I'm heading to the middle east in four months, and tried buying my ticket last night. It needed my passport so I got it and discovered it expires in two months. Honestly thought it was next year.
I did the Fed Ex Passport Renewal thing they do with the Rush My Passport. The website is very misleading though. It says you can walk into any Fed Ex Mailbox store (I went to the one on Whitestone) with your passport and get it done, but that's not true. You have to have a check or money order to send the government, they live in 1975. You go to a computer at the Fed Ex place and fill out and application online which they print out. So I left and got a money order, which took an hour because I couldn't find a place who did them. So I went back only to find out they couldn't do my photo because I was wearing a white shirt. JFC. So I walked to Target and bought one real quick.
Total cost:
220 or so for the Rush fees.
208 to the government.
18 to FedEx for shipping.
So close to $500 for everything, including the shirt. It was a fairly quick process, but even though in the FAQs they talk about a separate fee, their folksy "just come on in with your passport" is not exactly true. But if have your checkbook on you, the whole thing takes about ten minutes. You can do photos there as well.
I'll give an update when the new one arrives.