A friend of mine is going on an international trip in a few weeks, and just realized that his passport expired a few years ago. He is a US citizen.
We’re looking at how to get a new one quickly.
At my old job, we used a service called CIBT to process a visa to China for me in three days, including shipping. I assume similar things work for regular passport
renewals.
I had to get my passport renewed fast and it was no problem. I went to the passport office in LA and paid an extra “expedite” fee and had within a few hours. I think the expedite fee was something like $90 (maybe lower, I forget exactly). This was in 2005. Never used any sort of company for this.
Here is information from the State Department on how to schedule an appointment with a Passport Agency where they will renew his passport right away if he is travelling within two weeks. He will need to show proof of imminent travel.
If he can’t get an appointment or if there is no convenient Passport Agency he’ll probably have to use one of the companies you listed. They do work, from what I hear, but they are expensive.
Or you pay an extra $200 and have someone else do the leg work. I’ve not used that service, but I’ve seen them in action and it seems to a slick operation.
If the old passport was issued more than 15 years ago, it’s a different story.
A few years ago I was in a similar situation, although I ended up not taking the trip for other reasons. The solution I worked out was that I revised my itinerary so I had a six hour layover in a city with a passport center. When I called the office to make an appointment, they said it usually takes less than an hour, so I made an appointment for hour 2 of the layover. I also brought my passport application to the local post office that processes them here to check that all my paperwork was in order.
Like I said, I didn’t end up actually following through, but I’m fairly sure it would have worked just fine.
Since 9/11 the federal government has quietly been moving a number of core services out of the NYC/DC metro areas. As to where these core services end up is often a matter of politics with state congressional delegations and who offers the best “incentives.”