If you've ever taken out your passport the day before an international flight, only to find it's expired, you'll appreciate this news: You can now renew your passport essentially overnight - in one day! ——If you are willing to pay. Thanks to FedEx Office and its partnership with RushMyPassport, you can renew your passport while you're getting a delivery from Amazon Prime or waiting for your fake tan, all without ever setting foot in a government passport office.
In the past, you had to deal with the government to renew your passport, and while in some cases you could get an updated passport in less time, there was no guarantee - at best, it was a very good situation. Confusing process. You either have to use priority mail or make an appointment at a government office near you, but same-day appointments are not always available. Now, renewing your passport is as easy as heading to a FedEx Office store. If you can't make it to one of the 2,000 FedEx Office stores, you can still process online during the same time frame.
When you choose to process your passport online, you can renew a passport for you or your child, report a passport lost, stolen or damaged, request a name change, and even apply for another passport for you or your child. That said, you can handle most passport-related matters online through FedEx. If you need to update your photos, you can do it in the FedEx store and have it all taken care of at the same time.
Sound too good to be true? While the convenience of storing your passport at FedEx is certainly a win, it can also come at a cost. First, you pay the standard government fee of $170 that everyone pays to renew your passport, and then the price goes up depending on how quickly you need to renew your passport. If you choose a weekday, $449 will be added to your bill. And if you choose 8 to 10 business days, you only need to add $119. Then we have shipping: if you want it overnight, it'll cost you $39.95, and if overnight happens to be a Saturday, the price goes up to $54.95. By comparison, expedition fees start at an additional $60 when you apply for a passport at the U.S. Department of State Travel Service.
Do you drop everything to dig out your passport and make sure it's up to date? identical. The moral of the story is that dealing with your passport at the last minute before your flight will cost you, but with FedEx, for $500 and some luck in the mail, you can catch your flight. Personally, while this dilemma doesn't apply to me right now (because after reading this news I ran to check the validity of my passport and thank God I'm fine), it's nice to know that I have a non-Government The option is available when I need to renew my passport in the future. Not having to go to one place to take photos and then go to another to process the request saves a lot of time and is definitely a noteworthy option for both rushed and leisurely travelers.
