Unless someone important has died far away and left you with no choice, perhaps before you go on the news to bellyache about how long your passport application is taking to process thanks to the gigantic pandemic backlog and how you might have to cancel your trip because of it, consider not booking a trip before you have your passport in your hand. It will save you, and also me, a whole lot of irritation and frustration.
Note: I am not a renowned travel expert. I hate traveling. If I can avoid going as far as the next town, I will. I am merely someone who has been served rather well by making use of the thinking mechanism housed inside of his head.
I would even feel bad for people if they didn’t know about the whole “get your passport updated 6 months out from your trip, even if your trip is a week” rule. I didn’t know about that once, but I had a travel agent who was good enough to enlighten me.
That would be one thing, but not one of these halfwits has said anything about it. There’s nothing about how we should suspend the rule to get people moving or how it’s a nonsense policy. I’m sure somebody has been dinged by it, but there’s no way it’s this many people.