This was my worst fear when renewing my British passport recently. We sent the supporting documents, originals and what not for my child's passport. Shocked to find they send, arguably the more valuable items back on 48 Hour Royal Mail, Unsigned delivery! Why not signed and tracked along with new passport?! Shocking! Where's the common sense! I must add, I really feel for you reading your story. It seems as if every world event possible has gotten in the way of your hope to be fully united with your family
.......Did I mention HMPO lost my passport, birth cert, driving licence, marriage certificate, DNA test result and personal photos ect ect basically the extensive list of requirements that they asked for to give our child their British Passport. I have a letter from HMPO admitting fault.[/QUOTE] Keep plugging away, TigerMights. There are many ups and downs in your journey. One day everything will be sorted and you don't sound like the sort of person who gives up.
Airside transit on the same ticket shouldn't be much of an issue. With regards to passport renewal, even though she is not yet in the country it may be worth booking an appointment now at the Philippines Embassy in London. This bit costs nothing, at least. My wife visited on 7th July (this was the earliest appointment available when we booked back in January!) It was a bit of a faff taking 2 1/2 hours as apparently there was only 1 cashier, 1 person doing the photos etc. We don't yet have her passport back, so you would need to factor in 2 months processing time for any other applications you are doing in the meantime. Walk-in appointments were available at the Embassy which might work if you live nearby. It also seemed easy to get appointments at very short notice which I was keeping an eye on until my log-in for VFS inexplicably stopped working.
