Advice on renewing US passport?

Has anyone renewed their US passport from the UK this year?

From the US Embassy website:

https://uk.usembassy.gov/u-s-citizen-services/u-s-passports/renew-an-adult-passport/

I can pay with either:

• Postal Money Order (in U.S. dollars or pounds sterling) in the exact amount made payable to the “U.S. Department of State.” The Postal Order can be either crossed or uncrossed.
• Bank Draft (in U.S. dollars or pounds sterling) in the exact amount made payable to the “U.S. Department of State.”

What are the considerations when paying with a postal money order versus a bank draft?

What is the turnaround time?

Encounter any problems?

Any other recent discussion threads on this topic? The only ones I could find were over 10 years ago.

Thanks.

Taking two to three weeks (embassy website will be accurate). 

No difference on processing with payment types.  Just ensure they are for the right amount.

Has anyone renewed their US passport from the UK this year?

From the US Embassy website:

https://uk.usembassy.gov/u-s-citizen-services/u-s-passports/renew-an-adult-passport/

I can pay with either:

• Postal Money Order (in U.S. dollars or pounds sterling) in the exact amount made payable to the “U.S. Department of State.” The Postal Order can be either crossed or uncrossed.
• Bank Draft (in U.S. dollars or pounds sterling) in the exact amount made payable to the “U.S. Department of State.”

What are the considerations when paying with a postal money order versus a bank draft?

What is the turnaround time?

Encounter any problems?

Any other recent discussion threads on this topic? The only ones I could find were over 10 years ago.

Thanks.

I just did mine. I printed the form on the website and took the passport photo, stapled it onto the form, then went to the post office and asked them for the special envelopes (you need the one you send it out in, then a return envelope. Make sure you get the special royal mail envelopes, the post office clerk should be able to help you). I paid with a postal order (I had to pay cash at my post office). AS KF says, just make sure you pay the exact amount. I had the website pulled up whilst I was in the queue, just to be sure it had not changed since I checked it 30 minutes prior  The clerk was really helpful because I was clearly nervous as I'd never done it before/was anxious about sending off my US passport. I just wrote the US Embassy London address on the outgoing envelope, then my home address on the return envelope. I put the return envelope,  the filled-in form (with the stapled-on new passport photo), the postal order and my old passport into the outgoing envelope then sent it off. I thought it would take 3-4 weeks, but as KF Dancer says below, it came in 2.5 weeks! Easy peasy Good luck!

Your experience was my experience. There were two annoyances:

It's not entirely clear which photos to get using a Photo Me booth. I got the wrong set of photos and had to reshoot.

That is because when you're doing the American passport photo option, the Photo Me booth gives you a constant string of warnings saying that it's not compliant with the passport. But of course, it's referring to the UK passport, not the American.

So when I printed out the first set of photos, I saw that they were clearly too small, so I had to go back into the booth for another round of photos.

The other annoyance was the fee that you have to pay the post office on top of the passport fee. So it's not enough to bring the exact amount for the renewal. There's the post office fee on top of that, which is something like under £10 if I remember correctly.

Thankfully, once I dropped the envelope into the appropriate receptacle, I had no further issues and did get the passport in less than 3 weeks.

The one depressing part of this procedure is seeing the expiration date of the new passport and knowing you will be 10 years older at that time...