Passport, contract renewal; air ticket booking?

Filipina helper’s passport is valid until mid April 2013. Her employment visa as domestic helper allows her to remain in HK until 23 Sept 2012. She wanted to spend Christmas in the Philippines, but cannot book a ticket because her passport has less than 6 month’s validity after the intended trip in Dec/Jan.


Employer is willing to renew contract, but in this timeframe how is it possible to a) get passport renewed in time to still be able to find air tickets for travel over X’mas period, b) get contract renewed and employment visa into the new passport?


Phils consulate website says passport renewal will be processed in 20 working days i.e. one month, but the helper’s friend who recently renewed her passport had to wait two months for the passport renewal. Being first time employer not sure what’s the best and fastest way to handle this, anybody has experience of similar situation?

Am I missing something? If you file for a passport renewal now, you still have over six months before she goes for a holiday. So you have plenty of time to get the renewed passport even before she goes back to immigration to sort out her employment visa. Why not speak to the consulate to ask them to allow her to renew her passport even before the sixth month before expiry date comes up?

Invert22, the thingy here is that now, 6 months before the holiday, it is still possible to a) find a seat on a flight during X'mas period, b) purchase said seat at reasonable price. If it takes two months to get new passport, we are almost in September and I'm pretty sure flight options are not as good at that point any more. The problem was that whilst trying to buy the cheap ticket now, travel agent refused to sell it because passenger did not have a passport that is valid still 6 months after the trip.


Since then I have managed to buy a ticket for her without the passport details, i.e. the update passport details can be added into the booking once she has her new passport. And Philippines consulate allows passport renewal even 8 months before its expiry so that was not the problem; just wanted to sort out the best order for handling this, thinking I would not be able to buy her the cheap ticket now. Anyway, problem sorted out for time being.