AIBU not knowing what to do about holiday debacle (child passport renewal)...

[Flockameanie]

I've been posting about our debacle of trying to renew DS's passport on the Holidays board.

In short, we're due to go on holiday in 8 days. DS's passport renewal may, or may not, arrive on time. We have no way of knowing. Flights are on EasyJet, accommodation is indepenently booked. Up to the end of today, I can change the date on the flights for no fee. From tomorrow onwards it will cost £350 to change them. I can change them up to 2hrs before the flight. We've paid a deposit on the accommodation (Abourt £300) that we'll lose if we change or cancel.

My AIBU is that I don't know what to do and I'm so bloody stressed. Mostly about potentially having to tell the DC, who are so excited about this holiday, that it's cancelled.

Options:

1. Sit tight and hope passport arrives. Do nothing. If by the night before it hasn't arrived, change flights (for £350) for some random date in future. Lose deposit on villa
2. Cut our losses now. Change flights to some random date in the future. Cancel villa. Only loss is villa deposit.

What do I do?? I'm so stressed about it all I can't think straight...

Ok if you cancel the flights now, can you wait to cancel the accommodation until you've spoken to the passport tomorrow? That way if you get told it'll be weeks, then you've only lost the accommodation deposit, and if you're told it's in the post you can hopefully rebook similarly priced flights for the same dates?

Or does the accommodation also need cancelling today?

Ignore the above post. I thought they’d sent me the old passport back and documents. I’ve been so busy with work I filed it on the book case and we have her new passport! So it must have arrived on Saturday or Monday.

So I would say there is still hope 🤞🏻

Move flights out now. Move them back if the passport comes in time.

Applied 20/01/2022

Docs Received - 02/02/2022

Approved - 12/02/2022

Dispatched - 14/02/2022

Received - 15/02/2022

Current average waiting time for child renewal is 25.20 Days

I think you will be fine

My babies passport arrived 11 days after I got an email advising the documents had been received. So fingers crossed yours wouldn't take too much longer xx

I have a family member waiting in their child's first passport and they were told on the phone that the wait time has increased to 8 weeks due to the number of visas that they are now processing. Apparently they won't let it go beyond 10 weeks.
I appears that the wait time is increasing every day!
If I were you I would change your dates now while you can still recoup some money.

I’ve recently renewed my passport and it has sat it processing application for a month . I would try and change the dates.

To add - I applied for my babys passport a month before they did and it came within 4 weeks, but that was before the crisis in Ukraine.

I’d bite the bullet and cancel now, unlikely you’ll receive it in time and your going to worry yourself half to death.
Book something in the uk, kids won’t care at that age.

Just in case it's a different telephone number I have used 0300 123 1973 and got through with a variety of wait times over the last 2 months. They have current delays at the printing stage too which isn't great. If the wait time when you applied online said 3 weeks I would keep saying that to them and also use the fact you clearly got terrible advice and went to an appointment at the passport office. Have they said if it's with an assessor? My slight concern would be if there's now going to be a further delay due to trying to stop the process. I really hope you can get some answers. If it helps I told them on the phone last week on Monday that if the passport wasn't printed that day I couldn't see how it could possibly get to us (internationally) before it was urgently required. The person I spoke to said there was no way of that happening and then went away to look into something. The (Skype) call dropped or I was cut off and I couldn't call back straightaway (I had been on the phone for 1h1m when it dropped). Before I had time to call later the email saying it's been printed and dispatched to courier arrived and DHL delivered it on Saturday. I was able to use business travel, whole family livelihood depending on it and no option to do fast track from abroad, keep telling them the published waiting time at the beginning of the process and the fact they sent you down a rabbit hole with the in person appointment and see if it does any good.

Thanks @TheTeenageYears. DH has been doing all of it as I'm so busy with work and have been for the past month or so. He has been chasing frequently and now that he's been promised a call back he's reluctant to try a different number again today. If it were me, I'd be calling and not getting off the phone until I had some answers. But I can't do that at the moment because of work, so I have to leave it in his hands.

I'm glad to hear yours all worked out in the end! There are some quite encouraging stories on this thread, which means my heart is saying to steel myself and that it'll work out ok in the end. But my head knows that the sensible thing is just to cancel now and cut our losses. The kids will be so disappointed though and I feel like the past two years have been a series of micro-disappointments from all the things that have been cancelled or postponed.

There are various reasons they're excited to go to where we're supposed to be going that aren't really relevant to this thread. A holiday in the UK wouldn't be the same, although it would be a bit of a consolation. I've been doing some searching in spare moments between meetings and everything decent-yet-affordable is, unsurprisingly, booked up for the Easter holidays though...

How much impact would losing the £350 have on your family finances? If it’s not a great deal I’d hold out and hope.

@123walrus we can swallow the cost. More of a bloody annoyance than a crippling financial issue.

I guess another consideration is that by just cutting losses now we can move on with our lives and make alternative fun plans for that week. Might even be able to find a UK break. If we wait until the very last minute to cancel we'll a) have to pay the fee and b) will probably have left it too late to make any decent alternative plans. Oh, and c) telling the DC the day before we leave will likely be a lot more misery-inducing than telling them now. Not least because I'll have to go through the motions of being excited and planning/ packing with them when inside I'll be beside myself with stress about whether the passport arrives.

I'm beginning to talk myself round to just cutting losses, rebooking for Christmas and spending the next few days hustling to find alternative fun things to do so that when we tell the kids I have something to sweeten the blow with.

Can you not rebook for may half term or even summer hols

We (DH & I) applied for our renewals 11 days ago and got the “they’re being printed” email yesterday.

At the same time we applied for 2x first child passports. ID was confirmed 7 days ago and birth certs sent recorded delivery 6 days ago. We know they received them (sent recorded delivery) but the online system is still saying “please send your documents”.

Thankfully we don’t travel till end of July, but there definitely doesn’t seem to be any rhyme or reason to the differences in processing time that people are experiencing.

Here’s the timeline of our application earlier this month. It then arrived on 15/03.

I had the email saying mine was being printed on 26th March and it arrived today. Horrible picture.

I applied for my daughter first passport on the 27th February and it arrived at our house today.

Can you contact the villa and see if they will transfer your deposit to a new date ?

I applied for.my DD passport renw 23 Feb it arrived 16th March..On line Application with no verification of photo as she's 14. From it's been accepted to arrival.was 4 days . Still awaiting old one back.

I think you've been really unlucky not to receive it back yet.
My DS's arrived two days ago after applying online on March 6th. The only notifications I received was that they'd received the old passport on the 16th and then it was being printed on the 28th. It arrived in the post the next day!
I'll keep everything crossed for you.

Thanks for the hopeful stories. In two days it’ll be a month since we know they received the application/ documents.

Applied 19th feb, passport arrived there on 21st but not shown as received until 3rd March. Shown as approved 9th March and posted 10th March. Arrived 12th March.

We’ve decided to steel ourselves, not cancel yet and hope it turns up in the next week.

Keep everything crossed for us mumsnet!

Good luck!