How many Days once Passport is printed in the UK does it take to arrive back to Thailand??

[Huayrat]

Any ideas Thanks

[Eff1n2ret]

My wife put in her application at VFS two weeks ago yesterday, and we received notification today that the passport is available for collection - and other recent posts suggest that 2 weeks is about par for the course at the moment. The application seems to take 2 working days to get to Liverpool, judging by the DHL tracking (Bangkok-Leipzig-East Midlands-Liverpool). How many days it takes from the actual printing can only be a guess, but 15 days end-to-end isn't bad.

[Maybole]

A few years ago my renewed passport arrived at my house in Scotland by registered post at approx 1130 am. I noticed almost immediately an error in my birth date. I telephoned the help line and was refered to the Glasgow Passport Office. I was invited to visit the Glasgow office the next day, which I did, arriving at just after 10am, with, as requested, proof of birth date and new photographs. The staff were very helpful and asked me to call back atfter 3pm.

I came back at approx 3.30 and a new Passport was ready. I was so satisfied with this service that I wrote a unpublished letter to The Herald.

I think that the actual printing only takes a few minutes, although the preparation for printing will take as long as the staff want it to.

[OJAS]

23 hours ago, Eff1n2ret said:

My wife put in her application at VFS two weeks ago yesterday, and we received notification today that the passport is available for collection - and other recent posts suggest that 2 weeks is about par for the course at the moment. The application seems to take 2 working days to get to Liverpool, judging by the DHL tracking (Bangkok-Leipzig-East Midlands-Liverpool). How many days it takes from the actual printing can only be a guess, but 15 days end-to-end isn't bad.

Prompted by Maybole's posting I would be most interested to learn whether your wife is specifically made to check the details of her replacement passport for accuracy, before this is formally issued to her (just as HMPO do in the case of their premium same-day service back in the UK, according to my sister).

 

In the event of it containing an error, a third trip to Bangkok to collect the hopefully corrected version would presumably be required on her (and your) part once this had turned up from the UK. There is no question of those of us living in Thailand being able to nip along to a conveniently-located local office for this purpose the next day, of course!

[Eff1n2ret]

13 minutes ago, OJAS said:

Prompted by Maybole's posting I would be most interested to learn whether your wife is specifically made to check the details of her replacement passport for accuracy, before this is formally issued to her (just as HMPO do in the case of their premium same-day service back in the UK, according to my sister).

 

In the event of it containing an error, a third trip to Bangkok to collect the hopefully corrected version would presumably be required on her (and your) part once this had turned up from the UK. There is no question of those of us living in Thailand being able to nip along to a conveniently-located local office for this purpose the next day, of course!

OK, I'll let you know, and if she isn't prompted  to check it, we will do so anyway before we leave the counter. We were going to arrange for a family member to collect it, but decided to do so ourselves as a transit-stop on route to a few away-days.

I believe that the main reason why the passport has to be collected in person is to enable the expiring one to be defaced/cancelled. Given that this will be done on Monday, there shouldn't be a need to go there again, as a verifiable address is part of the application they should be able to post a corrected version to us, at their expense if it's their mistake.

Maybole was fortunate that he could get to the Glasgow passport office so quickly. Presumably he doesn't live in the Outer Hebrides, or he'd be in much the same boat as us.

[Speedo1968]

Out of curiosity, do you get any form of receipt from the Embassy that they have your passport in order to have it renewed ? 

 

I ask this because some years ago I had to get my passport renewed via Hong Kong, so was without a passport for 2 weeks.

From what I understood at the time it was illegal to be without a passport.   I had a photocopy but was a bit nervous that if stopped by police if a photocopy would be sufficient.

[ubonjoe]

42 minutes ago, Speedo1968 said:

Out of curiosity, do you get any form of receipt from the Embassy that they have your passport in order to have it renewed ?

You keep your passport after you finish the application at the VFS visa center located in the Trendy building.

That is why you have to provide color copies of your passport when you apply for it.

[Huayrat]

Passport arrived Yesterday so it took 1 week to get back from the Uk

[Speedo1968]

On 10/14/2017 at 9:55 AM, ubonjoe said:

You keep your passport after you finish the application at the VFS visa center located in the Trendy building.

That is why you have to provide color copies of your passport when you apply for it.

Thanks for the info.

[Eff1n2ret]

On ‎13‎/‎10‎/‎2017 at 5:03 PM, Eff1n2ret said:

I would be most interested to learn whether your wife is specifically made to check the details of her replacement passport for accuracy,

Yes, they did - it was all a pretty thorough procedure. Forgetting for the moment the aggravation that we are unable to order or receive a passport by post (which is not their fault), I think the VFS service is very efficient and customer-friendly.

 

Would that the Passport Office were the same. The expiry date on my wife's old passport is 28th November. The new one was issued on 6th October and expires on the same day in 2027 - so they haven't added on any unexpired time. If not the 28th November, surely it should at least be the 6th November.  We decided that it's not a big enough error to warrant rejecting the passport, but I will be letting them know what I think of them.

 

Edit: I don't know how the quote has my name on it. It came from Ojas

Edited October 18, 2017 by Eff1n2ret

[OJAS]

17 hours ago, Eff1n2ret said:

Yes, they did - it was all a pretty thorough procedure. Forgetting for the moment the aggravation that we are unable to order or receive a passport by post (which is not their fault), I think the VFS service is very efficient and customer-friendly.

 

Would that the Passport Office were the same. The expiry date on my wife's old passport is 28th November. The new one was issued on 6th October and expires on the same day in 2027 - so they haven't added on any unexpired time. If not the 28th November, surely it should at least be the 6th November.  We decided that it's not a big enough error to warrant rejecting the passport, but I will be letting them know what I think of them.

Your first paragraph: were you permitted to accompany your wife to the VFS office on both her trips there? Or were you obliged to wait in the lobby (or even outside the building) while she attended to her business?

 

Also, were you permitted to take your mobile(s) plus other belongings you might have had on you to the VFS office? Or did you have to leave them at Reception (as is the practice at the Embassy)?

 

Your second paragraph: you might consider it worth your while, when letting HMPO know what you think of them, making the point that, had you been minded to pursue the erroneous expiry date, what might then have been the consequences? In particular, would her rejected passport have then been sent back to the UK and the Mk2 replacement passport subsequently sent to Bangkok at no extra cost to you in either case? And would HMPO have been willing to reimburse to you the costs of making a third physical trip to Bangkok which was solely necessitated by their error in the Mk1 replacement passport?

 

 

 

Edited October 19, 2017 by OJAS

[Eff1n2ret]

1 hour ago, OJAS said:

Your first paragraph: were you permitted to accompany your wife to the VFS office on both her trips there? Or were you obliged to wait in the lobby (or even outside the building) while she attended to her business?

 

Also, were you permitted to take your mobile(s) plus other belongings you might have had on you to the VFS office? Or did you have to leave them at Reception (as is the practice at the Embassy)?

 

Your second paragraph: you might consider it worth your while, when letting HMPO know what you think of them, making the point that, had you been minded to pursue the erroneous expiry date, what might then have been the consequences? In particular, would her rejected passport have then been sent back to the UK and the Mk2 replacement passport subsequently sent to Bangkok at no extra cost to you in either case? And would HMPO have been willing to reimburse to you the costs of making a third physical trip to Bangkok which was solely necessitated by their error in the Mk1 replacement passport?

 

 

 

Yes I was with her at the counter. There is a security arch and a cursory bag search at the office entrance, but we took in all our belongings. We were in and out in less than 15 minutes.

 

I have this morning posted a letter of complaint, but not to pose your hypothetical question . I have merely suggested that rather than pursue the disproportionate solution of a replacement passport or personal compensation, they should invite the person responsible to make a £5 donation to a children's charity. That should ruin someone's day. I also made some forthright suggestions concerning their inadequate advice about how dual nationals can comply with the  requirement to have the same name in both passports.

[OJAS]

2 hours ago, Eff1n2ret said:

Yes I was with her at the counter. There is a security arch and a cursory bag search at the office entrance, but we took in all our belongings. We were in and out in less than 15 minutes.

 

I have this morning posted a letter of complaint, but not to pose your hypothetical question . I have merely suggested that rather than pursue the disproportionate solution of a replacement passport or personal compensation, they should invite the person responsible to make a £5 donation to a children's charity. That should ruin someone's day. I also made some forthright suggestions concerning their inadequate advice about how dual nationals can comply with the  requirement to have the same name in both passports.

Many thanks for the (reassuring) info about access to the VFS office.

 

While the expiry date error is probably not a big deal for your wife (since, as a dual Thai/British national, she doesn't, of course, need to worry about obtaining extensions of stay here), it could potentially be a significant issue for the likes of you and me. For eaxmple, my current passport will expire on 23 September 2023, as do my retirement extensions on 11 August each year. I would be far from amused if, when next renewing my passport in, say, January 2023, its replacement was only valid until January 2033 (assuming, of course, that maximum unused 9-month extensions were still possible then).

 

I have seen your exchanges with Arkady about the dual national issue referred to in your final sentence elsewhere on here. In this connection I would just like to see HMPO attempting to lord it over the State Department in the case of a recently-married dual UK/US female national who needed to renew her British passport and wished to do so in her married name, while retaining her maiden name in her American passport at least until this, too, was due for renewal. The outcome might well be akin to a David versus Goliath battle!

Edited October 19, 2017 by OJAS