How to get a fast track passport appointment

[Illstartexercisingtomorrow]

Hi - anyone know how to get one of these?

I’ve tried all sorts of times including midnight and early hours but I keep getting the ‘no availability’ message.

I think its just a case of trying throughout the day to see if slots come up

I'm wondering this too as I need to renew my passport in the summer. The problem is I fly every 2-3 weeks for work and at the moment the only gap I have is in August.

We got an appointment for my daughter's boyfriend after her mate had let her down on a holiday . We checked in the evening, that seemed to be when new appointments were released and managed it quite easily . He went for his appointment last Friday and was told he would receive his passport back in 8 days , this was for a lost passport by the way ,I don't know if it would be different for a brand new one .
He received it back yesterday 3 working days later , it was due back on the 8th June and are flying on the 15 th .
It was a great service but nerve racking , good luck 🤞🏻

Theres a fantastic twitter been set up called

"Tweets when a UK gov passport service is online"

If you follow it and turn on notifications you'll get a message when the fast track service comes online with new appointments. The last few days fast track appointments have been realieased around 1600 and go quickly. The online appointment slots seem to be coming out quite early in the day.

You need to pay when you book your appointment so make sure you have your bank card handy.

Good luck!

Mine appeared on a Tuesday morning just after 8am - after a sweaty 2 days (and nights) of pressing refresh. Just keep trying.

When the slot comes up you have 15 mins warning before you need to start your application. Top tip - have a decent digital passport photo ready or you’ll have to take your own on your mobile phone and mine is the worst passport photo ever, genuinely. You also need your credit card and old passport. And be prepared to travel to pick it up - only Belfast or Newport had appointments for weeks.

But phew! I now have my passport. And BA haven't cancelled the flight. Yet…

Omg this sounds so harrowing.

thabks for all the tips. I’ll keep trying!

Anyone know if appointments in London crop up or is idiot dh going to have to schlep across the country?

You need to follow the bot that @IwillrunIwillfly has mentioned.

I’ve noticed there seems to be Premium early in the morning and Fast Track later in the day.

Appts the last 2 days have been mostly for Newport or Glasgow, with a couple for Durham.

Are these appointments just for renewal or lost? Really concerned about baby DS first passport.

The appointments are for all types of passport applications

@Illstartexercisingtomorrow How did you get on? I'm in this position today - am following the Bot mentioned above but would be interested to know how you got on, please?

In case it helps, I used the twitter bot (thank you!) and dh got an appt in London pretty much as soon as he got onto the website yesterday morning.

@titchy brilliant - thanks so much! I'm 'on it' today!! Wish me luck

Thank you so much to the posters that mentioned the Twitter Bot - and the 4pm timeframe! Just managed to get an appointment in London. Really happy and wouldn't have happened if I'd not read this thread - thank you! 😘

You can't get fast track for a baby, just so you know. There is one slightly faster service but the passport still comes by post.

My husband sent his off beginning of May and it was back in 2 weeks. Just needed renewing as it had expired very straight forward. My dad as well he did his in Feb and back within 3 weeks.
Hopefully you get yours back quickly.

Fab!

@WhatHaveIFound I don't know the ins and outs of it but a lot of frequent business travellers I've worked with hold two British passports for e.g. when one is in for a visa application for weeks. Might be something worth looking into, perhaps you could get a second passport initially rather than an actual replacement? They have different passport numbers though so you do have to be careful which passport you register for each flight.

I had a one week fast track appointment on Monday.

They release the appointments three weeks before. I spent most of the day refreshing the passport appointment page until the appointments came up, took a number of hours but I did it.

I just read they turning away people even with appointments unless travel is within next few days....a total mess....!!!

I finally managed to find a gap in my diary and have booked an online premium service appointment this morning (seems the slots are released at 8am). Picking up early next month so fingers crossed everything goes ok!