Which rather invites the question, how many would need English?

well, ive been here 6 years, so i'm going to try my luck at the bank for a credit card tomorrow. hopefully the embassy will hang on till I get the card. no-one else has had to use a prepaid card to pay for it?

I think I used my UK credit card.

cancelled that a long time ago unfortunately.

If you've been here 6 years you shouldn't have any problem getting a credit card - unless your credit history is all to sh*t for some reason.

Ive got great credit history. I guess I didnt want the delay of waiting for a card to arrive plus I dont want to have a credit card again. I wouldnt want to use it but have to because of the office bieng in washington now. I am older and wiser now and a reloadable one is safer for me. I got a reloadable visa and sent them the details so fingers crossed it works!

It's possible it still won't work. The passport agency validates your card when you submit the information, but doesn't process the transaction until the passport renewal is under way. There may be several weeks between these two events; there's no way they can guarantee that you won't have spent the prepaid balance on the card and it won't be authorised when they come to process it. They will be able to tell if it's a prepaid-reloadable, prepaid-non-reloadable, or post-paid card because each kind has a particular pattern of number sequences. The alternative would be for the agency to place a hold on funds or process the whole transaction up-front, which would likely annoy more people than it helps.

Not the answer you wanted to hear, and I hope I'm wrong, but it wouldn't surprise me if a prepaid card of any kind, but especially a prepaid "gift" visa card, is not accepted.

It will work. I'll be getting an email soon saying congrats it went through.

I decided that as i would be coming over on a TWP and I want to get as long at TWP as possible that I would make sure I had enough time left on my passport. Mine runs out in 2016, but by the time I get out there I will have two and a bit years left so thought best to get it renewed here in the UK. what I lose in years on the current one will be made up for in the cost in getting a new one in North America and the lost time on a TWP if I get the full three years.

I did notice on the renewal docs that you do not have to be resident in the UK to renew your passport in the UK but need to provide a UK address to send it to. So in theory if your back in the UK for a month you could renew it whilst here and save a few quid.

All of them.

The passport office in Washington closes in a few months so by the time you need to renew, you'll be applying directly to a passport office in the UK. The idea by that point is that you'll only pay the UK fee plus the courier charge to get it back to you.

What's the courier fee, $500?

Plus tax of course.

At the moment those abroad who already now apply to the UK (i.e. most of Europe) are still paying the old overseas rate so I wouldn't hold my breath!

My man renewed his when back in theUK on a visit. He made an appt and the renewed it the same day, no UK address needed that way.

Well the additional cost of an appointment would still make it cheaper than getting via Washington. Though getting an appointment would depend on time of year, as I understand appointments are at a premium during the summer months.