AN EXPERT has revealed a clever hack for people hoping to renew their passports in time for their holidays.
A backlog of over 700,000 outstanding passport applications has led to the Home Office recommending Brits to allow up to 10 weeks for processing.
However, some have had to wait even longer than that, and have ended up missing their trips abroad.
While there are both premium and fast-track options available to speed up the process, for a fee, both have a limited capacity and require an appointment at a passport centre.
Anyone trying to book one of those appointments online at the moment will more than likely be told there are none "due to high demand".
However, data scientist Dr Michael Hodge has come up with a smart way to help beat the queues and get passports sooner than others.
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He has created a bot that refreshes the passport appointment website every 60 seconds before sending an alert out on Twitter when new appointments have been made available.
With new appointments released daily, at a random time, booking a slot used to mean a long day refreshing the website.
However, Dr Hodge's bot, which can be found @ukpassportcheck, means that, as soon as new appointments are available, you can find out.
With slots filled up within minutes after their release, applicants will still have to act fast once they receive the alert.
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But it will certainly help with anyone hoping to get either premium or fast track appointments.
The bot has already proved popular with people hoping to get their passports renewed sooner rather than later.
Currently, it has 12.8k followers, despite only launching last month.
The bot will unfortunately not be useful for people whose applications are already in the system, with applicants only permitted to have one being processed at a time.
For anyone hoping to try and speed up their current passport application, Dr Hodge recommends getting in touch with the passport advice line to see if they can offer an upgrade.
However, he warns that cancelling an application can take quite a while to process as well.
On his website, he writes: "If you are within two weeks of travel, contact the passport advice line and they may be able to offer you a fast track upgrade.
"Otherwise, you can write and request to withdraw your standard application in order to book an online urgent appointment. However, it can take up to 3 weeks for your original application to be cancelled."
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Other advice about how to get a fast track passport has already been revealed, while huge delays and problems have caused others to worry about their holidays.
This mum has been waiting since February for her passport and may miss her two sons playing international football for England as a result.
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