Long time lurker here and thought would post my experience in case of any benefit to others. Lost application passport for my son, only realised after booking holiday it was lost but thought we would be ok with standard application as we had 12 weeks before holiday.
Online application made on 24th April. Contacted office once to provide lost passport reference number (came a few days after the application). Contacted by phone again to enquire about progress after 9 weeks but were told to sit tight and we could expedite after 10weeks/2weeks prior to travel.
We phoned bang on 8am on 4th july for an upgrade (both 2 weeks before travel and 10weeks since application). I used the number 0300 1050850 which I believe is for their customer services management team, was on hold for all of 3minutes! To their credit within an hour of sending our upgrade email, as advised to Liverpool office, they phoned to enquire if we wanted passport posted or to collect from our local Belfast office. We could choose date and time of collection which we did for 9am 6th July. Passport collection very straightforward from the office (which compared to other offices seemed quiet, maybe only 5 or 6 people in to make enquiries other than people with appointments).
I appreciate from reading a lot of other stories ours has been pretty straightforward. The main stress the whole way along has been the unknown, lack of information regarding tracking and inconsistencies when compared to other peoples applications!