Using a private passport service to get a visa more easily

Late last year, I scored an incredible mileage redemption on Japan Airlines for a trip to Tokyo. However, the flight dates left me with a little too much time in Japan, so I wanted to see another country in Asia while I was in the area.

Asia is huge, and most of countries that I haven’t been to — like Cambodia, Vietnam and Laos — are still a long flight from Japan. So, I decided to check China off my bucket list. The problem is, you need a visa to visit, and I had heard it wasn’t always easy to get one. It also requires a trip to the embassy or consulate in most cases.

That’s when I happened to meet Roman Yagudaev from The Passport Experts at Fox5 News in New York City. We’d both been booked on the show “Good Night New York” to talk all things travel.

We got to talking, and he explained that his company helps travelers obtain hard-to-get visas. It arranges last-minute travel documents for companies and individuals worldwide.

I figured it would be a fun service for me to test out and share with the TPG audience. I was pretty impressed. Hopefully, my experience can help someone else get an expedited passport or visa without all the stress.

Getting a visa

A Chinese single-entry visa affixed to a passport page — A single-entry China visa. ASHLEY KOSCIOLEK/THE POINTS GUY

While The Passport Experts help with passports, visas, apostilles (internationally recognized certificates of many types) and even citizenship documents, I only needed a visa for this journey. After a brief phone consultation, the company sent me some fairly simple requests via email.

They asked me to first take a picture against a blank white wall with my smartphone and email it to them. I didn’t even have to edit it; they took care of that part on their end. I was told that different consulates can be very demanding about photo guidelines, so it’s easier if they handle it.

New photo for visa. CLINT HENDERSON/THE POINTS GUY

I also needed to send several documents to The Passport Experts, including:

My U.S. passport book
A black and white photocopy of my Global Entry Card (front and back)
A black and white copy of my driver’s license or state ID (front and back)
A black and white copy of a rent statement, utility bill or apartment lease to prove I live in the New York area
The itinerary for my travel to China (for which I provided a copy of the confirmation of my mileage redemption to and from China from Tokyo)

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The Passport Experts will either have you mail the documents or arrange a messenger service to pick up your passport and other documents for an additional fee.

Once I sent all that off, the company emailed me a link to the actual visa application. China requires extensive information from potential visitors, including a detailed travel history. You are basically filling out an application for the visa but not submitting it — the team at The Passport Experts goes through it with a fine-toothed comb to ensure it’s perfect before submitting it electronically on your behalf.

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China visa online application. THE PEOPLE’S REPUBLIC OF CHINA

The application is pretty exhaustive and can be confusing, so it was nice not having to guess at some of the questions.

The other incredible help was skipping the wait at the consulate. The folks at the company took care of that for me. It was also deeply reassuring to have experts dealing with all the vagaries of a foreign government on my behalf. In fact, they have an employee who specializes in Chinese visas specifically.

I would have been heartbroken to wait in line for the visa, only to be told my application was out of date. So, it was a big relief to me.

It also took a few extra days because the Chinese consulate in New York was making some changes to the requirements around the time I was requesting a visa.

That’s the great thing about using specialists in situations like these: I would have had no idea the application was changing if I had been trying to do it myself online.

The Passport Experts

Close-up of American passport — TETRA IMAGES/GETTY IMAGES

The Passport Experts specializes in last-minute travel docs for travelers of all kinds. The company is based in New York City and brands itself as “a luxury concierge travel document advisory and expediting firm.” They’ve worked with some big names, like Carmelo Anthony and Suze Orman.

There are no set prices, but an expedited visa, including concierge services, would likely cost more than $1,200. The good news is that the company is offering a 15% discount to TPG readers who mention code “TPGVIP01” during the consultation.

It sounds like a lot of money, but for last-minute service and peace of mind, it’s probably worth it in some situations.

The Passport Experts promises expedited passports nationwide in as few as 48 hours. That’s pretty remarkable. Fortunately, most people applying for a visa have a bit more time to plan trips, though the team said they’ve seen plenty of last-minute requests for difficult visas and other travel documents. All in all, the whole process took me roughly two weeks.

“For over two decades, we have become a trusted resource for our clients, seamlessly delivering hundreds of thousands of rushed passports and visas for last-minute trips,” Yagudaev said.

He said their service is possible because of their ability to leverage “access to … 25 years of data from the 270,000-plus files we successfully expedited for last-minute travelers since 2001.”

Bottom line

A view of Shanghai at night — A view of Shanghai, China, from Viking Yi Dun. ASHLEY KOSCIOLEK/THE POINTS GUY

I had an amazing few days in Shanghai, and I cannot wait to go back. Now that I have a 10-year visa, I can go anytime I want.

Using a concierge passport and visa service can be expensive, but it can also save you a ton of time and stress. I found The Passport Experts to be super professional and knowledgeable when it came to getting my visa for China. They made what could have been a real challenge fairly painless. For what it’s worth, I’ve also used another New York-based service called ItsEasy.com to expedite a passport. There are multiple companies out there that can help you if you get into a pinch, but I can definitely recommend these two.

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Stacie Harris

Stacie Harris is a local resident and reporter of the Maple Grove area. Stacie reports on medicine and science for the Maple Grove Report.

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Recent Reviews

Before ‘One Battle After Another,’ Leonardo DiCaprio Was a Delightful Mess in This Netflix Satire

We’re heading into Oscars weekend, and looking at all the nominees, it’s a stacked card this year. One of the movies I’ve got an eye on is One Battle After Another. Leonardo DiCaprio is the star of Paul Thomas Anderson’s 10th movie. Overall, the film has racked up 13 nominations, including Best Picture, Best Director for Anderson and Best Actor for DiCaprio.

These past weeks, I’ve been inundated with Oscar-themed emails pitching different streaming suggestions tied to the glitzy ceremony. I decided to home in here and discuss one of DiCaprio’s less appreciated movies. It’s a film that was the beginning of what I like to refer to as “DiCaprio’s Schlubby Era.”

This movie features an absolutely stacked cast and delivers its message loud and clear. I rewatched it last night, and I still found it thoroughly entertaining. I’m in the minority, though. You see, the film I’m talking about was a victim of circumstance, as it lifted a mirror to society at a terribly fraught time.

If you haven’t figured it out yet, I’m talking about Netflix’s Don’t Look Up. It was directed by Adam McKay, and while it is absolutely a comedy, the disaster satire hit streaming at the wrong time. If you don’t recall, the film — which was meant as a dire warning about climate change and society’s apathetic response to it — hit the streamer at the height of the pandemic.

Production still from Don't Look Up showing Jennifer Lawrence in a hoodie sitting next to Leonardo DiCaprio in glasses and a frumpy suit. — Jennifer Lawrence and Leonardo DiCaprio star in Don’t Look Up.

Niko Tavernise/Netflix

Everyone was stuck inside, looking for light-hearted, feel-good entertainment like Ted Lasso. A movie about a pending catastrophe that would end the world and its entire population was a tough pill to swallow. Perhaps it still is? I’ll circle back to that thought in a bit.

Needless to say, it was sharply panned by critics for its subject matter and tone. Don’t Look Up received four Oscar nominations, and even if you think about the lackluster affair that was the 2022 Academy Awards, it showed there is merit to the polarizing comedy. And I’m going to talk about it.

Don’t Look Up follows scientist Dr. Randall Mindy (DiCaprio) and his PhD student Kate DiBiasky (Jennifer Lawrence) as they try to relay the urgency of their discovery of a giant comet barrelling toward Earth. In roughly six months, an extinction-level event triggered by the comet’s impact will obliterate humanity and the planet.

Mindy and DiBiasky face an unexpected uphill battle, though. Each person in power they speak to, from the news media to the President of the United States, ends up downplaying the warning. Instead of focusing on the well-being of the American people, they end up focusing on how the pending disaster can ultimately benefit them.

Production still from Don't Look Up showing Meryl Streep as the President of the United States. — Meryl Streep stars in Don’t Look Up.

Niko Tavernise/Netflix

In turn, the media and government end up lying to the populace. Sound familiar?

As bleak as this reveal is, the movie carries a sort of gallows humor married to a tongue-in-cheek aesthetic that is both laugh-inducing and cringeworthy. The end is bleak, with no real clear lesson aside from the hammer-to-the-head message to, actually, look up and be present. It’s all still very much relatable nearly half a decade later.

A big reason I find Don’t Look Up more than watchable is the performances of DiCaprio and Lawrence, both stepping outside of their proverbial boxes to play homely underdogs.

This is the beginning of DiCaprio’s exploration of unkempt characters, in which he has played against glamorous type and shown new levels of range. It’s commendable to see an actor of his stature stretch himself out of his comfort zone — which, in turn, tests the comfort levels of the audiences tuning in.

Production still from Don't Look Up showing Leonardo DiCaprio in a suit and glasses looking panicked in the middle of the street. — Leonardo DiCaprio stars in Don’t Look Up.

Niko Tavernise/Netflix

He would continue this trend in Killers of the Flower Moon and One Battle After Another.

Lawrence is fantastic as his outspoken student, who takes everyone to task, including the president. And then there’s the rest of the excellent cast, which includes (deep breath): Meryl Streep, Cate Blanchett, Jonah Hill, Mark Rylance, Tyler Perry, Timothée Chalamet, Ron Perlman, Ariana Grande, Melanie Lynskey and Michael Chiklis.

I’m not going to get lost in the minutiae of everything going on in today’s world that Don’t Look Up relates to. But it’s worth noting that, while this is a movie about climate change, the story can apply to a whole mess of things, from the war in the Middle East to the rise of AI and the proliferation of misinformation to the masses.

Since the movie premiered on Netflix, other apocalyptic entertainment has come along, like Fallout, Silo, Paradise and the later seasons of The Boys, which have tapped into similar themes with greater success.

You’re going to see a lot of recommendations online pointing you to Leonardo DiCaprio’s biggest movies, with guidance to watch them because of his latest Oscar nomination. I could’ve done that (heck, I nearly did, but The Wolf of Wall Street is no longer on Netflix).

Instead, it felt like the perfect time to revisit Don’t Look Up.

This is a movie that doesn’t coddle the audience; instead, it pokes fun at us. We’ve all, at one point, fallen victim to quick dopamine fixes that distract from our day-to-day reality.

Don’t Look Up is a smack in the face, shouting at us to thwart that behavior and take action, and its dark ending further nails that message home. It may have missed the mark when it was initially released, but this comedy has all the components of a genre classic that gets better with age.

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