Do We Need an Interview Letter or Not?

[BoWrite 4]

My fiancee and I are applying through the embassy in Malaysia— I know it’s different for every embassy, but I figured I’d ask here since we had such a confusing experience and I’m hoping for a general answer.

 

We’ve seen on multiple websites that it depends on your embassy whether you need a Welcome Letter or if you can just schedule once the CEAC status is “ready.” We tried to go ahead and schedule at “Ready” (to see if it’d even let us) and were met with the dreaded “No Slots Available.” After trying and failing for almost a week, and not receiving an interview letter/welcome letter that whole time, we called the embassy.

The woman on the phone said that we didn’t need to wait for a welcome letter, we could go ahead and apply, and if it said “No Slots Available” to just keep trying. We asked whether the welcome letter would show up in physical mail or email, even if we don’t need it, and she said we wouldn’t be receiving one at all so don’t expect one.

Well another 4-5 days pass with no slots open still, so we call the embassy again to double check if we really won’t receive a welcome letter, and how long we should expect to wait for a slot to open. This other person says we WILL get a letter, and that’s why we can’t schedule an appointment yet— we’ll need the letter first. The letter will arrive by email and should come within 2 weeks of the “Ready” status.

 

Now we don’t know what to believe. Has anyone had a similar experience? Especially with the US Consulate in Malaysia, but anywhere else too? 
 

Main question is if the “No Slots Available” can be at fault of us not having a welcome letter, but just generally about the experience too.

 

Thanks for the help in advance!!

[Edward and Jaycel 2,317]

Generally, not having the welcome letter will not affect the scheduling website. Scheduling a K-1 visa interview appointment is an exercise in patience. We had to go through the "No Slots Available" for 3 weeks before we got lucky and happened upon one that we think was from someone cancelling, because it was the only slot available for the whole month. Just keep trying.

[JeanneAdil 7,341]

what u will need is the confirmation page of the DS 160

[PokuPoku 44]

2 hours ago, BoWrite said:

My fiancee and I are applying through the embassy in Malaysia— I know it’s different for every embassy, but I figured I’d ask here since we had such a confusing experience and I’m hoping for a general answer.

 

We’ve seen on multiple websites that it depends on your embassy whether you need a Welcome Letter or if you can just schedule once the CEAC status is “ready.” We tried to go ahead and schedule at “Ready” (to see if it’d even let us) and were met with the dreaded “No Slots Available.” After trying and failing for almost a week, and not receiving an interview letter/welcome letter that whole time, we called the embassy.

The woman on the phone said that we didn’t need to wait for a welcome letter, we could go ahead and apply, and if it said “No Slots Available” to just keep trying. We asked whether the welcome letter would show up in physical mail or email, even if we don’t need it, and she said we wouldn’t be receiving one at all so don’t expect one.

Well another 4-5 days pass with no slots open still, so we call the embassy again to double check if we really won’t receive a welcome letter, and how long we should expect to wait for a slot to open. This other person says we WILL get a letter, and that’s why we can’t schedule an appointment yet— we’ll need the letter first. The letter will arrive by email and should come within 2 weeks of the “Ready” status.

 

Now we don’t know what to believe. Has anyone had a similar experience? Especially with the US Consulate in Malaysia, but anywhere else too? 
 

Main question is if the “No Slots Available” can be at fault of us not having a welcome letter, but just generally about the experience too.

 

Thanks for the help in advance!!

My wife never received a letter, but we did receive an email from the embassy with a list of things we needed to complete before scheduling an interview. Once we completed the list and emailed them back, they let us schedule an interview.
You'll need to make sure you have everything completed before scheduling an interview.

[BoWrite 4]

18 minutes ago, PokuPoku said:

My wife never received a letter, but we did receive an email from the embassy with a list of things we needed to complete before scheduling an interview. Once we completed the list and emailed them back, they let us schedule an interview.
You'll need to make sure you have everything completed before scheduling an interview.

Hi! Thank you for replying, glad a fellow Malaysian filer found the post!

Out of curiosity, did you all try to schedule an interview before getting the email? Aka, have any idea if we’re seeing the right thing on usvisascheduling?

 

Or should we not have been able to even make an account on usvisascheduling until they cleared all our stuff?

[BoWrite 4]

1 hour ago, Edward and Jaycel said:

Generally, not having the welcome letter will not affect the scheduling website. Scheduling a K-1 visa interview appointment is an exercise in patience. We had to go through the "No Slots Available" for 3 weeks before we got lucky and happened upon one that we think was from someone cancelling, because it was the only slot available for the whole month. Just keep trying.

That’s what we’ve been trying for now and will likely continue to do, unless we get the email and it says otherwise (fingers crossed it’s soon either way 😅). 
 

1 hour ago, JeanneAdil said:

what u will need is the confirmation page of the DS 160

We’ve got this part at least!! That’s the only thing we’re confident about at the moment :’)

[PokuPoku 44]

1 hour ago, BoWrite said:

Hi! Thank you for replying, glad a fellow Malaysian filer found the post!

Out of curiosity, did you all try to schedule an interview before getting the email? Aka, have any idea if we’re seeing the right thing on usvisascheduling?

 

Or should we not have been able to even make an account on usvisascheduling until they cleared all our stuff?

I don't think we tried. We just waited to get a letter so we knew that the embassy had the documents. We didn't get a letter, but I instead got an email with the list of things required. We had to compile all the required documents into a single PDF file and send it back through email before we were allowed to schedule. We didn't try to schedule before that, but we were able to sign up for the account. I don't remember if we had the ability to view or schedule an appointment before then. 

[BoWrite 4]

17 minutes ago, PokuPoku said:

I don't think we tried. We just waited to get a letter so we knew that the embassy had the documents. We didn't get a letter, but I instead got an email with the list of things required. We had to compile all the required documents into a single PDF file and send it back through email before we were allowed to schedule. We didn't try to schedule before that, but we were able to sign up for the account. I don't remember if we had the ability to view or schedule an appointment before then. 

Gotcha, makes sense.

 

And last question (for now) then: once you were able to schedule the appointment, did you run into ‘No Slots Available’ or was it smooth sailing from there? (Not including the hospital screwing up y’all’s documents, which I’m so sorry to hear about; must’ve been a nightmare! 😖)
I hear Malaysia’s embassy is normally easy to schedule appointments with time-wise (at least compared to other countries), but we’ve gotten nervous over the past few weeks seeing so many posts from other consulates about “playing the slots” for months and months to schedule an interview.