Been getting questions on the schedule of the Consular Mission in HCMC. It’s ongoing. Actually, today is the last day on this 2.5 days consular mission.  The PH embassy team from Hanoi started the mission on June 21 in the afternoon. This was supposedly a 2-day mission but they accommodated last minute transactions last Friday and instead of 8 slots an hour for Saturday and Sunday, they opened 2 more slots per hour.

However, the 2 slots per hour is not a sure thing. Some came in the morning and secured slots only for the afternoon.  So it’s really best to make an appointment — saves time and lots of money.

We ourselves had our passports renewed yesterday. How to get an appointment? Easy. I just emailed hnpe2000@gmail.com or consular_philembassyhanoi@yahoo.com for an appointment ONE MONTH AGO and 2 weeks ago, we received the final schedule. That’s it.

If you don’t know the schedule, click here.  That announcement has been up since January of this year. You have two more chances this year if you are in Saigon to process your passports (instead of going to Hanoi) — on September 21-22 and December 14-15.

Our passport expires on May 2014 but we decided to have our passports renewed. I’m betting that the lines will be longer on September and December.

Kudos to the team of the Philippine Embassy for the smooth procedure yesterday. With the limited space in the consul, there are only a few chairs available but if you went in on your assigned time, you really don’t have to wait long. We came in early so we had to wait a whole lot.

Do you need to arrive early? Yes but don’t worry because the list is followed. You just have to know your “number”. The processing time takes around 15-20 minutes.

You can pay in VND or USD.  New passports and passport renewal cost 60USD.  I suggest you pay in USD. It takes 6 weeks for the passports to be processed. You can have it delivered or wait for the next consular mission to claim.

For more information, go to hanoipe.org.