Online Passport Renewal

Oh right. I forgot and it just happened. To board our United flight to AMS we just looked at the camera. No boarding pass, no passport scanned. Of course they had already checked our passport at check-in and already have scans of our passports on file.
This isn’t border control, unlike many countries the US doesn’t have border control for people leaving. It is the airline protecting itself since it is obligated to fly you home on its dime if you are rejected on arrival.
 
This isn’t border control, unlike many countries the US doesn’t have border control for people leaving. It is the airline protecting itself since it is obligated to fly you home on its dime if you are rejected on arrival.
Of course, but that wasn’t the point. They are still required to ensure you have your passport, and they absolutely used to scan your passport as well as boarding pass before entering the plane but no longer do so. Now you only look at a camera and if you get a green light you board.
 
Applied online for passport/card on 4/6. No issues.
Picture taken at FedEx and given to me on thumb drive.
Received in mail yesterday 4/18. (1-2 day delivery)
Waiting on passport card. Last time it came a few days after receiving passport.
Passport card received 4/22.
 
Just submitted renewal for DW. I tried Firefox and Apple browsers and login.gov said it had sent the 2FA code which I didn't receive. Finally I tried MS Edge and it had saved creds and I must have clicked remember this browser in the past as I was able to get in and do the renewal application. Pictures were a bit of a pain, but I finally was able to upload a pic.
It took about 20-30 min once I was logged in and started the renewal app. As I was finished my phone started pinging with 4 texts and 2 voice mails for 2FA codes :) All had the same time stamp of 12:50 when they were all expired before 12:00
Guess I should be happy the application is in and should get notice it has been accepted by end of the week once CC charge is confirmed which they said would take 2 days. ha
 
So submitted renewal for DW I think 3 June and got an email today that her new book had been mailed yesterday, 18 June. Amazing. Hope my SS application in Jan works as well.
 
Submitted mine June 2 and got it in the mail today (June 19), so really quite impressive.

The biggest pain was the photo. I am such a Luddite that I first had gone to Walgreens and them take a photo, but cleverly didn't have them e-mail it, just got a print - well that doesn't work, because now you have to scan it and that produces a file size that doesn't contain enough pixels.

So tried to re-do it ourselves, it requires a white background and a tremendous amount of backlighting to get enough contrast. I'll bet we tried two dozen times. The picture that it finally accepted didn't look any different to the eye than ones it rejected, but at least it tells you immediately if it doesn't like it so you can try again.
 
As previous posted submitted online renewal 3 June and new passport arrived via USPS with standard processing 23 June. Pleasantly surprised.
 
Mine is due for renewal soon. Will have to try the new system
 
What I find really refreshing is the government did something that companies used to do: limited betas or alphas with consent of the users, massive testing, then final roll out.

Unfortunately, companies of late have been just pushing sh** to users and breaking everything. The one that got the most attention is Sonos. They bricked a bunch of legacy devices, but it wasn't much better for the new devices. The anger of users bubbled up so strongly that even people like me, who don't have a Sonos, have heard about it multiple times. I'm not an iPhone user, but I've heard some similar issues through the years with maps and AI. Apparently, they threw in the towel on AI and are working with an AI company.

Let's not let Apple's competitor off the hook though. Googlle broke Nest really badly, and of late, I've been seeing pictures of people tossing out all their legacy Nest products in disgust. Again, not a Nest user, but this is bubbling up to the greater awareness.

My personal experience with this was SiriusXM. They had a great app. Then completely broke it. It took 6 months for them to fix, and frankly, it is still worse than the app of 2 years ago.
 
WSJ has an article about this. Free link below.

Summary:
- 94% of respondents are happy with the new system
- Article author calls it "weirdly efficient and unexpectedly refreshing"
- Amazing that a traditional governmental bureaucratic system got replaced. How?
- Early tries were failures
- Slow roll out with limited betas
- Many increments, then finally released to everyone

Well congratulations to them!:clap:
 
The one that got the most attention is Sonos. They bricked a bunch of legacy devices, but it wasn't much better for the new devices. The anger of users bubbled up so strongly that even people like me, who don't have a Sonos, have heard about it multiple times.
I bought two different Sonos devices some years ago, and software changes bricked both of them. Naturally, I'm now strongly biased against them and will never buy another.
 
This is the first time I have heard of issues with Sonos and I have owned their products for over 13 years.
 
Back
Top Bottom