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Hi All just wanted to share my experience of the upgrade Service and give you all some Hope as I was successful in obtaining 3 passports from 3 different offices.
I applied for the upgrade of 3 Child passports, 1 renewal and 2 new ones. Was due to fly on 25th May applied on 11th May. I had to apply to Durham, Peterborough and the Belfast Team. Call the main passport helpline to confirm which office has your passport.
When emailing the teams, include the PEX number name and date of travel. You will not always get an auto reply back. I found that if I applied late at night I was successful in receiving an auto reply.
48 hours before you fly email them again but this this time include the word RESEND in the subject line as well as the PEX number, Name and date of travel, I was advised to do this from the Progress team.
I was successful in obtaining all 3 passports. but it went right down to the wire. Be prepared to to travel to a passport office the day before you travel.
I was flying on Wed 25th May. Had a call from the Durham office on Mon 23RD May @ 9:30 advising thy would approve and put the passport in the post for next day delivery by 1 pm. Had a call later that afternoon to say the second passport had been approved and that I would need to collect the passport form Peterborough as it was too late to post it out. On the 24th as I was coming out of the train station at Peterborough received the 3rd call from the Belfast teams advising the passport had been approved and I could collect from the Peterborough office.
The upgrade service does work, BUT it will be done in the last 48 hours.
My advice would be to email every 3 or 4 days and make sure you put RESEND in the subject line when you have 48 hours to go. Calling the helplines is pointless as the Progress team is impossible to get hold of, although I did get a call back from them on the Friday advising I had a good chance of receiving my passports.
I was also not charged for the service. Belfast team tried to charge me but I mentioned my application was 9 weeks old and that they were unlikely to meet their 10 week target unless I had applied for the upgrade.
Good Luck everyone.
