Renewing a US Passport

msmith1199 wrote:

bobsallyh wrote:
One thing to remember is that when renewing, you send your current passport in, don't plan to cross borders until you get it returned.

I didn't realize that until reading this thread. I wonder if there is a way around this? You have people who travel a lot for business and being stuck without being able to leave the country for a month may be difficult for them.

Pay for expedited processing either directly to a US passport agency or indirectly, to a for profit version. I get my passport renewed, normally within 2 days via government agencies, w/o worrying. Costs about 70 bucks more (last time was about 4 years back) and well worth it for the lack of stress. pretty sure you still have to show a ticket proving you are leaving/entering the country w/i a nearby time frame. Also works if you are out of the country and need to pick up at the embassy/ or outlying gov't office.
Have never had a problem getting a visa from another country if my itinerary proved I'd be in transit or had an application in process.

Still, never traveled in and out of the USA during the infamous "freedom fries" period so maybe I missed something.

happycamper002 wrote:

msmith1199 wrote:

I didn't realize that until reading this thread. I wonder if there is a way around this? You have people who travel a lot for business and being stuck without being able to leave the country for a month may be difficult for them.

Most countries won't give you visa if your passport is going to expire in a very short time span.

If you are a business traveler or tourist, you should know pretty much how long you are going to be out before coming back stateside.

Getting a passport before it expires will save you a lot of headaches.

I understand that. The point being some people travel all the time and may not be able to sit in the US for a month waiting for a new passport. For example airline pilots and crew members! So there must be a way to get around sending the old one in and waiting a month for the new one.

msmith1199 wrote:

I didn't realize that until reading this thread. I wonder if there is a way around this? You have people who travel a lot for business and being stuck without being able to leave the country for a month may be difficult for them.

Most countries won't give you visa if your passport is going to expire in a very short time span.

If you are a business traveler or tourist, you should know pretty much how long you are going to be out before coming back stateside.

Getting a passport before it expires will save you a lot of headaches.

bobsallyh wrote:
One thing to remember is that when renewing, you send your current passport in, don't plan to cross borders until you get it returned.

I didn't realize that until reading this thread. I wonder if there is a way around this? You have people who travel a lot for business and being stuck without being able to leave the country for a month may be difficult for them.

Just renewed mine, went online, downloaded the sheets required, filled them out. Then went to CVS and had pic taken, went home wrote a check for $110 and sent it off. Just got it back last week no issues.

Took my own photos, printed on color printer and sent in. Pretty easy to figure out the dimensions and get it right.

We renewed ours by mail in 2013. Looks like you still can.
https://travel.state.gov/content/passports/en/passports/renew.html

RedRocket204 wrote:
IIRC, expedited Passport renewal service requires a specific reason, like you already bought a plane ticket that is coming up very soon and you have proof that you must provide. In no way was there any pressure for expedited service renewing online, which I did 1 year ago.

As was already mentioned, just do the renewal process online as that is a federal website that guides you through the process and expect to be without a passport for about 30 days. You can also separately pay for expedited return shipping, different from the expedited passport handling service.

Our experience renewing more than once has been different -- there was a push to pay extra for the "expedited" service, reminding us that standard service might take 6 weeks or more. However, in actual fact, non-expedited service has always taken only 3-4 weeks for us to receive our new passports.

We used AAA+ RV. Didn't know that passport photos were available there, but they were.

I am not sure if every location has cameras set up for this purpose (I didn't know Costco did passport photos as I never asked) but it was free with our triple A membership premier RV.

IIRC, expedited Passport renewal service requires a specific reason, like you already bought a plane ticket that is coming up very soon and you have proof that you must provide. In no way was there any pressure for expedited service renewing online, which I did 1 year ago.

As was already mentioned, just do the renewal process online as that is a federal website that guides you through the process and expect to be without a passport for about 30 days. You can also separately pay for expedited return shipping, different from the expedited passport handling service.