I know there are lots of experts here on air travel. DD & fiance will be honeymooning in Madrid & Paris. Flying PHL-MAD on 9/26 and returning 10/6 CDG-PHL. Flying AA. Fiance’s passport expires 1/22/2024, which is a little more than 3 months after the return date. But I worry about whether AA personnel may give him trouble at the boarding gate. He would’ve renewed it already but we had to attend a family wedding in Canada that we just returned from yesterday, so he hung onto the passport. Now the dilemma is whether to apply for an expedited renewal (having heard the horror stories about delays, even for expedited), or fly with existing passport. The state department website says that both France & Spain only require 3 months. (Also they will go from Madrid to Paris by train.) What are your suggestions for how to proceed?
contact AA and confirm, but I would trust the state dept. guidelines.
That’s 2 months away. Plenty of time to renew; I would.
Sounds like you are fine with what you have, but I’d renew and have it done. We got our expedited renewal done in 5 weeks a couple of months ago.
I’ve used a service that provided expedited passport renewals several times. It costs a small fortune, but I never had a problem. All went well. I can go back in my files and see if I can find out the service I used.
I would not risk it with an 8 week window, unless absolutely necessary. The backlog of renewals and delays has been extensive. My friend paid to expedite hers, was told that would take 7-9 weeks. After countless calling she finally received hers at 10 weeks and 2 days.
That’s exactly my concern. Lots of stories in the news about backlogs for expedited processing. Although it makes me nervous, it seems like the best course is to go with the existing passport and print out the rules from the state department website in case they have any problem with an AA gate agent. They do have a confirmed return flight showing that they will return with 3 months left.
Many countries require passports to be valid for at least 6 months upon entry. However, neither Spain nor France is among them (France requires passports to be valid for 3 months before entry, but it doesn’t really matter in this case).
When was this? I just did expedited renewal for our family in April and we had them back in 3 weeks. We did it at the post office.
It is a total crapshoot. Our recent experience with expedited renewal was about 10 weeks.
We did ours in April as well and had it by the end of May. Maybe it has to do with which center it gets sent to.
Early April.
I think you were lucky.
https://www.mensjournal.com/news/passport-delays-headaches-us-travelers
My son got his renewal through the “Urgent travel” category. Look up how to apply through that category. He received his passport 24 hours prior to departure.
The time is now 7 + weeks. My wife tried Expedited with added charge for overnighting it back, back when Expedited was supposed to take 5 weeks, and it still took 7 weeks. That is after she contacted our congressional representative and got their office involved because they were not responding to the call number. For “at agency”, they kept on offering her appointments for the next morning at offices which were 10-12 hours away by car, and to which there were no direct flights or trains.
The expected times are longer now:
AA’s official advise is to
“Keep in mind: Some countries require your passport to be issued at least 6 months before the day you arrive. Check your destination’s requirements if you’re unsure.”
So they base it on the rules for the country - and I’m confident they are well aware with travel rules to the E.U.: The “Schengen” countries (border-free zone) of the E.U. has long had a reciprocal agreement with the U.S. that requires passport to be valid for only 90 days beyond the intended stay:
“What do I need to enter the Schengen area? A U.S. passport … valid for at least 90 days beyond your intended date of departure from the Schengen area.”
Scroll down past the “generic” info to the FAQ section for the correct advice:
Reaffirmed by the information specific to France:
Caveat: Be aware that the waiver of the normal 6 months rule ONLY applies to DIRECT travel to the E.U. If you travel through Canada or U.K., then you are NOT entering the E.U. from the U.S. and the exception to the 6 months rule would NOT apply to your trip:
Yes, did this a few years back for my daughter. It was nerve-wrecking because they would not let me make an appointment until 2 weeks prior, because technically it was not urgent till then. Also, you DO have to have the actual confirmed plane reservation in hand.
Finally, I was offered an appointment two states over (which I took). Surprisingly, the actual process was super quick. In fact, once there, they were completely chill and offered to also renew MY passport, even though I had no appointment and never requested any “urgency” for myself.
It was 7-9 weeks estimates for me, too. I guess i just got lucky with the center mine went to.
My twins went together, one expedited, one not, both arrived in 6 weeks (a year ago). It’s a crapshoot.
We did this recently for my daughter’s passport. Even though the travel to the agency was a huge hassle, it actually turned into a fun whirlwind trip for the two of us… she told me later that she had more fun on that unplanned day trip than she had on the actual one week vacation!
I too wouldn’t risk trying for new one.
Recently renewed my daughter’s passport, expedited, and it arrived in 6 weeks. However, it took 2 weeks to get the 1st available appointment for renewal at USPS so 8 weeks really. We also realized after USPS submitted passport request that we needed her passport sooner than we thought and were cutting it extremely close. The State Dept’s site will provide a status of the application, but was unable to actually speak to a passport rep that could assist. (They don’t make it easy! ) All worked out in the end, but pretty stressful and the timing is really out of your control.