Amending Entry Clearance to Armed Forces Appendix

I've got a bit of an odd situation.

I'm the American wife of a British citizen, been here on a spouse visa issued 5 November 2014, and it expires 5 August 2017. I recently applied for a Transfer of Conditions because my name changed, and I wanted a Biometric Residence Permit with my correct married surname on it.

8 weeks later, all documents were returned to me and I was told my application was voided, and the fee would be refunded. The reason is because they realised that when we applied for my initial spouse visa, my husband was in the Royal Air Force (he has since left, about 4 months ago). As such, we were eligible to apply under Appendix Armed Forces, but we didn't know this as we weren't working with a solicitor and just did it ourselves. Apparently if we'd applied this way, I could've been granted 60 months entry clearance, not 33! The letter sent with my documents told me to contact UKVI to enquire about an amendment of my entry clearance.

They were useless on the phone, but I found this page: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/correcting-an-incorrect-endorsement-ecb19/correcting-an-incorrect-endorsement-ecb19

Is this what I should do? Email UKVI International Sheffield at EntryClearance.Errors@fco.gsi.gov.uk and explain? I think I have a "vignette endorsement" as it's the old style visa, taking up a page in my passport, not a BRP.

Has anybody had any experience getting entry clearance amended for this or any other reason? I'm sort of excited that I might actually be granted another 2.5 years to remain without having to do FLR(M) this summer, but it's been so much time and my husband has left the military, so I'm not sure how optimistic to be.

If anybody has any insight about something else I should do besides contacting the office above, I'd be grateful to hear it. I feel like the worst case here is they don't amend it, and we apply for FLR(M) in August as we always intended to - it would be a lot of money for the fee that maybe we shouldn't have had to pay, but it's what we thought we would need to do all along so we wouldn't be that bothered.

Thanks!

Yes, if you had applied under the Armed Forces application, the visa would have been issued in line with his current orders.  Meaning it could have been issued for the full five years instead of only 33 months.

But if he's no longer Armed Forces, I don't see how your application would be successful now. 

I mean, I don't understand it either, but they wouldn't even process my Transfer of Conditions application because they said I should have been granted this extended entry clearance and said I should get it amended, indicating that there is a way to amend it retroactively?  I'm hopeful that means that there is a process for this.

Like you say, there is ZERO harm in contacting the email address you have and explaining the situation and seeing what they say.

Keep us posted!