Super Priority Service in New York for Fiance visa?

Hi there, new member here! The story: I met my British boyfriend on a short trip to London in May 2015. He visited me at home in New York in July, I visited him in London in August, and since the end of September I've had a 4 month visit and a 3 month visit to the UK with only a week in between. I know these long stays are generally frowned upon, but I didn't have any issues with immigration letting me into the UK either time. Anyway, we want to be together here in the UK, and I'm not going to push my luck with border control a third time, so I'll be flying back to New York in a couple of weeks to apply for my fiance visa and come back to the UK for good.

We're still gathering all our paperwork and this forum has been a huge help, but I haven't been able to find out much about the Super Priority service in New York, or the Gold Premium Service Package. Does anyone have any experience with this service? I don't love the price, but I'm eager to get back to the UK and I don't know if the regular Priority service will move fast enough for the particular time I'm setting aside to travel.

I saw this note on the VFS Global site: "The Premium Application Centres do not accept Settlement or Oversees Territory Visa Applicants." Is the 6-month fiance visa considered a Settlement visa, or a short stay (visitor) visa? It just seems like so many terms are used to describe this process – short stay, fiance, spousal, marriage, settlement – what am I actually applying for here? I've started my Visa4UK form which is under Settlement > Settlement > Marriage, which makes me think I can't use the Super Priority service? So confusing!

Apologies if this is all covered somewhere else, but I'd love some insight.

Welcome to the forum .

Unfortunately, fiance visa is a settlement visa and therefore the Super Priority Service is not an option for you. The reason for this is that settlement visas (fiance/spousal visas) are not processed in New York, they are processed in Sheffield, UK and are only processed by mail.

You will need to mail your application to Sheffield for processing, and your only option for speeding up the process is to purchase the 'Settlement Priority Service' for £450 ($653) on the VFS Global website. This will get your application put to the front of the processing line (behind other priority applications, but in front of everyone else) so that it is opened and looked at quicker.

I would allow a few weeks for the whole process to get the visa, especially as we are going into summer now and the processing times tend to slow down a bit (last June/July it was taking about 1 month for priority processing and up to 3 months for non-priority processing).

The online application should be the LAST thing you submit after you have checked that you meet all the requirements, gathered all your documents, and printed and filled out the second half of the application form - VAF4a Appendix 2.

You can see the paper version of the online application form for reference (VAF4a) and also print off the Appendix 2 form here:
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/application-for-uk-visa-for-family-settlement-form-vaf4a

Have you made sure that you meet the requirements:

1) Financial requirement: your fiance makes at least £18,600 in the UK and he has evidence of this by way of payslips, bank statements, a letter from his employer, his job contract and his latest P60

2) Accommodation requirement: you have evidence of somewhere to live in the UK, with written permission from the homeowner (if your fiance doesn't own it)

3) Relationship requirement: evidence of regular communication between you - visits to see each other, regular email/phone/message contact for the last year

4) Evidence of plans to marry in the UK: i.e. a provisional booking for a ceremony within 6 months of the fiance visa starting, correspondence with the church/registry office etc.