Passport renewal on line- Excellent

My hubby renewed his passport on line this month and I must say it was easy and an excellent delivery service. He did the application on 8th May, sent his old passport back on 9th May, today 24th @ 5.00pm DHL have delivered his new passport and his old passport, Excellent!
Posting this in case anyone is nervous of doing it on line.
Hope it helps.

Great thanks for info we've got to do ours next month

We paid for the postbox in Beniofar to do it for my parents and yes it's an excellent service. I'd definitely do it the online way when ours are due. They keep you informed every step of the way. We did it through the postbox as my parents address is difficult with post/deliveries and they would deliver direct to the postbox shop as it turned out the new ones came to the house and the old ones to the shop, very odd. All turned out OK luckily and within 3 weeks

I did the same recently and it was very easy and straightforward, back to me via DHL within three weeks. I used the Post room in Benijofar for the photo to ensure it was correct and uploaded first time without any problems.

I had my photograph sent back because of the background colour which was white and the passport office likes a grey background. Very pedantic.

We did ours online in March in the UK. Slightly nervous because we took our pictures on an iPhone and uploaded them online as requested during the application. The important thing, which is explained on Youtube tutorials and perhaps on the application, is to have a plain background with nothing round you. Remember not to smile!
Sent off the old passports and the new ones were received in ten days.

However, a possible important issue to somebody here:

In 2009, I had to renew my passport early as I needed a Visa for a visit to China. My new passport was dated June 2009, but the Passport Office kindly gave me a validity until April 2020 - in other words a validity of 10 years and 10 months.

However, under the Schengen Agreement, in order to travel to an EU country people from outside the EU have to have 9 and a half years validity from the date of issue (to take into account you might stay for 6 months). So my passport would only be valid from June 2009 until December 2018 for travel to the EU, despite the fact the passport says it is valid till April 2020. Of course, it would have been OK for travel to Australia or the USA etc.

If we had left the EU on 29/3 I would not have been able to fly out to Spain on 1/4.

If you are unaware of this rule and we leave the EU, you should check the date your passport was issued, as in my case that would be more relevant than the expiry date.

Brightonsuperwomn wrote:I had my photograph sent back because of the background colour which was white and the passport office likes a grey background. Very pedantic.

Abode Photoshop is your friend. It was mine.

My parents passports should have run out in December and when we renewed in March they didn't add months onto the new one they just have the 10 years. My mum was fuming and moaned about it but as I said, you'll be 93 by then or dead don't worry about it.

M

richardlionheart wrote:

Brightonsuperwomn wrote:I had my photograph sent back because of the background colour which was white and the passport office likes a grey background. Very pedantic.

Abode Photoshop is your friend. It was mine.

You’re lucky to get away with that, as the instructions are very clear - the electronic file must not have been changed in any way.

Interestingly, my daughter has just renewed the passports for het two children aged 10 and 7, from the U.K.
The old passports had to be sent two two different offices (one tow Glasgow and the other to Liverpool, but I’m not sure why).
One passport office processed the application without any problems, but the other emailed my daughter asking why the passport was being sent to an address that isn’t her home address. The confusion arose because my daughter lives in the grounds of a school, so the passport office thought it wasn’t her home address.
The point is that different offices, and maybe different members of staff within those offices, work in different ways. What you get away with with one office and member of staff won’t necessarily cut it with another office or staff member.

Pete.

Chrisdee wrote:My parents passports should have run out in December and when we renewed in March they didn't add months onto the new one they just have the 10 years. My mum was fuming and moaned about it but as I said, you'll be 93 by then or dead don't worry about it.

I did mine in the UK, it had a few months left on it but as we were moving out to Spain I wanted to get it done early. I expected them to add on the few months but they didn’t. Had my photo done in a booth then just entered the code onto the online application. Surprisingly easy to do and it was back within the week.