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Mrs D and I have to renew our passports which are due for renewal this June. The actual expiry date shown on the old ones is October but this had the added unexpired months from our previous passports and it is not recognised by the EU or the US. My sister fell foul of this when she could not travel last year and lost the holiday as Tui turned her back at the airport check-in. With this horror story in my mind, I decided to renew ours early as I was thinking of a week in the Canaries in April and we would not have the magic three months left

I started to do our renewals online on Tuesday, and we needed new mugshots done so we traipsed off to Tesco as they have a booth. £10 each for a photo set but it gives you a digital code. Back home I was able to easily complete the application for renewal and the code on our photos brought up our photos on the online application. Emails came immediately with individual renewal references and we had to post our old passports separately with the renewal reference on each envelope. I took them to the Post Office Wednesday morning and paid for two tracked deliveries, £15 Thank you, and that was it done. We have had a number of emails showing progress and this morning Mrs D's new passport arrived with our two old cancelled passports. My passport apparently has been printed and is awaiting dispatch, probably Monday. Four days is a very good service in my opinion. So the total cost was around £100 each which was better than in 2014 when we had to travel up to Petty France to do emergency renewals as there was a huge backlog at the time for renewals. The cost then was £320 plus travel, but we had to have them as we were booked to travel.

Yesterday I got a letter to renew my driving license and did that online too. I hope that goes as easily.

DWD

I renewed both my kids passports early February, took the photos at home and uploaded to the application. 6 days later 2 new passports through the post, excellent service

Did mine a year or so ago. All on line, back within 10 days

My passport was delivered yesterday, it was still only six days. It came via DHL which was strange as Mrs D's came in 4 days by Royal Mail. I wonder why the old passports and her new one were delivered in 4 days and mine came via DHL? Still, it was a very good service.

DWD

My renewed driving licence arrived morning. I applied online on the 1st of March and the new one has arrived in six days. Another good service it makes you wonder if AI processes them rather than Civil Service tw*ts.

DWD