Expedited Passports

At midnight tonight, a new year will begin. New Year’s Eve means parties, champagne and of course, New Year’s resolutions. According to USA.gov, “taking a trip” is one of the 10 most popular New Year’s resolutions. It’s also a New Year’s resolution you can actually enjoy keeping-unlike, say, resolving to cut out sweets.

If you’d like to travel overseas, 2009 is a great time to do so. In fact, travel experts such as Genevieve Shaw Brown from Travelocity have proclaimed it “The Year of the Deal,” with the current recession driving the cost of international travel down.

(more…)

Like driver’s license pictures, passport photos are known for not showing people at their best.  Once you get a new passport, you’re probably going to be stuck with your passport photo for the next 10 years. If you’re the type of person who will be constantly embarrassed by a bad passport photo, these tips will help you take a better picture for your new passport:

(more…)

Christmas is over, and New Year’s Eve is almost here. Where will you be when 2008 turns into 2009? If you don’t have New Year’s plans yet, CheapOAir Buzz has an excellent guide to the best New Year’s Eve celebrations in the world. What could be more exciting than ringing in the new year in a new place? There are incredible New Year’s Eve celebrations all over the world. CheapOAir Buzz recommends watching an explosive fireworks display over the Sydney Opera House in Sydney, Australia, for example. There’s also a huge parade in London, England, to enjoy on New Year’s Day. Or, check out the first of three exciting New Year’s celebrations in Bangkok, Thailand, with fireworks and dancing.

However, if you want to travel out of the country for New Year’s Eve, you’ll need an expedited passport if you don’t have one already. At this point, the best way to get an expedited passport is through a private passport expediting service like RushMyPassport.com. It’s not too late to toast the New Year somewhere exotic-a private expediting service can have an expedited passport for you in as little as 24 hours! Plus, you’ll have professional help with your expedited passport application, and you’ll be able to track your order through the application process until it arrives at your door.

Even if you aren’t planning on traveling overseas, some experts recommend that you get a passport or a passport card for your children.  Why should you be concerned about getting a US passport for your children if you aren’t traveling out of the country?  According to County Clerk Joanne Rajoppi of Union County, New Jersey, getting a US passport for your children can actually protect them in case of abduction.

Child abduction is every parent’s worst nightmare.  When filing a missing persons report for a child, having a passport or passcard on hand makes it easy to provide authorities with the information they need to find your child, including date of birth, where they were born, their nationality and a photograph. Passports are also the strongest available form of identification for kids who are too young for other types of state-issued IDs like driver’s licenses.

Getting a US passport for your child requires that you submit the appropriate forms and documentation. This checklist will show you what to include with your child’s passport application. If you need to get a US passport for your child quickly, the easiest way is to use a private passport expediting company like RushMyPassport.com. Expediting companies make getting a US passport quicker and easier. Your child’s application will be handled by trained passport specialists, and you’ll be sure to have his or her passport ready when you need it!

Christmas is almost here, which means that people all over the country are traveling to see their families, both inside and outside of the US. The Sacramento Bee reports that each year, 1 million Mexican citizens return home to Mexico over Christmas break. That’s a lot of people, and that’s not even counting members of their families who are US citizens and likely traveling with them.

Holiday trips are more complicated when your family lives out of the country. Remember, if you’re crossing the border, even into Canada or Mexico, you’ll need a passport if you’re traveling by plane. In fact, it’s a good idea to have a passport even if you’re driving, just in case something comes up and you need to fly back. In the article referenced above, many Mexican citizens were getting passports from the Mexican consulate, which was able to issue them immediately. What about American citizens? How can they get 24 hour passports? If you’re a US citizen planning on going out of the country for the holidays, hopefully you already have your passport ready to go. But what if you don’t?

At this point, you’ll need to get a 24 hour passport to spend Christmas out of the country. The best way to get a 24 hour passport is to go through a private passport expediting agency like RushMyPassport.com. A private passport expediter can deliver your passport documents to the US government by hand the same day, and then rush your newly issued passport back to you. For extra piece of mind, some private passport expediters even let you track your 24 hour passport order through every step of the process.

Applying for a passport is not as easy as it sounds. It’s easy to make mistakes on the paperwork, and even a small mistake can delay your application. Of course, with a private expediting company tracking your order, we can minimize these delays and often catch mistakes before they happen. However, if getting your passport as quickly as possible is important to you, we encourage you to review the top 10 causes of passport processing delays:

(more…)

Here’s another reason to get your passport application in: The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services has just announced a rule change regarding the documents you can use to prove your employment eligibility.  Before the rule change,  you could use even an expired passport to prove that you are eligible to work in the United States.  However, starting January 31, 2009, employers will have to use a new version of the I-9 form, which requires a current passport or another current List B document to prove employment eligibility.

The changes were made at the request of the US Department of Homeland Security, since expired passports are more likely to have been tampered with than passports that are still valid. So, if you’ve been using your passport to prove your work eligibility, check the expiration date. It’s a good idea to submit a new passport application now if your passport is approaching or past its expiration date. That way, you’ll be prepared if you need to change jobs, or if your current employer needs to re-verify your employment eligibility status.  If you have any questions about how to renew your passport, this step-by-step guide to passport renewal will help.

If you’d like to have your new passport before the new rules go into effect on January 31, 2009, it’s best to use an expediting company to submit your passport application. A private passport expediting service like RushMyPassport.com will provide you with professional help on your new passport application to make sure that you have your new passport when you need it.

Passport photos are like driver’s license photos-they often look like mug shots. Of course, the whole purpose of a passport photo is to prove to government officials that this important document really does belong to you. Passport photos aren’t meant to be glamour shots. However, you do need a clear, in-focus photo that meets government guidelines if you’d like your passport application to be accepted the first time.

There are many places that take photos for US passports. However, as this excellent post on  Money, Matter and More Musings notes,  drugstore photos for US passports are somewhat expensive. Also, the quality can be less than optimal. Most people simply deal with the disappointment and move on, grumbling to themselves as they leave the store. The writer of the post I linked to above took matters into his own hands, using a free online digital photo editing service and a digital camera. He was able to save money on passport photos and get photos he was satisfied with.

(more…)

Recently, the government began offering international travelers a choice between the familiar passport books of old and new passport cards. What’s the difference between old school passports and passport cards, and which type of passport do you need for your trip?

The most obvious difference between passport books and passport cards is the design, of course. The wallet-sized passport card is designed to be more convenient and less cumbersome than regular passports. You can just slip it in your wallet, right behind your driver’s license. Passport cards are also cheaper than passports. The application fee for a passport card is only $20, versus $75 for a passport book.

So, passport cards are cheaper and more convenient. That makes them better than regular passports, right? Not so fast…for many travelers, passport cards have a fatal flaw in that they aren’t acceptable for air travel like regular passports are.  If you’re driving into Mexico, you might not think that’s much of an issue. But, what if you have an emergency while you’re in Mexico and you need to fly home? A regular passport book may cost a little bit more, but it’s valid for 10 years for all types of travel. Regular passports are a better value for frequent travelers because you won’t have to reapply if your next trip out of the country is by plane.

If you leave near the border, drive across frequently, and simply don’t want to carry the slightly bulkier passport book, you may want to consider a passport card. For most people, though, a passport book is the best bet.

Finally, you can expedite a passport book, but if you need to leave the country in a hurry, there’s currently no way to expedite a passport card.

The holidays are here! Most people have time away from work and kids are out of school, so now is a great time to travel. Holiday events and festivals make this an especially magical time to visit someplace new, and you can often find last-minute travel deals that make traveling more affordable.

If you have kids, why not take them to visit Santa?  Where does Santa Claus live, anyway? Every child knows that Santa lives at the North Pole. However, geographically speaking, the North Pole is at the bottom of the Arctic Ocean. In reality, Santa maintains a number of different residences and workshops.  Since 1953, he has lived in North Pole, Alaska . Every year, the town has a North Pole Christmas in Ice Festival. Among other attractions, this year’s festival features a giant, illuminated ice sculpture of a frozen turkey. Don’t try to take a bite, unless you want to end up like the kid in A Christmas Story! Of course, there’s also the Santa Claus House, with Santa Claus, his reindeer and a gift shop selling Santa-approved presents.

Before Alaska claimed him as their own, Santa lived in the Lapland region of Finland. You can still visit him there year round at Santa’s Village. (How does Santa manage to live in two places at once? Magic!) Santa’s Village features Santa Claus, his workshop, snow, igloos and reindeer galore.

If you want to take the kids to see Santa in Lapland, of course, you’ll need passports.  Don’t forget to get child passports for the kids-even babies need child passports to leave the country. If you’re just going to Alaska, you don’t need a passport if you have a direct flight. However, if you have a flight that stops in Canada, or if you plan on crossing the border into Canada, you will need a passport.

If you don’t have a passport and would like to go before Christmas, all is not lost. You can use an expediting service like RushMyPassport.com to get a passport (or a child passport) in just one day!