Hey! The expedited passport I applied for on 29 June arrived earlier today. Woohoo!
Counting the 29th, that's 12 days, including two weekends and the Fourth of July. It came from the New Orleans office.
The lesson in all this: Apply as soon as possible, spring for expedited processing, and cross your fingers.
That's super news!! I've been reading some sad stories on this site and other travel sties about 6 months and nothing!
Beats me if it was a fluke or a sign of good things to come. Maybe it's the result of those 250 State Department folks returning from overeas assignments who were ordered to forget about their home leave and go process applications. That's no small sacrifice on their part. Home leave for people who been working overseas for years is important. It's when you buy a house, or see what the renters did to the house you already own, get the kids in school, take care of lingering medcal issues, and get used to living in the U.S. again. If one of those people processed my application, I say thanks and I hope you get first choice for your next post.
People who use Expedited Service are receiving theirs within the 3-week time-frame and more often sooner. I was able to change my staus to 'expedited' and my passport is on a local fed-ex truck for delivery today!!! My advice - Don't be a Sheep!
My passport was just delivered to my door by Fed-Ex- 72 hours from my 1st phone call!! Here is a very helpful link:
http://whirledview.typepad.com/whirledview/2007/07/passports-conti.html
My family of 4 applied on 4/21, without expediting. We got them last week, 11 weeks later and 2 weeks before we need to travel. The interesting thing is that 3 were issued on 7/3/07, and 1 on 7/4/07. I think this means they are working 24 hours a day, even on holidays. Thank you, passport people!
Marina - Massachusetts
