Quick question...the visa...considering all goes well and its approved, do they give it that very day? Some ppl say yeh, some wait a couple of days...can anyone shed some light?

No you definetly don't get the visa same day. They will send it to you visa the sms courrier.

I've heard it can be the same day, though not likely. My husband received his within a week or so.

As Nicky points out, this is definitely not the case in London. You're told that it should arrive within 5 working days (provided that you pass the interview and don't have any documents outstanding); usually it is a bit sooner than that but not same day.

haven't heard of anyone getting it the same day; haven't heard of anyone having to wait the full five days they allow themselves... it seems to average at about two or maybe three days

(talking about London, of course )

I have not heard of anyone getting it on the same either, my husband got his a few days after the interview.

There have been people posting on here, only a very few, but they have waited more than the five days for London to send the visa out. That has happened when the visa has been granted and for no apparent reason just got delayed in sending.

well, that's why I said 'haven't heard of anyone' and not 'no one has had to'

do you know who they were, out of interest? I don't recall anyone posting in this sub-forum about such a thing... may well have missed something though; I only check a few threads

Didn't Mags's take forever for some unknown reason?

(hee hee -- accidentally hit the caps there for a moment and I felt like I was in a thread where people were asking about "CAN I VISIT MY FIANCE WHEN MY K1 IS IN PROCESS? ZOMG!")

Well there have been so few and spread over the time I've been on the board that I don't recall names.

However what popped into my mind when I read your post was someone who waited nearly three weeks for it to arrive. When they contacted the Embassy there was no reason it just hadn't been dealt with. There have been a few others who have waited up to 2 weeks. It just seems at odd times the things don't get sent out at quickly as normal.

I think maybe if the OP saw posts from people having gotten the visa on the same day, it probably wasn't in London.

London did issue visas same day years ago. Reading the newsgroup archives, people used to get the visa same day. In fact in some cases, several applicants flew out next day!

Those were the days...

(*now I can't get the All in the Family theme song out of my head*)

I have a question, If you fly down to London for your interview and you have to leave your Passport with the embasy, then how do you fly back home? I belive you need photo ID to board your flight and if you dont have a photo Drivers Licence what do you use?

You use any piece of photo ID that the airline you're flying with will accept. If you don't have any then you'll need to consider another form of transport.

Gillian

You'd have to wait - you can fly back to Ireland or the Channel Islands with just a drivers license, as it's within the Common Travel Area, but anywhere else, you need a passport.

If you dont have a photo drivers license, it's ok, just safe to have something 'just in case' - but as you won't pass through immigration if you're flying from the Common Travel Area (that is within the UK, Ireland and the Channel Islands) its ok.

You won't be able to board without a passport to anywhere else though, Carriers Liability law and all that.

BA certainly didn't require any ID to check in for a domestic flight and I can't find anything on their web site that says that has changed. BMI seemed to only want ID for "domestic" flights between the UK and Ireland

Ryanair on the other hand has the most stringent ID requirements.

they asked for my passport when I flew BA from London to Aberdeen... it was as a form of photo ID I think; I never had a UK driver's license, but still, it was required

They have fallen in line with the others then. They were refusing to do so at one time saying it wasn't necessary and served no useful purpose from the airlines standpoint.