Priority Spouse Visa FALL Timeline (Oct-Dec)

Hi all!

So we received an email to let us know that for some reason, my husbands Priority was not used. The email was short, told us that we are entitled to a refund and to click on a link to get the refund and when i did that it took me round in circles and i couldn't work out how to get the £500 refund. They did not say they would make him a priority.

I'm pregnant, waiting with my husband in Costa Rica and am 33 weeks along and can no longer fly back home, and I be damned if my government were going to split me and my husband up so that he could not see his baby for the first couple of months. Which is why I decided to wait with him here. This process has been the most stressful thing I have ever done. We have decided to stay in Costa Rica and have our baby here as I am a Costa Rican citizen and can use their health care for free.

I'm really saddened by this process and when I emailed back we heard nothing.

We applied with priority at the beginning of December. Received the notice that they had all our paperwork on the 8th December. Have heard nothing since.

As we have decided to stay here, and have our baby, I'm at the point now where I dont really care about the visa and wish we had not bothered. I cant let it stress me out anymore. My lawyer does nothing to help either and told me not to complain until after we had an answer and doesnt seem to want to do much more. All in all, i am over the UK and decided I dont even want to live in a country like that anyway. Luckily I work online as a Travel Consultant and can work from here or the UK so we have not been split up due to my work commitments.

I've really appreciated this community of people going through the process like we have been.

Any advice on trying to get a refund for our priority which was never used, please let me know.

Also, we thought about cancelling the process, but my lawyer said that that could cause my hubby problems in the future entering the UK on a tourist visa.

Thanks
Emilie

I am so sorry to hear all of this. This is very concerning since there is no way to get in contact with anyone to fix the problem. We have also done priority and said it could take up to the 30 BD so if we dont hear back within the next couple days we are going to contact our local MP and have them contact them to see if another situation like yours is occurring. That is absolutely ridiculous that someone can contact you to either fix yours immediately or at least ease your mind. I hope something positive comes out of this for you guys.

I am so sorry to hear all of this. This is very concerning since there is no way to get in contact with anyone to fix the problem. We have also done priority and said it could take up to the 30 BD so if we dont hear back within the next couple days we are going to contact our local MP and have them contact them to see if another situation like yours is occurring. That is absolutely ridiculous that someone can contact you to either fix yours immediately or at least ease your mind. I hope something positive comes out of this for you guys.

I'm afraid there isn't a 30 day timeframe for priority.  All it pays for is for your application to be put ahead of the non-priority applications.  No time guarantees.

I'm afraid there isn't a 30 day timeframe for priority.  All it pays for is for your application to be put ahead of the non-priority applications.  No time guarantees.

So when you have others sending their papers after you and then getting their materials back before you, there isn't a problem? Especially with something like this occurring. I have to travel for work and because I don't have my passport for the past 1.5 months with no insight on when I will be getting it back it's starting to affect my job. I will have to now pay the extra money to go try to get a second passport to travel.

So when you have others sending their papers after you and then getting their materials back before you, there isn't a problem? Especially with something like this occurring. I have to travel for work and because I don't have my passport for the past 1.5 months with no insight on when I will be getting it back it's starting to affect my job. I will have to now pay the extra money to go try to get a second passport to travel.

It's a government agency. These inefficiencies are a given and there's not much that can be done about it. And like KFDancer said, there's no guarantees of anything.

Sent from my VS986 using Tapatalk

So when you have others sending their papers after you and then getting their materials back before you, there isn't a problem? Especially with something like this occurring. I have to travel for work and because I don't have my passport for the past 1.5 months with no insight on when I will be getting it back it's starting to affect my job. I will have to now pay the extra money to go try to get a second passport to travel.

Trust me - I'm sure I hate UKVI WAY more than you.   

The process is awful and needs changing.  Definitely needs to be more transparent.

You are absolutely welcome to contact your MP at any point in the process.  It's just that you'll find they will be more helpful after the "service standard" of 12 weeks has been met.  Some MP's refuse to contact UKVI before then.

I was just letting you know that there is no 30 day guarantee for priority applications.  UKVI doesn't promise that.  A few years ago, priority used to promise a 15 day turnaround but they eliminated that promise long ago.

Hi all!

So we received an email to let us know that for some reason, my husbands Priority was not used. The email was short, told us that we are entitled to a refund and to click on a link to get the refund and when i did that it took me round in circles and i couldn't work out how to get the £500 refund. They did not say they would make him a priority.

I'm pregnant, waiting with my husband in Costa Rica and am 33 weeks along and can no longer fly back home, and I be damned if my government were going to split me and my husband up so that he could not see his baby for the first couple of months. Which is why I decided to wait with him here. This process has been the most stressful thing I have ever done. We have decided to stay in Costa Rica and have our baby here as I am a Costa Rican citizen and can use their health care for free.

I'm really saddened by this process and when I emailed back we heard nothing.

We applied with priority at the beginning of December. Received the notice that they had all our paperwork on the 8th December. Have heard nothing since.

As we have decided to stay here, and have our baby, I'm at the point now where I dont really care about the visa and wish we had not bothered. I cant let it stress me out anymore. My lawyer does nothing to help either and told me not to complain until after we had an answer and doesnt seem to want to do much more. All in all, i am over the UK and decided I dont even want to live in a country like that anyway. Luckily I work online as a Travel Consultant and can work from here or the UK so we have not been split up due to my work commitments.

I've really appreciated this community of people going through the process like we have been.

Any advice on trying to get a refund for our priority which was never used, please let me know.

Also, we thought about cancelling the process, but my lawyer said that that could cause my hubby problems in the future entering the UK on a tourist visa.

Thanks
Emilie

Oh Emilie, that is awful to have found out. I applied non priority just a short time before you and I am getting antsy to find out! It's closing in on 60 BD for me, so I can only imagine how you feel with having paid for priority processing. That's even more infuriating that the link to get a refund is leading you in circles. I can't imagine the anger that you are feeling at this point, especially being that far along in your pregnancy.

I will say this though - I'm not surprised that the way to get your refund is not straight forward. As KFdancer said, this process is awful and it definitely needs changing. There is zero accountability and there is no transparency. Realistically speaking, I don't see it changing. The UK government, like a lot of governments, is broke and I think that changing the process for immigration to make it easier for the applicant is probably the last thing on their minds.

I hope that you CAN get a refund for your priority processing, they may not make it easy, but you deserve to get that money back. I'm also wishing you a wonderful last few weeks of your pregnancy.

Hi all!

So we received an email to let us know that for some reason, my husbands Priority was not used. The email was short, told us that we are entitled to a refund and to click on a link to get the refund and when i did that it took me round in circles and i couldn't work out how to get the £500 refund. They did not say they would make him a priority.

I'm pregnant, waiting with my husband in Costa Rica and am 33 weeks along and can no longer fly back home, and I be damned if my government were going to split me and my husband up so that he could not see his baby for the first couple of months. Which is why I decided to wait with him here. This process has been the most stressful thing I have ever done. We have decided to stay in Costa Rica and have our baby here as I am a Costa Rican citizen and can use their health care for free.

I'm really saddened by this process and when I emailed back we heard nothing.

We applied with priority at the beginning of December. Received the notice that they had all our paperwork on the 8th December. Have heard nothing since.

As we have decided to stay here, and have our baby, I'm at the point now where I dont really care about the visa and wish we had not bothered. I cant let it stress me out anymore. My lawyer does nothing to help either and told me not to complain until after we had an answer and doesnt seem to want to do much more. All in all, i am over the UK and decided I dont even want to live in a country like that anyway. Luckily I work online as a Travel Consultant and can work from here or the UK so we have not been split up due to my work commitments.

I've really appreciated this community of people going through the process like we have been.

Any advice on trying to get a refund for our priority which was never used, please let me know.

Also, we thought about cancelling the process, but my lawyer said that that could cause my hubby problems in the future entering the UK on a tourist visa.

Thanks
Emilie

Can you send an email to the address you received the notification from and ask for help?  That would be my first step.  Second step would be to contact the MP for the area you plan to live and ask for help.

I am so sorry this has happened.  But I'm glad you had a good "plan B" with regards to your baby.

I have no idea what your lawyer is on about.  A voluntary withdrawal or cancellation of a visa is not going to affect future visitor visas.  It is EASY to explain that you changed your mind after it was apparent you would be unable to secure a visa before your child was born and decided to remain where you are.

Can you send an email to the address you received the notification from and ask for help?  That would be my first step.  Second step would be to contact the MP for the area you plan to live and ask for help.

I am so sorry this has happened.  But I'm glad you had a good "plan B" with regards to your baby.

I have no idea what your lawyer is on about.  A voluntary withdrawal or cancellation of a visa is not going to affect future visitor visas.  It is EASY to explain that you changed your mind after it was apparent you would be unable to secure a visa before your child was born and decided to remain where you are.

Thank you so much for your reply! I really appreciate the quick response and information that you offer. My lawyer takes a day or two to respond to my questions and we paid for her!

I did email back immediately to the email that was sent to us about the refund, and have heard nothing. This was the email address we were emailed from UKVI.Feedback.LatAm@vfshelpline.com

I have a question if you dont mind.
How do I cancel the process? Do you know how I would go about that?
 
Thank you so much!
Emilie

I have a question if you dont mind.
How do I cancel the process? Do you know how I would go about that?
 

I know that you are really disillusioned by the whole process right now but before you cancel the process, just try to take a step back and be sure that's really what you want. You won't get your visa fee back and if you change your mind you would have to pay again.

https://www.gov.uk/cancel-visa

I agree with Larabee.  I wouldn’t cancel as there is nothing to be gained.

You *may* change your mind still.  I say this as a formally pregnant woman.  Those hormones are surging.   

I know that you are really disillusioned by the whole process right now but before you cancel the process, just try to take a step back and be sure that's really what you want. You won't get your visa fee back and if you change your mind you would have to pay again.

Thank you! I have been thinking about it for the last few days. The reason we are considering cancelling is because I believe what happened is the following:

My hubby had to fly from Costa Rica to Panama City for his interview. The file was 100% ready with everything he needed. They had a new service where they scanned everything. Their service was down, for some reason it was not working properly and they sent many Panamanian applicants home that day but not my hubby as he had flown from Costa Rica and had a return flight that night. He was seen at 6pm that day, after the office had shut. His allotted time was 11am. It took them all day to scan 3 applicants info as the system kept breaking down. My hubby said it took them ages to scan through all the info and that paperwork was all over the place. The file came back in a very disorganised state. I do not have much faith that they did their job that day and for this reason they missed the priority confirmation paper we had included. Part of me is worried my hubby will be rejected due to missing paperwork of no fault of our own. As there is noone to check this with, we have just been hoping and waiting, but when they sent us the email saying the priority was not used, its brought up fears that other pieces of paper were not included. I just dont want him to have any problems with entering England on a visitor visa at a later date. I cant think of another reason why they did not use the priority. We had included the proof of payment.

Hope the above makes sense, but I know, I shouldnt make a rushed decision, just dont want issues in the future and part of me feels we should just cancel. I know we will loose the money, but that would be easier to handle than issues with entering the UK to visit.

Thanks!
Emilie

You *may* change your mind still.  I say this as a formally pregnant woman.  Those hormones are surging.   

Haha, that made me laugh outloud! My hormones are indeed surging! lol

Are you a US Citizen? If so, do NOT apply for a second passport. This will invalidate the passport that the U.K. govt has and will then invalidate the visa that will be attached to it. It is going to be way more of a hassle to have the visa switched to the new passport. I do know that it is possible to request your passport back in certain cases. Whether or not this action could delay your processing, who knows. But it will definitely affect how fast you can get to the U.K., if you need to switch passports.

I did this when I was 19, ended up in a scary room entering back into the USA. 

So when you have others sending their papers after you and then getting their materials back before you, there isn't a problem? Especially with something like this occurring. I have to travel for work and because I don't have my passport for the past 1.5 months with no insight on when I will be getting it back it's starting to affect my job. I will have to now pay the extra money to go try to get a second passport to travel.

Wowza! Super fast! Congrats! Hopefully this is just the start to many more getting processed!

Hello everyone! I just wanted to say thank you to this forum for all the help during our application process. I didn't post much but reading this forum helped my husband and I a ton! We recently got approved so I'll post my timeline below. Thanks again!!!

Biometrics: Jan.16th
Application sent (priority): Jan.16th
Application received e-mail: Jan.18th
Decision e-mail: Jan. 30th
Documents returned: Feb.1st with an approval!

Are you a US Citizen? If so, do NOT apply for a second passport. This will invalidate the passport that the U.K. govt has and will then invalidate the visa that will be attached to it. It is going to be way more of a hassle to have the visa switched to the new passport. I do know that it is possible to request your passport back in certain cases. Whether or not this action could delay your processing, who knows. But it will definitely affect how fast you can get to the U.K., if you need to switch passports.

I did this when I was 19, ended up in a scary room entering back into the USA. 

This is not true!  He would only invalidate the application if he attempted to enter the UK on a second passport.  Travel to other countries on the second passport is allowed!