Renewing My Passport

Not being any different from my fellow Malaysians, I had decided to renew my passport almost at the last second before my trip. Since I know that they can renew my passport within a day, I had decided to take my own sweet time. But I need to confirm my itinerary beforehand, hence I need to renew it earlier than I expected. Anyway, I just found out that we have this Kiosk machine available at selected branches of the immigration department for renewing your passport. So I went over to Pusat Bandar Damansara and give it a try. Arrived around 9.15am and went straight to Block I. You can see Giant hypermarket on your left the Kiosk a.k.a KIPPAS (Kiosk Pembaharuan Passport) is opposite it. Don't bother looking for parking anywhere above, just go straight to basement 4 and below. Since all the above are reserved parking anyway.

Make sure you got all the documents:-

1. Old Passport (make sure you are having the chip build in at the last page cover)
2. MyKad (the one with the smart chip in build) 
3. Photocopy of your MyKad front & back (on the same page)
4. 1 x Passport Photograph of yourself 
5. Bring Cash (RM300 for 5 years & RM100 for 1 year) 
6. Pen, as there are no pen for you to fill in the envelope on your details later. 

Word of advice, make sure that the photocopy of your MyKad is visible and clear. Make sure the passport picture of yourself is valid and check with the  photo shop. Bring extra cash as some of the cash might not be accepted by the machine (similar to our cash deposit machines). 

Once arrive, make sure you get an envelope from the side table to write your full name, I.C number and contact number on it. Then walk over to the Kiosk machine (4 machines and pray that most of them are working) and touch the screen to choose the language. 

1. Insert your old passport into the slot and it will be read. Most of the time, you won't encounter any problem at this early stage unless your passport isn't the new one with the build in chip. 
2. Insert your MyKad into the slot with the chip in first with your picture facing up. Most of the time, problem will start here. I tried mine twice and only got it on the third. Try cleaning the chip surface with an eraser or just your finger. And pray hard that it is readable or you're gonna do it manually. 
3. Place your right hand thumb on the scanner to verify. Ladies, make sure you hands are dry and don't applied moisturizer or stuff on it beforehand. I heard it will make the scanning process difficult. 
4. You can retrieve both your passport and MyKad at this point and take out your cash (either RM10 or RM50 notes only). Choose either 1 year renewal or 5 years and slot in the cash. And please, not all at the same time or you're gonna jam the machine and everyone behind you are gonna kill you for that. 
5. Place your old passport, photocopy of MyKad, passport picture into the envelope and slot it into the place instructed. You will be given a piece of resit and notify of the time to collect it. It's written there, one hour after the deposit, but I think better make it 2 hours to be safe unless you are waiting over at that place.

I am now waiting in my office and it's almost time to collect my new passport. I hope that all the documents and papers are in order or I am going to be very mad later. This KIPPAS really beat the hassle of waking up early and having to queue up with the rest of the people to get a number (which normally only serve 150 people a day). One good thing about doing it the old fashion way is that, they will check all your documentations and make sure everything is in order before you leave. Anyway, it's a new thing for me and hope that this post gives some ideas to those whose gonna renew their passport soon an option. Cheers~!

Updates:-

So I came back around lunch hour although the resit asked me to come back after an hour after the deposit of the envelope. You will need to go to 2nd floor to collect your new passport. You will need to go to Counter 17 and pass them your resit (from the Kiosk machine) and they will give you a running number. Now pray that their system is not down or you're gonna spend a long time over here. Don't worry if your number is far from the current one as they don't follow the running numbers. The guy from Counter 16 will call you over and now will need to present your MyKad and verify again with your right hand thumb on the scanner. Walla~ you're done. He will give you your new passport and you are off to go home. It took me around 25 minutes to complete the whole process. Long? Well, it's alright for me. Beats doing it the manual way in fact.