Screwed by the state Dept. Can I recoup?

Question

This June I had planned to go to Spain for a graduation present through Explorica. In March, in preparation for my trip, I applied for a passport on the 9th. At the time they told me it would take 6-8 weeks to recieve it. 8 weeks came and went so I called the nat'l passport info center to inquire: they changed the process time to 10-12 weeks. As my trip approached requests were put on my passport to expediate the process. Time moved forward so I called my congessman, who also submitted expedition requests(b/w the NPIC and my congressman 5 requests were submitted total).We reached theThursday before my flight( we concluded that had we not recieved it by Thurs we'd go to Chicago to the regional centeron Fri) on that Thurs we were told that it was finished and would be sent out that night (b/c of this, we didn't go to Chi) We called the NPIC to check it and we were told it wasn't even finished. Long story short I missed my trip. Is there anything I can do to get my $ back from any party?

Answer 1

Probably not, and the State Department has a good deal to answer for just now. If you bought an airline ticket that you could not use, you might consider talking to the airline about a refund; your story is a very common one this year and the airlines might find it profitable to offer refunds to people who had passport problems.

Answer 2

Passport offices are buried under an unheard of flood of applications.

I'm sorry you missed your trip, but you really should have had your passport before you bought your airline tickets. Anytime you deal with the government, you just gotta expect to get screwed.

Doc