UK Passport Renewal - duration

[drbrit]

Has anyone recently renewed their UK passport from Thailand (using the VFS UK appointed agency) - and if so, how long did it take until you received your new passport?

I know they say 4 weeks from receipt of passport in UK, but I also hear it is often in reality quicker than that.   I ask because I am trying to plan some business trips but whilst you are waiting for new passport you cannot travel abroad, except with an emergency travel document.

[ubonjoe]

It takes about 2 weeks on average. Some as little as 10 days.

[cmsally]

It took 12 days for me ; from appointment date to date I received email to collect. This was last month (Apr. 2019)

[drbrit]

2 hours ago, ubonjoe said:

It takes about 2 weeks on average. Some as little as 10 days.

Great - I thought they were playing safe with saying 4 weeks

[drbrit]

1 hour ago, cmsally said:

It took 12 days for me ; from appointment date to date I received email to collect. This was last month (Apr. 2019)

Terrific - thanks 

[AhFarangJa]

Renewed my Sons Passport last October. Appointment was on 8th. In and out in 15 minutes. E-mail on 17th. to go and collect it.

All at Trendy building Soi 13 Sukhumvit. Bangkok.

[legend49]

Sent mine Friday through an agency. Quoted 6 weeks it goes to a private company in Leeds seeing UK government cant work on anything anymore. I mean 6 weeks I could motorbike there and back quicker.

[jobsworth]

and how much was the price?

i read somewhere 7000 THB.

[yodsak]

key visa 11k all in. took 2 weeks in feb.

[drbrit]

26 minutes ago, AhFarangJa said:

Renewed my Sons Passport last October. Appointment was on 8th. In and out in 15 minutes. E-mail on 17th. to go and collect it.

All at Trendy building Soi 13 Sukhumvit. Bangkok.

Thanks - so if all goes well I will get in 2-3 weeks from application

[Pedrogaz]

Take a holiday in the UK and go to Liverpool by the docks...I know phew Scouseland..., but it's not that bad really They do it in 4 hours guaranteed. 

[Snackbar]

My recent experience:

 

Applied at Trendy Building on 21/3/19

 

Collected at Trendy Building on 1/5/19

 

Rejected Thai debit card, then mistakenly charged £88.00 on second bank card, then asked for further payment of £30.15.

 

Took more than six weeks.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[OJAS]

1 hour ago, Snackbar said:

My recent experience:

 

Applied at Trendy Building on 21/3/19

 

Collected at Trendy Building on 1/5/19

 

Rejected Thai debit card, then mistakenly charged £88.00 on second bank card, then asked for further payment of £30.15.

 

Took more than six weeks.

 

 

 

 

 

 

And were the "delights" of 2 enforced lengthy route marches to Bangkok from wherever you live in Thailand thrown in for good measure? Or not, as the case may be?

Edited May 26, 2019 by OJAS

[Snackbar]

Yep. HKT - BKK rtn x 2

 

About B8000 all in

 

 

[Tuvoc]

Hi all - so from these posts I take it that you have to travel to Bangkok to get your UK passport renewed ? One to apply for it, and then a second time to collect it ?

[PerkinsCuthbert]

All the information you need is here:

https://www.gov.uk/overseas-passports

[Pilotman]

My advice would be to take a vacation in the UK, no more than 10 days is needed, and do it all there.  Have a holiday and then return with a new passport.  It may not be the cheapest way, but it certainly is the easiest. 

[yodsak]

The easiest way by far is to drop it off at an agent and pick it up 2 weeks later,  also do EMS

 

Edited May 26, 2019 by yodsak

[fredob43]

36 minutes ago, Tuvoc said:

Hi all - so from these posts I take it that you have to travel to Bangkok to get your UK passport renewed ? One to apply for it, and then a second time to collect it ?

Yes they won't send it to you. Unless you do it via an agent but that cost big time. Normally over twice the price.

Edited May 26, 2019 by fredob43

[yodsak]

4 minutes ago, fredob43 said:

Yes they won't send it to you. Unless you do it via an agent but that cost big time. Normally over twice the price.

yes big time. 11k all in.     but no need to travel to bkk twice,   so DIY will probably cost more,  depending where you live

[fredob43]

2 minutes ago, yodsak said:

yes big time. 11k all in.     but no need to travel to bkk twice,   so DIY will probably cost more,  depending where you live

All depends where you are. I had a 350+km trip to office had to stay overnight in hotel, as had a morning booking.

As luck would have it I was going to BKK had a phone call to tell me it was back so that saved me an extra trip.

I would have still had to go to BKK to go to an agent so would have only saved me 1 trip. Yes I know you can do it by post to an agent. But if it gets lost in same your buggered. Big time.

[AhFarangJa]

1 hour ago, Tuvoc said:

Hi all - so from these posts I take it that you have to travel to Bangkok to get your UK passport renewed ? One to apply for it, and then a second time to collect it ?

Yes that is correct. However, we combined it with a three day stay in Bangkok, then when it was ready for collection the Wife took a bus there and combined a Pratunam market shopping trip while I tested the pool out at home. Thankfully the market bit was not too expensive.......

[Tuvoc]

Oh so it is that fast ? Three day turnaround ? So they produce them in Thailand and not the UK ? I had imagined it would be a week or so. Then yes a short "holiday" in Bangkok makes sense.

 

We retire to Thailand next year, so I'm gathering lots of useful information from this forum ????

Edited May 26, 2019 by Tuvoc

[Anythingleft?]

Hi all - so from these posts I take it that you have to travel to Bangkok to get your UK passport renewed ? One to apply for it, and then a second time to collect it ?

Using an agent saved me what would have been 2 days there and back drop off and collection

The agents fee was less than if I had paid for fuel and stayed for a night in Bangkok

They do not charge twice the fee, they make the money by taking such a large volume of passports each week.

 

Not an advertiser in any way but the service provided by the agent I used was extremely good and very reasonably priced......

 

Sent from my SM-N950F using Tapatalk

 

 

 

[yodsak]

7 hours ago, fredob43 said:

All depends where you are. I had a 350+km trip to office had to stay overnight in hotel, as had a morning booking.

As luck would have it I was going to BKK had a phone call to tell me it was back so that saved me an extra trip.

I would have still had to go to BKK to go to an agent so would have only saved me 1 trip. Yes I know you can do it by post to an agent. But if it gets lost in same your buggered. Big time.

How unreliable /reliable is EMS ?    Yes, if it gets lost your buggered big time. Better do it yourself to be safe.

[yodsak]

1 hour ago, Tuvoc said:

Oh so it is that fast ? Three day turnaround ? So they produce them in Thailand and not the UK ? I had imagined it would be a week or so. Then yes a short "holiday" in Bangkok makes sense.

????

Nope, not a 3 day turnaround, unless you go to khosan rd.  Produced  in uk.  Soon to be France post brexit,  if there ever is one,   no more burgundy as of oct 2019,  back to blue and gold.  

[Tomahawk21]

On 5/25/2019 at 4:53 PM, ubonjoe said:

It takes about 2 weeks on average. Some as little as 10 days.

mine was 3 weeks

[fredob43]

16 hours ago, yodsak said:

How unreliable /reliable is EMS ?    Yes, if it gets lost your buggered big time. Better do it yourself to be safe.

It's normally very reliable. Unless you live in Pattaya. Why did I say that. Because I used to live there many moons ago and 60% of the stuff I posted or expected to arrive, went on the missing list. Might be better now? 

 

Seems they had a nice little earner they used to tell you how much it was, put the stamps on top of your letter saying they will send off later, of cause they never did they would just resell the stamps to yet another unsuspecting punter. And dump your letter.

The only way things would get through was if you obtained the stamps and posted letter yourself in a post box. That worked every time. Funny what.

 

But do you want to count on it for a Passport.

 

Have you any idea of the agro it causes in Thailand or anywhere if you loose it. Friend of mine had his stolen, took him what seemed like forever to replace it.

Edited May 27, 2019 by fredob43

[Tuvoc]

Thanks for all the info - at least it is only every 10 years. But being a dual-national, then double it up !

 Unless I do early renewal on one of them to synch up the dates for the future.

[Burma Bill]

On 5/26/2019 at 2:37 PM, Tuvoc said:

Hi all - so from these posts I take it that you have to travel to Bangkok to get your UK passport renewed ? One to apply for it, and then a second time to collect it ?

Yes indeed. I live in Khon Kaen Province and last December I renewed my UK passport. I flew from KKC to DMK, took a taxi to VFS, Trendy Building, presented my application papers and returned to KKC by the same means of transport. Just over one week later, I did the same journey to collect my new passport. I could have done the journey far cheaper by overnight bus but I do not like or trust them.