Passport renewal: 32 page size or 52?

If you have ever had to deal with getting pages added you would know. If you haven't, you probably don't need it.
The cost and time to add pages in later on is worth considering. If you are in a hurry and need to pay expedite fees it can add up.
What drives the need for added pages are visits to countries that require entry Visas. Also, some countries like to try and snag a page for their stamps. What is comical is when an agent decides to put their stamp on a page that has already been "claimed" by another country.
WRT bulk, it's a nonissue as far as I am concerned. I prefer one with the added pages since I have a tendency to carry mine in my pocket. The thicker PP holds up better.

I opted for more pages on my last renewal because I was almost denied boarding for a flight to Indonesia because the gate agent thought I had no pages remaining. She found one. I didn't want that to happen again. I've visited a number of countries that require a blank page for their visa.

another fun and interesting fact learned, curtesy of the Forum. Thank you.

You mentioned that the longer passport is the same price, so I would just get it.
BTW, it's not just visas that requires space in your passport, it gets stamped very time I enter Schengen & every time I leave the area. Funny comment about passport officers looking for THEIR page! So true, they shuffle through my passport looking for the Schengen 'pages'. I had not thought of that.
I haven't had one of those thin things since I had to go into an embassy to get extra pages added. OHH the bulk, ha, I hadn't noticed!

i just sent my passport in for renewal and i reviewed my travels over the last 9 years. I still had plenty of pages left over, but I was struck by a curious observation. I had only one page taken up by a short term visa from a 20 hour stopover in Ireland, The rest were all entry and exit stamps from Schengen. Most of my stamps were for entry and exit from either Switzerland or Germany. They were all neatly in a row filling 4 on each page in the outlined spots. Then there the ones from the time I entered and exited from Malpensa, nonchalantly stamped right in the middle of two adjacent pages. I wonder if that is any statement of the cultural differences between north and south.

If you have ever had to deal with getting pages added you would know

I did add pages once, in 1989, but it is no longer allowed. I believe it was free to do it and they were glued into the middle folding out accordion style into one long strip, with an embossed State Dept seal over the glued part. That was a time of great travel, and a stamp for each country of Europe. I imagine traveling like that again but who knows. Bed bugs and diarrhea aren't as appealing as they used to be.

Most of my stamps were for entry and exit from either Switzerland or Germany. They were all neatly in a row filling 4 on each page in the outlined spots

Same for me, even with 6 trips to Europe on this passport, it's only 3 pages of stamps. And with Global Entry there are no more US return stamps.

Interesting question just for fun. In 2019, I opted for the extra pages. I have 44 pages available for stamps and after 4 1/2 years, 16 are full. That is 1.5 years of no travel and then a lot.

Today with the electronic arrival and departure "stamps" the need for blank pages is diminishing.

You can no longer add pages to current passports. If you travel a lot and use lots of pages, it might be best to get the one that comes with more pages. There is no difference in cost.

The only other option is to get a new passport when you fill one up which does cost.

I would say if your plans are to travel to lots of places requiring formal visas, sure. If you are mostly traveling to Europe, and want to save some bulkiness, then you will very, very, likely have no issues.

Like you mentioned, you no longer get a US stamp on return (Global Entry or going through the low class line). Same with the UK, no stamp, and once the EU/Schengen area gets their new system figured out and implemented, then likely no stamp there either.

Extra pages for me. Makes the passport stiffer to resist bending and possible damage. I don’t weigh my stuff down to the gram.

I don’t weigh my stuff down to the gram.

It’s a potential bulkiness issue when carried under clothes.

The extra pages in a passport are not thick enough to worry about. I would just get it. FYI with Schengen you won’t fill up with passport stamps nearly as fast as many years ago. Countries with expensive visas do take whole pages. We have been to several countries where they give you a separate paper-Cuba and Israel-no stamp. I miss all the stamps. It was fun reviewing all the countries we’ve traveled to.

Probably wishful thinking but went with the longer book.

Kind of wild trying to mail it at the post office. The guy said he would only take it if I sent it priority, I insisted on first class. We went around like 4 times, my insisting on first class, the guy getting others behind the counter to insist it had to go priority. In the end I bought postage from a machine and dropped it in the box myself.

Just measured mine. Is about .24 inches thick at the spine. Slightly thinner at .21 inches at the end that opens.

Tom, the push for Priority Mail may have been partly so you'd get a tracking number. They should have let you make the choice, though.

acraven:

It was $10 more and I didn't think it was worth it, and I have always used just first class before. It also gets there a day earlier with priority, but don't need it for 7 months.

I am going to have to get mine renewed two years early because I'm running out of pages, so I will definitely get the bigger one. This problem hasn't happened before, and it's not that I take a huge number of trips, but a Southeast Asia trip with a bunch of visas and stamps, and a Balkan trip with a lot of stamps going in and out of Schengen, now suddenly there's not a lot left -- and I have a trip planned to South Africa later this year, which I've been informed has some really draconian rules about how many consecutive blank pages you need for each entry, and they enforce them. I'll be right at the point where I MAY have just enough for them but don't want to chance it.

Pleased to say the checks cleared today by "Passportservices Payment" on the fourth business day after mailing just first class. So no need at all to pay for priority mail as the post office clerks insisted.

Will post the final result of my "snail everything" passport application method: first class postage there, and non-expedited service.

Passport arrived today, 3 weeks + 5 days, with first class postage there, regular processing, basically “snail everything.”