Anyone recently applied for a passport ?

[Liveinthepresent]

My passport has expired and I went online to start an application - there is a message advising they are under pressure and to wait unless urgent.
I don't have travel booked at present but things may change and I don't like not having my main ID valid.
So would it be wrong of me to apply regardless and has anyone done so recently to give me an,idea of timescales ?
Thanks

@taybert

I did mine online by uploading a code from a photo booth and it didn’t ask for a counter signature but for DS who is 5 (a renewal too) they asked for an email address for someone who could verify his identity.

How long did it take between sending the old passports and then saying they’d been received? I’m getting twitchy!

I had notification today that they had received my DC old passport 🥳 (would've been received on 24th June, so about 9days between actual receipt & acknowledgement of receipt) Mine is a child renewal so I took my own photo & it was countersigned by email.

@FrankieKnuckles thanks, I won’t panic yet then (not much) 🤞for things moving quickly from now- would be interesting to know when you receive it as you’re about a week in front of me.

I did a first child passport for my daughter who was born end of Feb, it took approx 11 weeks but I have heard its moving quickly again now from others who have also applied.
The photo you upload online is emailed to the the person who is countersigning and its all done online now.
Dd's passport was processed at the Durham office.

@taybert I'll update on here my progress to keep u in the loop.
It's a bit twitchy as I've got til 16th July to re-schedule flights. After that I'm committed & will lose flight if passport doesn't arrive

@FrankieKnuckles fingers crossed! I wish I’d applied sooner now, would be so annoying to miss out now because of a passport problem.

@taybert so do I. I'd planned (pre-covid) to renew in April/May. Then when Covid happened I was watching online guidanve & waited for it to change, doing fast track if necessary.

Now I wish I'd done it months ago as planned.

Same here, in hindsight I should’ve just sent it, I guess the worst that could happen is it would sit in a pile, it just felt bad to send it when it said “do not apply unless...” when the unless didn’t apply to me. Anyway, too late now, can’t do anything about it. Will have to try to be zen and calm...

The plan to stay calm hasn’t worked, I was just looking for a recipe and typed “gooseberry passport” in to Google

I applied for the kids passport renewals on the 25th June. Only one required the photo to be verified so I sorted that. Both expired passports were received and signed for last Friday. No news since then except DD's is being processed. DS's online tracker hasn't been updated. Both passports went to a different office though. We have nothing booked, but would quite like them for August, just in case!

So I’ve had confirmation of one passport being received 8 days after sending, the other hasn’t been confirmed. Having just read a thread on AIBU whilst searching for this where there are multiple accounts of long waits of up to 3 months I’m resigning myself to the idea that the holiday just isn’t meant to be.

I renewed DD’s online last Wednesday and posted the old passport back same day. Have just had email confirmation that the new passport is on its way today by secure delivery.

Yay!

11 days, from online submission to receiving new passport. Did photo on phone on portrait setting. Really impressed with the speed and communication from passport office.

That’s really interesting @PuppyMonkey and @Keepyourginup. Do you mind me asking which offices you sent your old passports back to? I did ours online too.

I was told to send it to the Mission House in Newport address. Got the old one and new one back in post on same day.

Less than two weeks about three weeks ago. But a boring adult renewal with no changes. I sent it despite the ‘do not send’ message because we’re away from mid July. So glad I did!

Children's definitely need counter signing. You provide an e mail address of the person you want to countersign (you are obviously meant to let the person know before you provide their details) and then the passport office e mail them a link.....

Yep, did all that with the email straight away. We’ll see I guess!

I think mine went to Glasgow...?

Yeah mine went to Glasgow. DS’s went to Peterborough and I still await confirmation they’ve received the old one. Both straightforward renewals, one adult, one child. There’s about a million reasons we might not be able to go anyway, would just be annoying if it was the only one I had any control over!

Us too! Supposed to be going away 20 July; applied on line last Friday 3 July; currently biting knuckles to shreds

@tinkiiev and @taybert - any news?!

I need a lost one replaced and have 17 days 😬 I was planning to go to Newport for a face to face fast track one, when I booked the flight, then found out that the service has been suspended.

Feeling hopeless but also hopeful when I read the “back in two weeks” stories...

@ZiggeryZaggy not really. I sent both passports back on 27th June, mine was logged as received at Glasgow on 8th July then went to “processing” the next day. DS’s logged as received after 8pm on Friday (10th July) and hasn’t moved on to processing yet. There’s a twitter feed called @passportwaiting where they collate all the waiting times and it’s hugely variable, some are issued in 2 weeks, others are taking months. There’s no rhyme or reason I can see for the differences.

My DS's took about 3 weeks to come back but it's a red one, I was gutted, I wanted a blue one so that I'd be able to identify at least one passport nice and quickly at passport control!

Ha, yeah, I was thinking that I’d just hand DH the red ones and I’d have the blue ones and we’d know we’d got the right ones. Don’t really care right now, just need 4 valid passports in our possession. I could do with doing some planning for the holiday really as it’s a bit of a complicated road trip but I can’t really do that until we’ve got the passports. Already checked the tracker about 20 times today. Definitely need to calm down!

Did mine online, sending a photo taken on a phone. Sent my old one in the post the same day, to Glasgow. Got a message the next morning to say they had received it and my new passport arrived a few days later. All in, it took 9 days!

Very impressed with it all - just a shame that I don't need it now as holiday not going ahead At least it is ready for next year though