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If you do get the upgrade the documents of yours that are currently in Durham will be sent to Belfast
I think anyone can apply for the upgrade so I don’t see why they wouldn’t accept you getting an upgrade before you apply. As for going to the office I can only speak for Durham helping people who go there in person hopefully other offices are doing the same and you manage to get to speak to someone there.
In my case I went to the Durham office when I had 10 days left until my holiday and had the passport a week before the holiday.
Had literally same situation as you I had wrote a post about it I sent multiple emails asking for an upgrade and nothing ended up going to the office itself and waited had the passport sorted the same day and was allowed to pick up 3 days later.
After they took the money didn’t you try to go to the office with a bank statement and proof that the appointment didn’t get given to you maybe they could have sorted it out then and there for you.
Sadly I’ve heard this fast track problem is happening a lot now due to the website having a problem (probably cos of all the high traffic now)
So what they tell you to do for the upgrade is to call the advise line when your holiday is 2 weeks away to be put forward to the processing team. The processing team will then send you an email detailing your upgrade request and arrange a call back to be given to you within 48 hours most cases I’ve heard this doesn’t happen and people are left in the dark (I did get a call back however the process request for for a flight on the 2nd but our flight wasn’t actually due till the 16th)
Next on your side you will be asked to email the closest upgrade office to you with your flight details attached as proof and the applicants name within the email. Who you email for the upgrade will always be the closest office to you regardless of where your application was originally sent.
Now here is where it gets awful in most cases you will then have to wait for a phone call to pay for the upgrade service and once you get that call you would then get told shortly after to pick up your passport from your local office
I deviated from this process by going to Durham myself to personally speak to someone for an upgrade because I wasn’t willing to wait and see if the email to the upgrade team was going to get acknowledged. So after going to Durham I got a call on the same day (friday) saying the passport could be picked on the Monday or I could get a delivery sent out (I chose to pick it up myself I wasn’t willing to wait anymore)
Please read the post attached to my profile I know your situation does not apply to Durham so I do not know if you will be successful however I do absolutely advise attempting to go to the office if its possible.
Please let me know how it goes if you can.
First time using this forum and only just noticed I could write a dedicated reply lol I added a new reply giving more advise on what happened.
@stolenpassport
I Rang to get the upgrade service first however when they put in the request for the upgrade they had us down to fly on the 2nd May for Some reason. When I contacted Durham upgrade team through email they said I would need to wait until the holiday was 2 weeks away.I also got a phone call from the upgrade team in Durham itself but they just said they would call back when the holiday was closer (they didn’t)
When I had 2 weeks until holiday I tried sending another email to Durham upgrade team to notify them that it was now 2 weeks until my holiday but I didn’t receive any response that they would begin processing it.
So I decided to try ring the office to put in another upgrade request but when I did finally get though they just said Durham upgrade team will be working on it which didn’t satisfy me since I was now used to being passed around so in the end I just went to Durham lined up there and spoke to someone at the door who got my request put in immediately. That was on a Friday. I got the passport on the Monday after (passport was actually printed on the same day) but they asked me to pick it up on the Monday because they were so busy.
There were people at Durham office that had hours until their flight who actually got their passports printed there and then when they went and others that were due to fly the next day who were getting theirs done.
(Trying to be as detailed as possible so you can see the options I took to get the passport)
I hope you manage to get the passport and I can tell you that if you do manage to the relief you will feel is bliss I’m just (impatiently) waiting to go on holiday now that everything is sorted.
Edit: The passport was sent to Liverpool as I previously said however it is in fact Durham that is closest to me when I called for the upgrade they said to email Durham upgrade team as they were closest to me and all information that was at Liverpool would be passed on to Durham
