For Canada Crossings, NEXUS Card No Longer Beats a US Passport - Expedited Passports

 A NEXUS card used to be the best-kept secret of frequent travelers to Canada. The card, which requires a background check and in-depth interviews with authorities from both the US and Canada to obtain, gives you “trusted traveler” status, plus your own special “express lane” at the border. With a NEXUS card, you could get through Customs much faster than with a US passport alone. Pretty sweet, right?

Unfortunately for NEXUS cardholders, the program is not the secret ticket to elite status that it once was. In fact, MarketWatch is reporting that the NEXUS lanes going into Vancouver are now experiencing the equivalent of bumper-to-bumper traffic, often moving more slowly than the regular lanes. In fact, one Canadian traveler told Marketwatch that ““In June, we were crossing at Peace Arch on our way to Seattle and the NEXUS line was much longer then the regular line. People were trying to sneak out of the Nexus line to get back into the normal lineup.”

Even more discouraging is the fact that some members of the program have exploited their “trusted traveler” status to sneak in undeclared stashes of alcohol and other goods, which will no doubt result in an extra dose of time-consuming scrutiny for those in the NEXUS lane.

David Gillen, the director of the University of British Columbia Centre for Transportation Studies, told MarketWatch that the program is basically a victim of its own popularity:

“Initially it was very successful because it speeded through people going over the border on a frequent basis. As more and more people have joined the system, the capacity has not increased to keep up with the number of members or the number of trips that they’re making.”

A NEXUS card is all you need for proof of citizenship when you cross the US/Canadian border by land or by sea. For air travel, you do need a passport, but having a NEXUS card will generally get you through the airport more quickly.

If you need a US passport, be sure to apply early. Applications take about six weeks to process, although you can expedite them by paying an extra $60 expedite fee. This will cut the processing time down to about three weeks. For faster, elite-level service, a private passport expediter like RushMyPassport is the easiest way to go.  We personally deliver your US passport application to the Department of State for super-fast processing, often in as little as 24 hours. Plus, there’s no appointment necessary, and no need to travel to a passport agency office.

Need a US passport? We can help you get the prompt service you deserve: Contact us today!

Earlier this year, C.G.P Grey crunched some numbers to find out the approximate percentage of people in each state who owned passports. Alabama was fourth from the bottom, with only 25.03% of its residents owning passports. That may change shortly, as Alabama’s strict new immigration law has many Hispanic US citizens applying for passport services so that they have portable proof of citizenship to carry around.

According to NPR, “Alabama’s law, which takes effect Sept. 1, allows police to arrest anyone suspected of being an illegal immigrant if the person is stopped for some other reason. It also requires businesses to check the legal status of new workers and requires schools to report the immigration status of students.”

So, basically, if you’re a US citizen whom the police could possibly perceive as “foreign,” you really do need to carry something around at all times proving that you are a citizen. Sure, as long as you’re legal, the police would have to release you once they verified your citizenship, but who wants to risk being arrested every time they leave the house?

According to local NBC affiliate WSFA.com, the number of people applying for passport services spiked in the months after the law was passed. Montgomery Postmaster Donnie Snipes told WSFA that while his post office typically only handles about 300 applications each month, “496 were completed in June, of which 58% were minor children.” Many applicants were Hispanic, especially the children, as immigrant parents rushed to protect their US-born children with as much documentation as possible. (more…)

James Joyce, the author of Ulysses and Finnegan’s Wake, was one of Ireland’s most famous writers. He died in 1941, but someone had enough foresight to hold on to one of his old passports, which will be auctioned off by Sotheby’s later this month. I’m sure whoever kept the passport is quite glad they did: according to the Irish Times, the auction is expected to bring in anywhere from €55,600 to €77,900!

A lot has changed since World War I, when Joyce used this passport to shuffle his family between various European countries while he worked on Ulysses, widely considered his masterpiece. For one thing, most countries no longer allow an entire family to travel on a single passport. These days, even newborns need their own documents.

One thing that hasn’t changed, however, is the way visa stamps on a passport can be used to tell a story. In Joyce’s case, it’s the story of a writer struggling to make his fortune, dodging war and various medical ailments all the while. This story begins in Zürich, Switzerland, where the Joyce family arrived in 1915 after fleeing from Trieste, Italy. In Zürich, he befriended the poet Ezra Pound and acquired a patroness, the editor and activist Harriet Shaw Weaver. Her largesse allowed him to focus on writing Ulysses.

After the war ended, he returned to Trieste, but soon left again, this time for Paris, where he would spend the next two decades. The passport also shows various trips to Switzerland for eye surgeries to treat the glaucoma that bedeviled the writer for decades.

It’s highly unlikely that your passport (or mine for that matter) will ever fetch tens of thousands of pounds at an auction. However, when you apply for a passport renewal, it’s still worth requesting to have your old passport sent back, so that you’ll always have a record of your own personal journeys.

To make sure you have as many stamps in your passport as possible, it is important that you apply for a passport renewal as far in advance of your trip as you can. It takes about 6 weeks for a passport application to be processed. Even if you pay an extra $60 fee to the government for expedited processing, you should still allow at least three weeks.

For last-minute passport renewal applications, RushMyPassport is an easy and convenient alternative. We hand-deliver your passport application to the Department of State, for processing in as little as 24 hours. With our service, there’s no need to travel to a passport agency, take time off work, make an appointment or wait in line.

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Are you planning a cruise this summer? Before you set sail, here’s some advice: learn from the woeful tale of the Frantz family of Cleveland, Ohio, and get a passport.

Many, if not most, cruisers tend to head to port with documents that meet just the minimum requirements to board. For so-called “closed-loop” cruises to Canada, Mexico and the Caribbean that begin and end at the same US port, that means just a wallet-sized passport card or even a driver’s license and a birth certificate. Under current law, that’s all you need. But there are some compelling reasons to go ahead and spend the extra money on a full-sized passport, and if you don’t believe me, read the letter Denise Frantz wrote to the Travel Troubleshooter.

In it, she describes how their flight was delayed due to “technical difficulties” on the aircraft. This caused the family to miss the cruise ship’s departure from port. Instead of rescheduling, Carnival recommended that the family just fly to Cayman’s and meet the ship there.

The only problem: they had gotten passport cards, which are only good for land or sea travel in the Western Hemisphere. For air travel, you need a passport book. Naturally, the airline wouldn’t let them on the plane, and their travel insurance only paid out $500 per person for the whole fiasco. Ouch!

Fortunately, Denise Frantz had the presence of mind to write the Travel Troubleshooter, and he managed to get the family enough reimbursement from Carnival for them to try again later. However, he also took the opportunity to emphasize the importance of getting a passport, writing “This cruise just wasn’t meant to be. But it might have been — if you’d gotten a passport instead of a passport card. Carnival doesn’t mince words when it comes to your paperwork requirements.” He then quoted the following passage from Carnival’s website:

“Carnival highly recommends all guests travel with a passport (valid for at least six months beyond completion of travel). Passports make it easier for you to fly from the U.S. to a foreign port should you miss your scheduled port of embarkation or need to fly back to the U.S. for emergency reasons.” (more…)

More proof that passport problems can happen to anyone: Zach Braff, the actor and director who starred the in the popular TV series Scrubs and the movie Garden State, almost didn’t make it to Toronto for the premiere of his latest indie flick, The High Cost of Living. The culprit? An expired passport. As reported on Canada’s National Post website, the drama came to light on Twitter, when Braff tweeted from the airport, “My passport expired on my birthday. The nation of Canada won’t let me in. I am a danger. Any ideas? Government offices closed on sunday.”

Oops! For most of us mere mortals, that would have been the end of the story, at least until Monday. And yet, after tweeting a string of jokes about tunneling into Canada, a few hours later Braff’s Twitter account announced the happy news: “Dear Canada, I’m in.”

So, how’d he do it? Does Zach Braff have super powers? No, but he does have a pilot’s license. Via the National Post:

“He decided to, oh, fly himself after getting rejected by the commercial flight. Keeping his fingers crossed that things might just be less tricky with customs on this side of the border — “it’s tougher leaving the States, but easier in Canada,” a source close to him told us — he arranged to arrive on his plane at the same time as his publicist arrived from L.A., and with a driver parked on the tarmac to give real-time updates to said publicist, the high-wire plot unfolded. Long story short: It worked!”

How was this possible? Well, technically, US citizens are not required to have a passport to enter Canada. All the Canada Border Services Agency really needs to see is photo ID and proof of citizenship, like a birth certificate. However, the US government tightened rules for re-entering the United States after 9/11, to require a passport book if you’re traveling by air and either a passport book or a passport card if you’re traveling by land or sea.

Of course, it’s generally a really bad idea to enter a country without the documents you are required to show to get back home. If you do so, the government has to let you back in if you’re a citizen, but they don’t have to be happy about it. Expect delays and other hassles while they confirm you are who you say you are and you don’t pose a security threat.

Also, keep in mind that since you’re supposed to have a passport for air travel to Canada, commercial airlines won’t let you board without one, no matter how famous you are.

If an expired passport catches you by surprise at the last minute, you do have options other than digging a tunnel or commandeering a private plane. You can make an appointment at one of the 24 Regional Passport Agency offices serving the US, or use a private expediting company like RushMyPassport. We hand-deliver your passport renewal application to the Department of State for processing in as little as 24 hours, with no need to go through the hassle of making an appointment or waiting in line.

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Pro tip: If you’re going to commit a crime of some sort, you might want to leave your passport at home. I’ll bet Dozy Kenneth Morgan, a 48-year-old crook from the UK, wishes he had left his behind. According to The Sun, the newly released ex-con was robbing a house in London when the homeowner returned. He got away through the kitchen window, but fortunately for the homeowner, the rest of the neighborhood and society in general, the police were able to crack the case in literally seconds when a quick search of the home turned up Mr. Morgan’s lost passport.

Not just his passport, either. From the Sun’s report, he also left behind a backpack that “contained his mugshot on a prison ID card, his birth certificate and a tenancy agreement with his signature.” Elementary, my dear Watson!

According to the Sun, the cops investigating the robbery “giggled” like schoolgirls, then promptly found and arrested Mr. Morgan. His excuse went something like this: “Oh no, officers. Someone stole that backpack from me and planted at the scene of the crime.” It didn’t fly in court, and now he’s back in jail.

For a couple of seconds, I almost wanted to believe Mr. Morgan’s story. I mean, he left not just his passport, but also his prison ID card and rental agreement? REALLY? But as it turns out, he’s been robbing houses for around a quarter of a century. Sometimes, people really are that dumb, and the Sun has christened Mr. Morgan “Britain’s Dumbest Burglar.”

Assuming you didn’t lose your passport at the scene of a crime you committed, RushMyPassport.com can help you get it replaced quickly. Regular passport service from the Department of State takes about 6 weeks if everything goes smoothly, while their expedited service costs an additional $60 and still takes 3 weeks.

RushMyPassport, on the other hand, can help if you need your passport more quickly. We hand-deliver your paperwork to the Department of State, resulting in processing times as low as 24 hours with no need to travel to an appointment at a regional passport agency office.

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How many people do you know who actually have a US passport? Unlike, say, a driver’s license, a passport isn’t one of those documents that everyone has. In fact, according to CNN, only 30% of Americans have a passport- about 1 in 3. Compare that to Canada, where 60% of citizens have passports, or the UK, where 75% of citizens do, and you can see just how low that percentage really is.

Why do only 30% of Americans have a passport? The obvious answer is that we simply don’t travel abroad as much as people in other countries do. According to CNN, Americans took approximately 61.5 million trips overseas in 2009. That may sound like a lot, but it really isn’t when you consider how many people live here. Also, that number is down 3% from 2008.

So what’s the deal? Are we that provincial, just unwilling to deal with even minor cultural differences? Maybe that’s part of it. CNN quotes Matthew Kepnes of NomadicMatt.com, who says “Not taking the leap is comforting, because this is the American life. Breaking outside anything that is your norm is scary.”

Meanwhile, Bruce Bommarito,executive vice president and chief operating officer for the U.S. Travel Association, sounds a similar note: “Americans are comfortable in their own environment.” (more…)

A Oregon woman is finally able to apply for a new passport after the US Air Force located a copy of her birth certificate.

According to the Mail Tribune, 21-year-old Vanessa Driskell has been looking for her birth certificate for the past 4 years, ever since she was 16 and wanted to apply for a driver’s license.

For most of us, a lost birth certificate is nothing more than an inconvenience. All it means is that you’ll have to order a replacement from the Department of Vital Records where you were born. Vitalchek even has a service that allows you to apply online, and if you pony up extra for expedited processing and shipping you can have yours in less than a week, sometimes in just days.

Unfortunately, Miss Driskell was born in the Philippines, at Clark Air Base where her father was stationed. In June of 1991, the base had to be evacuated due to the eruption of Mount Pinatubo, one of the most massive volcanic eruptions of the 20th century. In the chaos, her certificate of live birth showing that she was born overseas to US citizen parents was lost. Unable to order another copy, she has basically been in limbo for the past four years, unable to apply for a new passport or even a state ID.

A spokesman for Senator Ron Wyden, who assisted in finding the documents, explained to the Mail Tribune how they were finally located:

“The documents are coming to us from the National Archives in St. Louis. We had contacted them about this case. To their credit, they began an extensive search. They found it in a box in a warehouse in Illinois that was part of the base closure file.”

Now, Miss Driskell can stop worrying about finding the documents for a new passport and can start planning where to go for her first trip out of the country. It’s nice to see a passport story with a happy ending, especially right before Thanksgiving!

If you need help applying for a new passport, RushMyPassport can make the process quicker and easier. We’ll walk you through the application process and deliver your application to the Department of State for processing times as low as 24 hours, depending on the option you choose.

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Have you ever had a pet try to prevent you from leaving on a trip? They’ll try anything from looking cute and pitiful to going on a hunger strike. Once, my childhood cat even soiled the inside of my family’s car to try keep us in town (fortunately, she chose the wrong vehicle).

Moses, a basset hound puppy belonging to Eric Mann and Brooke Blew of Massachusetts, used a far more effective strategy: attempting to devour Mr. Mann’s US passport two days before the couple’s honeymoon in Cancun.

Mr. Mann brought the passport to a passport office to see whether or not he could travel without replacing it. He told Boston ABC affiliate WCVB TV, “I thought I did my due diligence. They said it was fine and the bar codes and picture were all intact.”

The couple was allowed on the airplane in Boston but once they got to Cancun,they found themselves turned away at the immigration desk. According to Mr. Mann, “I handed over my passport and that was it. We weren’t in the office a minute and they said ‘You have to leave the country.’” And so Moses got his wish-his humans returned home in less than a day instead of leaving him alone for a week.

The moral of this tragic story? First, don’t leave your passport where your puppy can get to it! Second, don’t take chances with a damaged US passport. Get it replaced. If your passport is damaged and you are supposed to leave the country, you do have options other than just crossing your fingers and hoping for the best.

The first of these options is to make an appointment at a regional Passport Agency office. These special passport offices are equipped to issue passports within 24 hours as long as you have an itinerary to prove that you will be traveling in the next 14 days.

The second, more convenient option is to use a private passport expediting company like RushMyPassport.com. RushMyPassport will submit your passport application on your behalf directly to the Department of State, for processing times as quick as 24 hours.

Don’t let a damaged US passport ruin your vacation-contact us today!

When you apply for a fast passport, it’s important that you have all of your paperwork in order before you send in the application. After all, if you don’t have the right documents, your application will be delayed, and that’s the last thing you want to happen if you’re about to leave the country.

One of the most common mistakes people make when applying for a fast passport is using the wrong birth certificate, like a hospital or other unofficial birth certificate instead of a certified birth certificate from your city, county or state. However, if you were born in Puerto Rico, even a certified birth certificate with a raised seal is no longer good enough if it was issued prior to July 1st, 2010.

According to the Department of State’s website:

Beginning October 30, 2010 the United States Department of State will not accept Puerto Rican birth certificates issued prior to July 1, 2010 as primary proof of citizenship for a U.S. passport.

The reason for the new procedure is that Puerto Rican birth certificates were commonly used for identification, and were therefore prone to theft and fraud. The new, more secure birth certificates should solve this issue. However, if you were born in Puerto Rico and are applying for a fast passport, you’ll need to get one of the new birth certificates first, unless you have an old, undamaged passport that you can submit for proof of citizenship. See this article from the Puerto Rico Federal Affairs Administration for details.

Fortunately, once you have your new birth certificate, RushMyPassport.com can help you apply for fast passport processing to ensure you get your new passport in time.

We’ll walk you through the application process, helping to prevent common mistakes that could delay your application. Then, we’ll personally deliver your paperwork to the Department of State for processing times as low as 24 hours.

Apply for fast passport processing with us today!