Renew passport | Check Your Expiration Date Now - YouTube

planning on traveling as early as January 2022  

internationally and you need to renew your  passport you better start now why stay tuned  

welcome back to so you want to travel where I  will give you tips and tricks that I've learned in  

my 21 years of being a travel agent have  you recently noticed on your Facebook feed  

or your Facebook news or maybe even your  local news news stories like this and this

and even this I keep hearing stories over  and over of people who are attempting to  

renew their passport and they're just not getting  them in the time that it used to take to get them  

why because right now passports as of July this  year July of 2021 passports are backlogged by 2  

million first and foremost you're going to want to  look and see when your passport is due to expire  

you wouldn't believe how many times I have had  passengers a few weeks away from their trip  

realize that their passports were expired  or the children's passports were expired but  

back when that happened it was easy to expedite  your passport and get it right away now that's  

not the case so you don't want to get in that  situation at all here are some steps for you  

so that you can go ahead and start the process now  so you don't have to worry about that and actually  

stop the video now take the time go look at  your passport and see if it's due to expire soon

side note a lot of countries want your passport to  be valid at least six months if it is not they can  

deny you flying into their country your next  step is to go to the website travel.state.gov  

you're going to be renewing your passport by mail  if you can answer yes to the following statements  

number one that you're currently in possession of  your passport number two it's not damaged three  

you are 16 years of age or older at  the time your first passport was issued  

four your passport cannot be older than 15  years and five your name has to be up to date  

or you have the documentation of a name change  an example of that would be if you recently  

got married next on that same website you're  going to go to the form filler or download the PDF  

I would strongly suggest just going ahead and  doing the form filler just because of the fact  

that it tells you exactly what you need to fill  out um it kind of walks you through it just keep  

in mind that that form filler is not an online  passport application it's just a form that you  

fill out and you're going to print it and still  send it in with everything else next you're going  

to go ahead and submit everything you're going to  submit your old passport again in good condition  

you're going to submit the application  you're going to submit a passport picture  

now the passport picture can be taken by a friend  or family member I don't know if I would suggest  

it just because there are specifications on what  that passport picture looks like you can always  

pay a little bit I want to say Walgreens  at the time that I filmed this video was  

$14.99 so $15.00 because they know the size they  know the background color they know everything  

that uh it won't delay your application so what  about cost well at the time of filming this video  

the passport book is $110 and the if you're gonna  get a passport card renewal that's $30 another  

side note when it comes to the passport card  that's valid for land and cruise ports so you  

can use it for Mexico you can use it for Bermuda  the Caribbean and Canada that being said if say  

for example you are on a cruise and you have to  disembark in one of those countries and fly back  

to the the united states you cannot fly uh with  that card you will not be allowed to enter the US  

on that passport card so just think about  that before you renew on whether you want to  

really get the passport book or the passport  card now you can pay an additional $17.56  

to have your passport sent once  everything is all said and done  

sent in one to two days this does not expedite the  process this is just after everything is done they  

get it to you in one to two days you cannot pay  that $17.56 for a passport card however you can't  

expedite the process if you pay an additional  sixty dollars and what that does is instead of the  

average right now of 18 weeks it knocks it down  to about 12 weeks that you that it's processed and  

you receive it that payment can only be by check  or money order made out to us department of state  

you cannot pay with cash debit or credit card  it's again just a check or money order now when  

it comes to mailing it depends on what state  you're in which address you're going to send it  

to there's two addresses and if you're in these  states you're going to send it to this address  

and these states you'll send it to this address

now if you do pay for the expedited service on the  envelope and the envelope has to be a big envelope  

it can't be too small where you have to fold  the application the application cannot be folded  

you're going to want to stick that in the envelope  if you're paying for expedited service you're  

going to want to write expedited on or expedite  on the envelope and you'll send it to this address  

you can track your application online but  don't to think that it's going to be right  

away because it's not and don't freak out  if you don't see it after one or two weeks  

it actually takes about six weeks where you'll  start seeing some type of status in the system  

so that means that from the time it's at the mail  facility and then they have the application and  

it's scanned and sent to the processing center  at that point you'll start seeing some type  

of status so again don't freak out one to two  weeks you won't see anything more than likely  

again it's going to take about six weeks to see it  and the last step is to sit and patiently wait and  

hopefully you saw this video and you followed my  advice and you're not biting your nails waiting  

for your passport to come because you have a  trip in two weeks you have time and you can just  

wait for your passport well I hope you found this  video helpful and if you have any questions about  

passports or brand new passports because  I really didn't cover that in this one  

leave me a comment down below let me know also  if you appreciated this video give me a thumbs up  

and also subscribe to my channel because next week  I'm coming back with something else that has to do  

with of course tips and tricks tips and tricks  for traveling until then I'll talk to you later