Quick Passport Turnaround-UPDATE About This Page:

[statelady01]

Believe it or not, DH's passport came today- this is just less than 2 weeks from when we applied! We both are shocked! Now, we just wait for mine...

[ 09-22-2003, 09:17 PM: Message edited by: statelady01 ]

[*Pixie*Dust*]

Sometimes the government surprises you.
I applied for mine on 11/5/01 less than two months after 9/11 and was told it could take as long as 8 weeks to arrive.
It arrived on 11/14/01 [img]images/icons/shocked.gif[/img] !
Hopefully yours will arrive this week. [img]images/icons/smile.gif[/img]

[AKLRULZ]

Wow that was a quick turnaround - I think mine took like 4 weeks and my wife's like 5 or 6. Strange how two apps processed at the same time with the same last name can get lost in the buracracy?!

I know you're excited about the upcoming trip! [img]images/icons/smile.gif[/img]

[wdwlovers]

That's cool Maureen! Hope yours comes soon. I think mine took about 4 weeks to get. [img]images/icons/grin.gif[/img]

[statelady01]

Mine came today and yup, picture still looks hideous. But at least now, it's offically hideous. [img]images/icons/grin.gif[/img]

[Bert & Sully]

Maureen they are SUPPOSED TO look like that. [img]images/icons/wink.gif[/img]

[Grumpygal]

That was pretty quick. Now that you've mentioned passports - I think I accidentially let mine expire. I better check but I think it expired this July. Now I'll have to go through all the hoops to get a new one as opposed to just renewing. Darn. [img]images/icons/wink.gif[/img]

[chezp]

Maureen, it's great to hear both you and DH now have your passports - now you're all set for your visit! [img]images/icons/wink.gif[/img]

[simbarel]

Awesome! Isn't it fun! Mine came back fairly quickly. DF only had to renew his, but it took forever! I think it's because he was born in Germany. I'm soooo jealous that you're going to London. I think I'm going to Hawaii in February, but I'd much rather go to Europe again! Have fun with your Passporter meet, too!

[stretch2864]

I was reading the Mpls. Star Tribune and there was an article by one of the reporters there about getting a passport in a hurry. She lists a couple of different agencies which can expedite the process so thought I would post the article here.
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Passports, visas and when you need 'em fast
Catherine Watson

Published September 28, 2003 PPTR28



Two terms I hate to see in the same sentence: "last-minute" and "passport."

I had to utter just such a sentence in June, about 10 days before I planned to leave for Lebanon. The reason was complicated.

Lebanon is a small, pretty country with a lot of hospitable people -- despite its reputation -- but it is part of the Middle East, and its southern border with Israel continues to be troubled.

Here's the catch that caught me: You can't enter Lebanon if there's an Israeli stamp in your passport. A number of countries in the region have the same policy.

I thought I'd cleverly dodged this issue when I went to Israel four years ago. I went to neighboring Jordan first, because Jordan does not have such a restriction, and went into Israel from there, crossing the River Jordan at the Allenby Bridge.

I left the same way. The Israelis, who know the regional rules many of their neighbors play by, did not stamp my passport in or out.

In early June, with the Lebanon trip looming, I got a little nervous and decided to cross-check with my travel agent, just to make extra-sure.

Sorry, she said, you got an exit stamp from Jordan, and everybody knows there's only one place you can go after you cross the Allenby Bridge.

Even without an Israeli stamp, then, my passport would still prove I'd been in Israel.

My heart sank. That passport is one of my treasured possessions. I keep it up to date, and I keep it with me, the way I carry a driver's license. It's the best identification you can have.

Besides, I like knowing that I could go anywhere in the world on a moment's notice. That's never happened, but I'm ready. A more practical advantage is that I never have to search the house for my passport the night before a trip. It's already in my purse.

Now that precious little blue book, with two full years to go before it expired, was useless. I'd have to get a new one -- lightning-quick -- if I wanted to go to Lebanon. And I wanted to go. It was a trip I'd been wanting to take for 40 years.

Fast and faster

I was going to Beirut, the capital, for a college reunion. Forty years ago, I was one of nine Minnesotans in Lebanon on a unique summer program called SPAN -- Student Project for Amity Among Nations. (It's still in operation, giving undergraduates at Minnesota colleges a chance to do research overseas each summer.)

For decades, we had promised ourselves that we'd go back to Beirut when the region calmed down. Last spring, several of us decided we weren't going to wait any longer.

One of the group put it more succinctly than the rest. "The way I look at it," said David Minge, the former congressman who is now an appeals court judge, "it's always going to be dicey there." I agreed.

Just before I found out that my passport was useless, I had laid out $1,700 for a nonrefundable air ticket. I didn't want to waste that money by getting turned away when I arrived at the Beirut airport.

But I didn't have the time -- usually two to six weeks -- to get a new passport through the mail.

The U.S. Passport Agency has branch offices in 13 cities around the country. If you're in one of those cities, you can go in person and get a new passport lickety-split. Minneapolis isn't one of those cities.

When I stopped panicking, I turned to a visa service. These are private companies whose business consists of walking your paperwork through the right embassies, consulates and other government agencies -- including branches of the U.S. Passport Agency. Their job is to cut through red tape faster than you could.

I've used two in the past: Travel Document Systems, Inc., http://www.traveldocs.com, and Zierer Visa Service, http://www.zvs.com. I beelined for Zierer because it has more offices. This time, I noticed it had one in Chicago, a city that also boasts a U.S. passport agency branch. It seemed cozily close.

I phoned Zierer's Chicago number and got a human being, first try. He told me what to send: new passport pictures; a personal letter to the U.S. Passport Agency explaining who I was, when I was leaving and why I needed a new passport since the old one was still good; a personal letter authorizing Zierer to take care of this for me; a form that had to be filled out and notarized at the courthouse, as well as my beloved old passport.

He also told me what it would cost: $232, for passport fees and expedited service, plus Zierer's fee and return Federal Express charges. (If I could have walked in on my own, or dared to risk doing it by mail, the passport agency itself would have charged about half that. But beggars can't be choosers.)

I knew it would be fast, but the speed this time was startling. Two days after I Fed Ex'ed everything to Zierer, I had my new passport in my hands. Two days! I was amazed.

The old one came back, too, as a souvenir, but with a hole punched all the way through it so it could never be reused.

The night we flew into Beirut, I handed my virgin passport to a young immigration officer at the airport and held my breath. Would he guess the reason why it was so completely, utterly blank?

He leafed through it. Leafed through it again. Leafed through it a third time. Finally, to my great relief, he reached for a stamp and handed it back with a smile. The visa was good for a 15-day visit, and the rest of the trip was smooth as silk.

Catherine Watson is at cwatson@startribune.com.