How long to book a K1 interview in Montreal

[Shadowess 13]

Hi folks,

I'll be filling my I 129F within the week, and I'm curious what the general timeline is for booking an interview in Montreal?

Once Packet 4 has been received, how far in advance are interviews available? Also is there anywhere that keeps tabs on what that wait time is like? (like the processing times here on VJ)

Mostly I ask because I have contract work at a community college, and they ask me to return each semester, so having an idea on how long the whole K1 process will take will help me choose if I can accept a new contract or not. Currently the wait time at Montreal is the only thing I don't have a general idea about.

Any help would be appreciated!

[k_stacky 65]

here is a general timeline for K-1 visas: http://www.visajourney.com/content/k1flow

and here are a bunch of charts with historical processing times for various stages of the process: http://www.visajourney.com/content/k1historical

in my experience, it took three months from the i-129f filing to being able to book my interview in Montreal, with the longest wait of the whole process being waiting for my interview. I booked my interview on September 21st and the earliest date available was December 2nd. It is my understanding that you should expect around two months wait for your interview... however this is all dependant on when you happen to click their little calendar. sometimes appointments won't be listed for weeks, sometimes you'll get lucky and there will be a cancellation or something and you will get an early appointment. it is very much luck of the draw.

two months between booking and attending the interview seems like a good average lately, although that too can certainly change based on when you actually end up booking. different times of the year have different amounts of cases being processed, etc. which leads to different waits for interviews as appointments are either filled more often or less as their caseload fluctuates.

[Mad & J 25]

Yep, these days it seems to be 2-3 months between Packet 4 and Interview, but like k_stacky said, that may change by the time you reach that step. I received my packet 4 on September 29th and the earliest available interview was December 16th, so 2.5 months.

ETA: You can also check recent timelines here: http://www.visajourney.com/timeline/k1list.php?cfl=&op1=&op2=&op3=1&op4=1&op5=&op6=All

Just select your Service Center and country and it will show a bunch of recent timelines. They will include both Montreal and Vancouver, but it can give you an idea of how long the entire process usually takes for Canadians.

Edited October 4, 2015 by Mad & J

[Sapphhira 0]

Just out of curiosity when did you find interviews available? My fiancee and I have been checking 10x a day each at all times of day every day since August 24th and have not seen one interview available. We have called them to see if it was because it will not take our payment and they said it is normal and will not take our payment till there are dates available.

What time of day is best to check? Is there anything we can do to try to increase our odds of finding an interview? This is killing me because we had a December wedding planned out and now we dont even know if we will find an interview before next spring....

[k_stacky 65]

Just out of curiosity when did you find interviews available? My fiancee and I have been checking 10x a day each at all times of day every day since August 24th and have not seen one interview available. We have called them to see if it was because it will not take our payment and they said it is normal and will not take our payment till there are dates available.

What time of day is best to check? Is there anything we can do to try to increase our odds of finding an interview? This is killing me because we had a December wedding planned out and now we dont even know if we will find an interview before next spring....

I booked my interview on September 21st, and there were dates open for at least four days in December. I think it was around 8pm EST. However I had been checking since like 7am that morning, but I had already paid my fee in full and I paid my fee when the site still said that there were no available appointments. It doesn't make sense why you can't pay your fee or why you don't have an appointment by now.

Can you click through to the page that has the calendar on it? Or is it just a page with boxes that has how much you owe and then two boxes that say no dates available for montreal or vancouver?

Edited October 10, 2015 by k_stacky

[Sapphhira 0]

I booked my interview on September 21st, and there were dates open for at least four days in December. I think it was around 8pm EST. However I had been checking since like 7am that morning, but I had already paid my fee in full and I paid my fee when the site still said that there were no available appointments. It doesn't make sense why you can't pay your fee or why you don't have an appointment by now.

Can you click through to the page that has the calendar on it? Or is it just a page with boxes that has how much you owe and then two boxes that say no dates available for montreal or vancouver?

The two boxes with how much we owe and dates for Montreal and Vancouver.... Cannot get through to any calendar page.

This is what it looks like:

[k_stacky 65]

The two boxes with how much we owe and dates for Montreal and Vancouver.... Cannot get through to any calendar page.

This is what it looks like:

Have you tried contacting them by telephone?

You can't book an appointment without paying the fee and you can't check for dates without being able to access the calendar. Here is a forum topic with someone having the same trouble as you are who managed to pay the fee's via phone and be able to access the calendar; http://www.visajourney.com/forums/topic/560108-finally-got-my-appointment-letter-but-none-available-in-montreal/page-2

Here is the link to the contact for canada; https://ais.usvisa-info.com/en-ca/iv/information/contact_us

There are several local telephone numbers as well as an e-mail about payment issues and even an option to Skype.

You may want to try e-mailing them as well as calling with detailed information, especially concerning how long you've been unable to access dates. Because I know that dates have opened up for both Vancouver and Montreal (Vancouver dates on the 21st when I was booking my Montreal were available the whole day when I was refreshing... so if neither of them on your side changed and you were checking quite frequently, there's no way it should have said no dates available). I think it's a glitch in their system for some people. You can't pay your fee's unless you can book an appointment, and you can't book your appointment because you can't pay your fee's.

[k_stacky 65]

Here is another thread from a year ago with a few suggestions as well that may be worth looking at to see if anything suggested there helps, even though some of it may be outdated... anything at this point is worth a try; http://www.visajourney.com/forums/topic/519755-packet-4-trouble-scheduling-appointment-for-interview/