Greek citizens living in the UK - How the hell did you manage to renew your passport?

[BreeTown]

Last time I made an appointment to renew my passport with the Greek Embassy in London I had no issues and booked an appointment easily enough.

This time around the website says they release appointments every Friday at 12:00.
Three Fridays in a row I have tried to book an appointment and every single time the appointments are gone in seconds.
I am clicking like mad on any slot available.
I am not even looking at dates or times.

Is there a magic browser? A telephone number they don't tell you about? A waiting list I can put myself on for cancellations?

What you are meant to do if you can never get an appointment booked! Stuck in the UK forever?! 😭

hi I have the same problem as well they won't even pick up the phone or reply to my email if you found any solution please let me know

@ak1230 I am thinking of flying to Greece and try and renew it there and hope for the best that they don't take forever.
The situation is just ridiculous. At this day and and age you should be able to renew online, without needing an appointment and not having to travel to the Greek Embassy. I don't even live near there.

Hi there,

Did you manage to finally get an appointment? I'm struggling with the exact same thing at the moment 😣 - it's ridiculous!

No, I gave up in the end. I am going to Greece to try and renew there.
I am a dual national (never used my other nationality before) so I thought fuck it I am going to try and see if I can get a passport with my other citizenship. Long story short I managed to get an appointment and gather all the paperwork I needed to get a passport with them at least.

It's disgraceful really. I am wondering if someone is using bots to book up all the appointments and sell them on or the UK has indeed lots of greeks that need passport renewal!

I got so desperate I even phoned relatives and friends back home to see if they know someone who knows someone who has any connections with the Greek Embassy in London. It's who you know after all more often than not in Greece 🙄😂
And no..I had no luck in that regard either...

Hiya,

Thanks for getting back to me!

I just wanted to add an update here for anyone who reads this.

I have managed to get an appointment at the Greek embassy for passport renewal. However, it appears you need quick reflexes for this lol. The appointment slots are indeed released at 12pm every Friday, BUT (I kid you not), they all disappeared within a minute and 2 seconds! I had a stopwatch on. At 12:00:05pm, I refreshed the page, logged in and quickly selected any date available. When I clicked on one in April, it showed to be already booked, went back, clicked one in May - same thing happened 🙄 So I went to July and selected one and it was available. Bear in mind this all happened within a few seconds - it was unreal. Everyone must be so desperate for an appointment, it disappears so quickly.

Long story short, definitely use a computer with good Internet. Be ready at 11:59am, and refresh the page every few seconds until the slots show. Book the first one you can get your hands on! Good luck!

My husband is also dual national and had to go back to renew in person. Their systems are from the 70s and impossible.

Not Greek but in similar position re my passport renewal. It seems this one company has snapped up all consular services, and they are not fit for purpose. It's an effing joke. Started the process 2 months before my renewal date, and they have yet to confirm my appointment, apparently cannot find me by my email address, but I cannot change the appointment (to a time that doesn't require me to get up at 4 in the morning to drive 200 miles) cuz it says I already have one and they didn't send the required unique ref no to be able to change it. Guess I should count myself lucky to have an appointment at all.

Which nationality passport renewal are you applying for?

I don't think it's just a Greek issue - I'm Dutch and in 2022 I travelled to the Netherlands twice to get my kids their first adult Dutch passports. Started trying to get appointments 6 months ahead but no joy, so I had to do it that way.

Fortunately that route is very efficient - you go through the online checks to find out what paperwork you need, you upload it, they confirm that it's all present and correct and give you access to the appointment booking portal. You book, you rock up with your paperwork (has to be originals but this is made very clear) including photos, pays your money, come back 3 days later to get your passport. We made it into a mini holiday. But - and it's a biggie - you have to be able to afford to do that and not everyone can. There's a racket going on in the UK, no doubt about it.

Dutchie here too, @pointythings did you go through that company VSF Global? Previously the embassy always just sent it back by post, but now apparently (going by the website from VSF) I have to make another 400 mile round trip to pick it up again in a designated time slot some time between 1 adn 2 pm.

@FabulousFryingpan when I was trying to sort things for my kids, neither the embassy nor VSF global had slots. And VSF global charge more, which is shocking since Embassy costs are already so high. Silver lining of having to do the Schiphol route is that the passport costs a good deal less and that I could fill up my car with tasty Dutch goodies, but that really doesn't work if you don't live in East Anglia. I can't believe they don't do post any more. My kids have US nationality as well and my DS needed a US passport to travel there (he's there now) and they were ultra efficient - tons of bookable slots, passport sent by post. Took less than a week.

@pointythings Thanks. It's utterly ridiculous, isn't it? I should have gone the Schiphol route as well, at least I'm only 30 minutes from an airport, though it's probably £300 or so to fly on a return ticket (and last time I did I was bumped off the return flight as well, that was May 2022). But my youngest brother had a hip replacement and the oldest one ended in hospital and rehab after a TIA/broken vertebrae (resulting from fall from TIA) so could have done a visit for a few days. But blimmin' 'eck, the expense!

@FabulousFryingpan my passport has just over 3 years on it and right now I'm working on the assumption that I'm going to have to do the Schiphol thing at that point. So I'll get someone in to mind my cats and just do it, probably mid October so I can bring back a load of tasty Sinterklaas goodies.

Hope they get it sorted by the next 10 year renewal (when I'm nearly 71, booyah!).

Sorry guys, to derail the Greek mysteries!

Thank you for the update!

I have booked flights to visit family in Greece in a few months so I am going to try and renew there. If no joy I will give the Greek embassy another go, maybe things will calm down after the summer.

Kinda glad to see that it's sort of a universal thing and not just the incompetency of us Greeks when it comes to efficiently running anything 😂