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Just been reading this thread as my son’s passport application has passed the 10 week period as of today. I have phoned numerous times and also emailed. It’s so very confusing trying to get a straight answer as each call advisor says something different. We are due to fly in 17 days and our application has not progressed since the documents were uploaded on the 18th May and I have been advised it is at the Durham office. I have been told we can’t use the upgrade service/ be put in touch with the upgrade team as our travel date is greater than 2 weeks away. Has anyone had success contacting them when their travel is slightly more than 2 weeks or am I better to wait till we are in the 14 day window?
Any advice on how we can do anything at all to speed up this process will be greatly appreciated? I’m going to email my local MP too today. I feel so helpless and stressed as I’m sure lots of you are feeling too!Clee, I am in the same position. I called so many times, various different answers and promises all to be done done. Mines has been in Liverpool since 19th April, an I’m due to fly 29th July. Latest answer is they will not do anything till 2 weeks before I fly. So 15th July!
I did contact my local mp and they’ve been very helpful in actually telling me more on what the actual situation is. 2 weeks before you fly they will do a 1 week fast track process, only in flight order though! So it could end up 48 hours before until they contact me in order to go to my local office and collect (fortunately for me it ain’t that far). All this info was from the local mp. And they have also been following it up and if I don’t hear any progress by Wednesday then I’m to contact the mp office again for them to follow up.Always worth a try. Annoying as it to wait.
Empathy for you all. The biggie is when you pass 10 weeks AND have only 2 weeks to fly. My son’s was stuck in Liverpool. Applied 27 April on line but a real person did not look at it till 3 July. My MP was brilliant. She found out in one call, about 1 hour after I spoke with her office, what the issue was.
I’ve asked her to raise in parliament as I take issue at being told I have not paid the correct fee when I paid what was due which was child renewal. Not my fault it took so long that he then became an adult.I phoned and emailed expedited, escalated and Liverpool direct numerous times. I phoned advice line last Tuesday when I knew the problem was a payment, paid on Wednesday and collected it on Thursday – from an office 4 hours away. Will be claiming fuel and costs and a day off work.
The people I managed to speak to when it was urgent were outstanding. They really will do all they can to help.
We fly tomorrow. You will get there too.
I hit the 10-week mark last week. I e-mailed the expedition team on Thursday and my MP today. I am overseas and need to move on to another country soon for work. The visa process needs to begin now and it is still at the ‘documents received’ stage. Ridiculous…
@Nawa similar situation here, though mine is for first time application – mine will be at 12 weeks on Friday 12th July since I had an email saying they had received my application at the Durham passport office, rang webchat and emailed but no further forward and still at same awaiting examination stage – so been there all this time and not even been looked at yet – its beyond frustrating!!
ive emailed expedite team see if that gets anything backI have also emailed the expedite team, hopefully we will hear from them some time today? (does anyone know how long it takes to hear from them?)
I know the email said 3 work days however if its anything like any other timelines they advise I’m not hopeful but they say not to email them again but I’ll be ringing again come Thursday if ive not heard anything as we will be at 12 weeks by then
Mine didn’t give a time frame for their reply – just:
“We have received your email. Please do not send any more emails as this may cause delays.
We can only consider expediting an application if you submitted your application at least 10 weeks ago
If this does not apply to you, you will not receive a response from this mailbox.
You cannot expedite your application face-to-face at a passport office – please do not visit us.”
Question: my sons online application was sent to Durham office (we live in Weymouth) so they picked the furthest office away from us.
Anyone got experience of them switching the offices ? we are at 10 weeks tomorrow, it’s been escalated to the upgrade team at Durham but no confirmation or timeline, we need to apply for visa’s latest 7 days before our planned travel which is 1st August.
We can’t just go and turn up at the office in Durham it’s 6 and half hours away but could go to Newport.
@Upsidedown CONGRATULATIONS!! could I ask when you emailed the expedite team? did you do this directly? I’ve also received that auto response email but nothing further yet – I just emailed them on Thursday afternoon.
And where these 1st time applications too for your family or renewals?
I’ve just called and spoke to someone on the advice line and she said she has emailed across too just as they have had the application so long and no movement on it since receiving on 25th April and no notes on anything either. its so stressfulWhat happens if you hit 10 weeks but you have no travel booked – do they just do nothing??? This isn’t fair if this is the case as we are wanting to book travel but told not to until we get passports then you get penalised for doing as you’re told!!!
@Estival – this is what we did, nothing booked as yet but annual leave taken from work from 8th August as Post office advised not to book anything till passport arrives in 10 weeks which is fine but we are now 11 weeks and my application hasn’t budged at all since they received it in Durham office on 25th April. Expedite email sent on Thursday and got auto reply as above and then webchat agent advised me to ring up advice line to to get them to do this from there end as nothing showing on application as to why its being held up – mines a 1st time application too so likely need interview – hopefully hear something soon from them
@ks18 mine is stuck at Durham too. 10 weeks this week. Just had email saying waiting to be examined. Like you we have got annual leave pencilled in but cos we haven’t actually got flights booked then it looks like we get overlooked. So disappointing cos I don’t know how we can get prioritised without anything prebooked even though we’ve hot the 10 week mark. I feel your frustration. Let me know if you have any joy with expedite email.
@ks18 these were first time passports. I sent the email on Saturday. In the email I set out the history of the application and included dates of different contacts etc. I said my son was anxious that they had lost his passport and birth certificate, which would be expensive to replace. And finally I said that we are due to travel in 3 weeks and were worried the passport would not arrive in time as it has to get to Australia and postage can take a while. We had been waiting a very long time and clearly someone looked at the application and agreed it needed to get moving.
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