Passport renewal

I have just renewed my passport and it took exactly one week which I thought was really good service. Mine was just a standard renewal for a soon to expire passport and my husband took the photos and printed them. I used first class post. My son has just had to replace his passport as he left it in a pocket and put it in the washing machine! Form for replacement passport involved more information and a countersignatory to confirm his identity so he used the Post Office checking service - the assistants behind the counter had to hold a mini-conference as they didn't seem to know what they had to do. His new passport took just over a week to arrive.
Anyway, just thought I would post this in case anyone else needs to renew or replace their passport. Cost is a staggering £72 now.

A friend of mine works for a company bidding for the work involved in giving the passports a radical change, they are to become biometric, (probably next year) and will then cost a stagering £150+ to renew.

If anyone needs to renew a passport, do it this year. Saying that it will probably cost twice that come the time you have to change it anyway.

Annoyingly my at the time girlfriend had to replace her passport in January as it had expired. Two weeks ago we got married so she has to change it again! Another 72 quid!

thats a bit expensive, i thought the government were trying to bring in ID cards to replace driving licence's and passport's sort of everything rolled into one or is that not going ahead?

Mrs H works at the passport office, which came in handy when our son put his through the washing machine 2 days before going abroad )

This reminds me of a few years ago when the day before we were due to go skiing my sister could not find her passport. (Bearing in mind she is the most anal person I know and usually soooooooooo organised) I flew out on my own and she followed 2 days later when she had her new passport. It oost her a fortune as she had to pay for and "on the day" passport. Buy a new flight to Geneva and then she took a taxi all the way to Courcheval..................what some folks will do not to miss their holiday!!!
So the moral of this story............make sure you know where your passport is many weeks before you travel and know that it's not about to go out of date :D

I dont know how people can lose something as important as a passport, or let it run out of date, but you'd be amazed how many do.

Tony_H wrote:Mrs H works at the passport office, which came in handy when our son put his through the washing machine 2 days before going abroad )

A handy contact MMMmm 8)