Russ Smith

My girlfriend has to renew hers it expires Feb 2009 and these days they want at least 6 months remaining on a passport to let you fly out of the country.

I was looking online and everything I find seems to indicate when you mail in the passport application they want you to send in your current passport to prove you have it and it's not damaged or tampered with.

Is that true? Just seems a bit weird having to surrender your current passport that's still valid for nearly 6 months, to get a new one?

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Linderbee

No clue, but that sounds retarded. Since we're dealing with a gov't agency, then it's probably correct.

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krepitch

I think they punch a hole in it when they send it back so you don't have two outstanding passports or something.

Russ Smith

I talked to an admin at work and she said the same thing yes you send it in, they punch a hole in it to void it and you get it back. her point was inside of 6 months the passport is essentially not good now anyways so surrendering it isn't a big deal.

Just seems a bit crazy to have to mail it in and chance it being lost but she says that's how it works now.

Apparently you can do the application online but even then you have to mail in your passport.

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“Your expectations always exceed outside expectations. I feel like you just can’t stop working, can’t stop getting better, because I’ll be a failure in my eyes before I’m a failure in someone else’s eyes.” -- Arron Afflalo

O

I could be mistaken but I believe if you renew it in person at a post office you do not have to surrender your old one.

black

I was talking to the mailman and he told me something along that line O, I was thumbing through trying to ignore the lazyfart.

Russ Smith

I'll have to look but my recollection is you can get the form at the post office but you can't actually renew it there. There's some passport center in San Francisco you can renew it in person at but we won't go that far we're just going to photocopy her current one and then mail it in with the forms and new pics.

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“Your expectations always exceed outside expectations. I feel like you just can’t stop working, can’t stop getting better, because I’ll be a failure in my eyes before I’m a failure in someone else’s eyes.” -- Arron Afflalo

O

When I renewed my expired passport I did so at a post office in Tempe.
I downloaded the forms and brought them in along with my old passport they took the forms and took my picture and gave me my old passport back. A couple of weeks later I had my new passport.

Zeno

The passport office is pretty quick right now about getting the passport back to you...shouldn't be more than 2 weeks or so.

Also its a myth when it comes to the 6 month thing. Thats normally only a case when it is more than a visitor/tourist Visa you are applying for. If for instance you were going to travel on a student Visa they want your passport to be in effect beyond your stay for an amount of time just in case that you get hurt or come down ill and its close to the expiration of your passport it avoids the problem of having to renew your visa/passport while you are incapacitated. Of course each country has their own laws and requirements so depending on where you go you need to check with the US Embassy there(on the web) for their individual requirements.

The airlines are to blame for this they misinterpret the laws becauuse they are afraid of getting fined by the countries they travel to. They even go so far as charge everyone who travels to the US the charge for an I-94 whether they are a US citizen or not and then pocket the difference.

Russ Smith

Well we just got back from Mexico and we were told in LAX on the way in that Lucy should renew her passport now because it expires in Feb and that's close enough to 6 months if she tried to leave the country again before renewing it she might have a problem.

It makes no sense it ought to be valid until the expiration date, but apparently these days it's not.

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“Your expectations always exceed outside expectations. I feel like you just can’t stop working, can’t stop getting better, because I’ll be a failure in my eyes before I’m a failure in someone else’s eyes.” -- Arron Afflalo

ArizonaSportsFan

China is having a 2-for-1 passport sale. Get em while they're hot!

The nice thing is that no supporting documentation is required.

For $20 extra you can be younger. It is free, however, to be older.....

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