Successful Online App

Hi All - wanted to share my success story, as reading through other posts on here helped me to not totally freak out lol.

  • Applied via the online passport renewal system (myTravelGov) on 1/18 for a travel date of Sunday 3/12. Paid for both expedited processing and expedited shipping.
  • Immediately moved from Submitted to Received status on 1/18
  • No movement throughout January or February
  • Two weeks out from travel date (2/28) I start to get concerned and find this reddit thread. I make moves to contact my representative and Senator (I live in Illinois). I know lots of others have success with this route but I found they did nothing for me. They immediately responded to my initial inquiry but I never received any real info from them. I would still suggest doing this if you are close to your travel date but wanted to clarify that is not what got mine through.
  • We get to 3/6 and I had read on here to do the following when calling the NPIC: Call EARLY (like 8am EST on the dot early) and you won’t have the insane wait times others mention on here. You can call in just before 8am but you will need to leave the third prompt hanging until exactly 8am or they will kick you off the line saying they are closed. You will first talk to someone who will inquire about your application - once they realize this is an online app, they will transfer and you will be back on hold.
  • After about 35 minutes in the online queue, I speak to a very competent woman who I believe helped push my app through. She asks to confirm all of my app info and she wants to look into a few things and puts me on a brief hold. She then comes back and tells me that the Vermont facility is processing my passport and that she is sending them an urgent message alerting them to my processing status and my upcoming travel date. She also looking into possible in person appts but there really aren’t any available (one popped up in Dallas but was immediately gone). I ask if there is anything else she can do and she looks at possible appointments again but does not see anything.
  • I decide I will do the same thing the next morning (3/7) to see if any appts have popped up. But then (at 7:45am EST) I FINALLY receive a status update that my app has moved to In Process. I am SO RELIEVED. I have read on here that this is a good sign things are moving. I also log into the myTravelGov website and I am no longer able to edit my contact info (another good sign I’m told!)
  • I wait for my app to update status again to Approved/Shipped but this does not happen on 3/7.
  • I had signed up for USPS Informed Delivery earlier in the week and I am SO GLAD I did! I got my summary email the morning of 3/8 and my passport tracking info was in there!! Never received a notification from myTravelGov and my app is still showing In Process.
  • Passport scheduled to be delivered by 6pm on 3/8!!!

Another option to avoid NPIC call wait times that I read on here is to call and act like you never applied but you have an urgent travel date coming up. It seems that gets you to a person who can schedule an in-person appt faster than waiting in the online queue (and you can do this 14 days out!). This was my fallback plan if calling originally didn’t help push my app through.

Hope this helps!