[Dambuster]

@Rbann1 my advise is ignore what you’ve been told and call again asking for expedited service. I spent hours chasing, emailing etc. And mine still took 3 weeks. You could be ok but you really need to keep chasing and don’t accept ‘it’ll be ok’ as they have a 400,000 backlog. Expediting is possible but they won’t offer it unless you ask for it and it meets criteria

[Dambuster]

I applied for a child renewal on 7th July. It took a week to even show as received and then a few days before showing as processing. I fly very soon, so I needed to expedite it.
I found that some staff said it is not possible to expedite – DO NOT listen to them! As long as you can prove that the flight was booked PRIOR to COVID and that you fly in less than two weeks you can get it expedited. Ours arrived today, 28/07/2020, so three weeks in total.

When I finally had an agreement to expedite the passport, someone from the passport office called. We missed the call and this was a real nightmare as they only give the help desk number and you cannot actually speak to the person that left a message, then, because you missed the call you are put to the back of the queue and at most may have to wait another two days for a call back. It can be very stressful, so please make sure that if you are expecting a call you MUST answer the phone!

Something else to bear in mind – TNT said they tried to deliver the passport when they actually didn’t, because I have a dog who misses nothing! I then had to rearrange delivery which was not ideal. You cannot speak to anyone at TNT so you just have to have faith in their system. I read some horror stories about TNT losing passports, but thankfully I rearranged for the next day and it arrived safely.

So in summary, if you want expedited passport you have to persevere and make call after call. I did have to send proof of holiday booking too

The passport office must be overwhelmed, so I do think they did a great job given the circumstances

[Author]

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