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Arthur Frommer Online
Arthur Frommer Online
Arthur Frommer OnlineComments, opinion and advice from the founder of Frommer's Travel Guides
Arthur Frommer Online
Arthur Frommer Online

Jan 10, 2008

When you need to have a passport issued in a day, all is not lost; meet the "Expediter"

What do you do if you suddenly must make an overseas trip and discover that your passport has expired? Or if you've lost your passport and need a replacement right away? Or if you need to show picture I.D. and a certified birth certificate, and you don't have such a birth certificate and need to get one in a day?

Expediters. Though their services don't come cheap, they are apparently highly effective. In some mysterious fashion, they have an allotment of daily passports on which they can call, and are often able to get you a passport or birth certificate within a day. One of them boasts that if you'll give him notice late at night, he'll have a representative at the passport office at 7am the next morning -- and you'll have your passport in time for an evening flight that day. (Heaven knows how much they charge for such feats).

There are several such services, and I'm not recommending any particular one. But the company called It's Easy (tel. 866/ITS-EASY; www.itseasy.com) recently set up a 24 hour/7 day desk at Terminal 4 of JFK Airport in New York, and I find that impressive. It's headed by David J. Alwadish, who claims that if someone needs a new passport and discovers it at the airport, he can arrange for a photo to be taken and an application downloaded at the airport. Depending on the timing, he will then get the new passport back to the airport, often on the same day.

It's Easy also claims that it's been expediting passports and visas for movie stars and such for 30 years, and has now decided to make its miracles available to us hoi polloi.

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