 at 10:33 AM

I ordered a new passport at the end of March so we could maybe go away at Easter. When I applied, the website said 4weeks leadtime, by the time the application had been loaded and was progressing, the leadtime had gone up to 10 weeks. I rang to check which leadtime I should expect to be working on and they flat denied it ever said 4 weeks....a good start. I had family friends that had applied a fortnight before me and got their passport in 3 weeks.

In the meantime, I'd been asked to go on a work trip and I'd said the passport was applied for but I didn't know when it'd land. At 7 and a bit weeks into the application, work had to pay for the application to be fast tracked. They'll only fast track an application within 2 weeks of travel and you have to provide proof of your travel booking. It was Ł108 and amounts to the application being passed to one of the offices, you email them your travel booking proof and they triage based on travel date. I had a phone call with the Durham office to double check details, then it was approved, printed and posted out so I had it the day after the call with the office. Glad work picked up the fast track fee though!

If it's between missing a holiday and paying the fee, you have options at least, but I can't help thinking they're sand bagging applications to push people to use the fast track service. I think it's pretty reprehensible that they charge such an extortionate fee to cover their own failings to meet demand given everything is now conducted remotely.

nick205 - 28/7/22 at 12:16 PM

quote:
Originally posted by indykid
I ordered a new passport at the end of March so we could maybe go away at Easter. When I applied, the website said 4weeks leadtime, by the time the application had been loaded and was progressing, the leadtime had gone up to 10 weeks. I rang to check which leadtime I should expect to be working on and they flat denied it ever said 4 weeks....a good start. I had family friends that had applied a fortnight before me and got their passport in 3 weeks.

In the meantime, I'd been asked to go on a work trip and I'd said the passport was applied for but I didn't know when it'd land. At 7 and a bit weeks into the application, work had to pay for the application to be fast tracked. They'll only fast track an application within 2 weeks of travel and you have to provide proof of your travel booking. It was Ł108 and amounts to the application being passed to one of the offices, you email them your travel booking proof and they triage based on travel date. I had a phone call with the Durham office to double check details, then it was approved, printed and posted out so I had it the day after the call with the office. Glad work picked up the fast track fee though!

If it's between missing a holiday and paying the fee, you have options at least, but I can't help thinking they're sand bagging applications to push people to use the fast track service. I think it's pretty reprehensible that they charge such an extortionate fee to cover their own failings to meet demand given everything is now conducted remotely.

Doesn't sound unexpected to me really.

I looked into the "1 day fast track service". This was something like Ł179 and you had to try and make an appointment to physically visit a passport office (London for me). Travel cost + a day off work. You had to turn up with expired passport, photo and documentation.

If everything checked out they'd process there and then and give you your new passport.

not doing that even for myself, let-a-lone me and 3 kids

nick205 - 28/7/22 at 12:20 PM

I do wonder how long it'll be before there's the offer of humans being micro-chipped (our dog is in case she get's lost/stolen etc.).

When you want to travel abroad you simply get your chip scanned on the way through the border.

How many people would such a system up I wonder....?

rusty nuts - 28/7/22 at 07:13 PM

I made my passport application at a local post office earlier this month on a Monday ,was told 10 weeks. had an email the next day to say it had been recieved ,a day later to say it had been approved ,the next day to say it was being printed , the new one arrived the Tuesday the next week . Total time 8 days

nick205 - 29/7/22 at 08:56 PM

Got emails & texts confirming receipt of expired passports today. Will login to check progress next week.

coyoteboy - 30/7/22 at 11:32 PM

Mine was about 2 weeks last august, they quoted 10.

You now have the joy of not being able to go through european auto passport doofers, so enjoy the waiting in a 300 person "non-euro passport" queue like I have to each month.

nick205 - 31/7/22 at 12:36 PM

quote:
Originally posted by coyoteboy
Mine was about 2 weeks last august, they quoted 10.

You now have the joy of not being able to go through european auto passport doofers, so enjoy the waiting in a 300 person "non-euro passport" queue like I have to each month.

SWIMBO is American with US passport so has long queues on borders going pretty much any where. Very used to waiting!

coyoteboy - 1/8/22 at 07:37 AM

quote:
Originally posted by nick205
SWIMBO is American with US passport so has long queues on borders going pretty much any where. Very used to waiting!

Ah that's good practice. It was a shock for me

nick205 - 1/8/22 at 07:56 AM

quote:
Originally posted by coyoteboy

quote:
Originally posted by nick205
SWIMBO is American with US passport so has long queues on borders going pretty much any where. Very used to waiting!

Ah that's good practice. It was a shock for me .

Indeed, the change will be noticeable for UK travellers. As above kids & I have done a fair bit of waiting around for SWIMBO to get through her different (longer) queue in airports.

Even in ferry ports some of the passport checkers decide to take much longer. That can be frustrating for us (car full) and all the cars in the queue behind!

nick205 - 4/8/22 at 08:10 AM

Well....this is going better than planned, but some extra work required from me!

Notifications this morning:

2 of the 4 passports are approved, printed and with the delivery people ready to come back to me.

2 of the 4 passports require me to re-submit the digital photos for them (no biggy and can be sorted this evening online).

So it seems things move faster than I hoped and the passport service are a more responsive than expected!

coyoteboy - 4/8/22 at 08:20 AM

I think they are doing great with expectation management, it's the smart move.

nick205 - 5/8/22 at 06:41 AM

2 of 4 passports now received back by TNT 07:20am this morning!

Other 2 of 4 replacement photos taken and uploaded yesterday evening.

Progress is good so far!

nick205 - 6/8/22 at 05:19 AM

2nd 2 of 4 passports approved, being printed and sent.

Next week the job will be done!

Happy (and skint) now.

indykid - 6/8/22 at 04:22 PM

I wonder how many people are paying for fast track because they're quoting 16 weeks?

I appreciate they're damned if they do, damned if they don't but 2 week turnaround on 16 week quoted leadtime? That's a bit of a disparity!

Perhaps they had the decimal point in the wrong place and it was 1.4-1.6 weeks...

nick205 - 7/8/22 at 06:57 AM

All the above reported by me I've a work colleague waiting 12 weeks now on his + his daughters using the the service.

He's based near Peterborough though so his may be going through a different place perhaps?

Many differing reports out there!

scudderfish - 7/8/22 at 11:27 AM

Don't get me started on the electronic gates. Coming back to the UK, they fail for me every time and I have to go to the 'seek help' queue. I once asked the BF guy why this happened and he said that it's because my name (David Smith, the most common male name combo in the UK, there are approx 12,000 of us) is shared with some miscreants I'll always get flagged. I still go through the pantomime every time as I believe it is quicker than the other massive queue. What's the point of all the security around the production, antiforgery and machine readable parts if it boils down to "Your name is on a list"?

SteveWalker - 7/8/22 at 01:58 PM

quote:
Originally posted by indykid
I wonder how many people are paying for fast track because they're quoting 16 weeks?

I appreciate they're damned if they do, damned if they don't but 2 week turnaround on 16 week quoted leadtime? That's a bit of a disparity!

Perhaps they had the decimal point in the wrong place and it was 1.4-1.6 weeks...

To be fair. Simple renewals, where there is/was an existing passport and they already have all the relevant confirmatory data will be mainly automated and will fly through. Anything requiring manual intervention, paper documents, etc. is at a crawl, behind a backlog. The same is true for driving licences - my son's first application, as he already has a passport, went through in a week ... his elder brother, having a medical condition, took over a year.