Esta, application

What a complete faff we are having, as our Esta’s just expired went on the Homeland site and obviously it’s all updated tech wise in the last two years since we last applied.

The site wanted our passport photos downloaded before applying anything. Now I am not technical,at all and only having an old IMac it just would not Co operate at all. The little wheel kept. Continually going round.

Hubby eventually got to take the passport photos on his old I phone, then went onto his old Mac book which eventually accepted his application , then it sent a 4 digit code to verify the email address which never arrived.
For one application this took nearly an hour , I still have mine to do this pm not looking forward to it.

His passport runs out end of April so we will have to this all again before our next trip.

What happens if you do not have up to date software compatible equipment , is there any other way of applying for your esta?

Are you sure you’re going to the correct website rather than a third party?
Here is the official website: https://esta.cbp.dhs.gov/esta

[mitchja]

The official ESTA does now indeed ask you to upload your passport. I don’t remember having any issues doing this when I completed my application last year after I got my new passport.

Yes it was the correct site, I used the link from the expired email they sent.

I did mine later on in the day and once we knew what we were doing it all went through very quickly so we are all sorted. It was just the uploading of the photo's onto the site that was causing the problems my old iMac just would not accept it.
Remember we are in our 70's and not brought up with all the technology of today, I started out using the old typewriters, and we did not have a computer till well into our 50"s , and we are self taught although we do have sons well in there 40's they do not live near us.
We only use our phones for calls and texts not on them 24/7 like the youngsters of today glued to their ears.

The process seems to get longer each time we need to get a new ESTA! Had to renew the other half’s last year, but don’t remember having to upload his passport photo (this was September). Mine needs renewing in a few months though, I must remember to put aside a week or two to do it

I did mine and my husbands last week. I just held up the passport page infront of the laptop camera and it captured all the information. Mine took a couple of tries as needed to hold it really still, but did my husbands first time.

Definitely more information asked for every time they're done but a lot of it is optional and mostly straight forward.