Keeto

I should have completed this a loooooong time ago. Sorry guys.

At the end of the day, we booked Leo as excess baggage at Heathrow - after confirming with AA that this is what we should do - phone call to Heathrow AA office.

The morning we flew we did not feed him and only gave him water. We had zip loc bags with food for him that we were going to attach to the kennel.

Arriving at the airport we booked Leo as access baggage and the lady that did the booking was unsure about the procedure and was asking us all kinds of irrelevant questions about feeding him etc. We were under too much stress to have these kind of conversations with her so we asked to speak to her supervisor, which in turn sorted out the whole booking in a couple of minutes. We paid $195, I think. My wife was in tears by this time. I guess more from happiness than anything else. A guy that deals with pets was called, an employee of Heathrow not an airline and this guy was super nice! He even allowed us into the cargo area to say goodbye to Leo. We really appreciated that kind of service for a change. Kudo's to him. When we got onto the plane we asked the air hostess if she would be able to confirm that Leo made it onto the same plane. About 20 minutes later she came back and reported that he was on the plane with us.

Leo arrived safely at Fort Worth Dallas and once we passed through immigration we found him in the baggage claim area for oversized items - mini Schnauzer and all.... We asked the people if we could take him outside to give him water and a toilet break and they agreed! Needless to say Leo was VERY happy to see us. The people asked us to make sure to bring him back an hour before the flight left for Houston. We did that and Leo was checked in again as excess baggage onto the small Bombardier CRJ 700. We actually saw his kennel go up the cargo belt into the plane when we were looking at the plane from the gate. At least he was not alone there was another dog in another kennel. He arrived safely in Houston (50 mins flight) that evening. Thanks to American Airlines for this, we really appreciated it.

Congrats!!!

Thank you both I have tried Facebook but every single time without fail, the buyer doesnt turn up or makes stupid excuses at the last minute. I will have to get some more things on Ebay, not had any problems there as of yet.

Holly I just sold most of our stuff on:

Preloved.co.uk (They're really good)completely free as well, most of our furniture, bicycles etc sold here...

Then

Gumtree other household stuff and my tools sold here...

Then

eBay I only put specialized stuff on eBay, like my photography and IT stuff....

Then

Friends and word of mouth.

I found Facebook absolutely useless for selling stuff.

A lot of stuff has gone to the recycling center and the charity shops.

I like haggling myself, so I added around £5-10 over the price that I wanted for items so that the "clients" could haggle a bit.

The frontroom/yard/boot sale thing doesn't work for us as well! LOL!

HTH.

Good to hear all worked out for you!! Congrats and good luck with everything!

Thanks guys, and good luck with your journey's!

Thank you guys!

Yep - it's to show that you are clear of TB or any other respiratory issues.

No ESTA - you will have a CR1/IR1 visa that you travel with this time around.

Customs is customs like any other country - we've had different experiences at the same airport with our travels to the US.

I got told 2 weeks ago that I did not have enough documents to prove "that I'm actaully leaving the UK"...check it out here if you want to. There were some "abnormal" requests made by the CO that was dealing with me at the embassy. I got my visa today though!

Oliver, that is your chest X-ray from your medical. You need to carry the CD and the brown envelope that you will get with your returned passport as hand luggage.

DO NOT OPEN OR TAMPER with that brown ENVELOPE UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES.

Hi fellow VJ'ers!

Well, after the schlep from exactly 2 weeks ago, I can now happily report that I have a valid CR-1 spousal visa in my passport! Whooooohooooo! The courier dropped it off a few minutes ago. Bit of an anti-climax in comparison to how I thought I would get it, but anyway, I'm not complaining.

I just want to say a BIG thank you to all the people here that helped me through this first part of my journey, it's MUCH appreciated!! Good luck to the rest of you and always - or at least try to - stay positive and optimistic.

Hi there,

Boeing is hiring quite often at this stage. I signed up to their job board a while back and get daily updates of all their jobs. They are a very diverse company, from business to engineering and all kinds of stuff in between.

At least get him to sign up to it and maybe consider moving to another city. On the other hand they also have good international jobs each now and again...

HTH.

Last week at my interview BOTH CO's I dealt with made it very clear that your visa is only valid for as long as your X-Ray is valid, i.e 6 months. Both CO's made sure that I completely understood that the last day I can travel on my spouse visa is the 21st December 2012.

Was he actually arrested and convicted for the "weed" possession? If not, it won't show up, if yes, it will - as far as I know the best thing to do if "yes" he needs to be honest about it for one, and needs to get the court documents that show what happened after the conviction.

The speed fine does not count. I completed my police check 4 months ago, I had 3 points and £60 for speeding - which I indicated on the police check form - and my police check came back "no trace".

Courier was here bright and early, 08:20. Everything that I can cross is crossed now....

Just to add to the fun, my boss is being a real a****** about my notice. Oh deeeeaaaar. As the saying goes: "Keep calm, and carry on..."

OK - just got the letter from the letting agent so all the doc's are ready to go tomorrow.

Just for information sharing sake - not a moan - the cost for the courier to just outside the M25 is £25.50 with no guarantee on collection time - "Between 08:00 and 18:00" was the answer I got.

Also you pay over the phone - adding this because the "friendly" CO I saw last Thursday didn't know how I would pay the courier.

Hi Kitty,

I really hope that is NOT the case for you ...fingers and toes crossed!

Well, to be fair, that person seems to have said they had given notice already...his wife already had a ticket booked as well....if you check my original post I told this CO that we hadn't given notice to anything - but that is once again due to the embassy instructions as per the website.

Well, all we did today during the notice giving period was to inform our employers that we might have to withdraw our notices if this goes wrong...it's quite embarrassing to have to do it this way, but we don't have a choice right now.

Luckily my wife's employer is quite understanding....my one on the other hand was not really impressed with this request....so all we can do now is hope for the best.

Im impatiently awaiting a positive update from you Keeto!

Hi Holly,

Not too positive at mo.....

My wife and I gave notice today. We are awaiting the letting agents letter about us giving notice on the house and then I'll be sending off the letters to the embassy - hopefully tomorrow.

Both my wife and I know that the above mentioned "requirements" can be withdrawn but, £1200 worth of airline tickets cannot be refunded.

We both refuse to do this for the embassy and if we don't get approved with just the notice letters we WILL be taking this to a much higher level.

The embassy has contradicted itself on it's own T&C's and they are going to have to explain why if this goes wrong.

OK - latest update on this issue.

United/Continental is at this time not our favorite airline anymore. Useless does not describe the current affairs of this airline. I feel for the people that works for these 2 airlines and really hope this merger will not impact on their service much longer. We have been passed along their services and I even went to visit the cargo dept at Heathrow after the ARC referred me there. These poor people have no idea of what is currently going on, so.....

Delta and American Airlines have been a breeze to deal with at this time. The only unfortunate thing is there are not direct flights serviced between LHR and IAH. So we are going to have to compromise and book a connecting flight. AA goes via Fort Worth and Delta goes via Atlanta.

The good news is both these airlines allows you to book your animal as "excess baggage" and you pay between $175 and $200 for this service.

We can afford that at least!

Delta will also book your animal onto cargo if the weather is not good at the receiving airport - another note is that both airlines have restrictions on temperature at both the departing and receiving airports so you need to check the average temperatures at these airports - Google gives good results.

So far it looks like it will be American Airlines for us. Just because they fly right into Texas and the connecting flight from DFW to Houston (Hobby) is only 50 mins....

Yeah and today it was a South African laid back guy. Maybe she's just miffed because a South African beat Michael Phelps in the swimming.....joke-joke!!

We did DCF and I had to re-establish domicile, as I'd lived in the UK for 12 years. I assembled what I called a "domicile dossier" which contained all the proof I'd assembled that I was intending to move back to the US and cut ties with the UK. This did not include any plane tickets or proof that I had given notice on my flat -- what if he had been denied? If he had, we would have been homeless. This person sounds like a jobsworth.

My proof did include bank statements for a US bank account I'd just opened, email correspondence proving I was being headhunted for two jobs in the US, some correspondence from the Social Security Administration addressed to me at my parents' house, a letter from my parents stating we would be living with them on arrival in the US, a letter from my supervisor stating I had given provisional two months' notice at my job conditional upon my husband's visa approval and a cover letter explaining everything. It was looked at closely, but it was sufficient. This is the first I've heard of London asking the USC to do anything quite so irrevocable as giving notice on a flat and booking tickets!

This may be a one-off, or a new requirement. Sorry you had to go through this.

My wife included all her US bank account statements for all the accounts including her student loans that she has maintained from the UK for the past 6 years.....her mother is our joint sponsor fully domiciled in the US. Accuratelty completed I-864 from her was accepted. Formal rental agreement signed by all parties involved was also included. All this was not good enough today even after explaining the date on the rental agreement. Bank statements were rejected with a "This does not proof anything...."

The lady clearly told me today that letters showing my wife and I resignations and a letter stating we have given notice on our rented accommodation would have proofed enough "broken ties to the UK"...which I didn't have any of because of previously quoted pages from the embassy.

I commented that booked airline tickets would probably been really nice and she said "Yeah..." Contradicting the embassy's own rules and regs. Anyway.

As I said and as Nich-Nick has commented this seems to be a unique case.

I'm still finding it difficult to understand that the only people that will be negatively impacted by all this is US. Not the US government. We will loose our jobs, fees and time spent on this and the embassy will just happily carry on....

Congrats! I think I saw you guys coming down the corridor with smiles that circumvented your faces! :D Good luck with the rest of the journey!

But now that the embassy is on this 4 day notice thing of theirs - instead of the regular 1 month between packet 3 and 4 - we plan to move a bit earlier. So when she asked me when do we plan to move I said in the middle of November, me being my honest self. She was like: "But this says December?" I explained to her that the embassy usually takes a month between P3 and P4.....

Sorry, that is supposed to be between Packet 4 and interview. Currently it's down to as little as 4 days instead of a month.

is this just a CR1 thing or do you think K1 can be affected by this to?

Seems stupid they would stop you as you have no proof of going to the US. You would be stupid to have flights booked before you get your visa.

As far as I know, the K1's get interviewed in the same manner as IR1/CR1's.....

I agree.

The only losers in this complete equation is us.....WE loose all our money, time and effort if we decide NOT to go the US.....so I'm finding it hard to see what all this "proof" will proof at the end of the day. Maybe someone can enlighten us?

Sounds like her. Brown hair and glasses i believe the last person said. Just thought of another thing to do (was looking for ways to prove all of this myself! Theres no way im booking flights in advance) is mail redirection. They can do it overseas too https://www.royalmail.com/delivery/inbound-mail/redirections/details Just a little bit of extra proof. £35 for 1 month. Could be worth it if theyre going to be picky!

Yeah the best of all was, the rental agreement started on the 1st of December. Because of the way the timing works out in the past few months for DCF that is when we were expecting to arrive. But now that the embassy is on this 4 day notice thing of theirs - instead of the regular 1 month between packet 3 and 4 - we plan to move a bit earlier. So when she asked me when do we plan to move I said in the middle of November, me being my honest self. She was like: "But this says December?" I explained to her that the embassy usually takes a month between P3 and P4.....her response was: "So it's a bit too quick?" I said "No, I don't have a problem with that, but we you have to take that into consideration....." I got: "Well, this isn't bad, but it's not good enough...." Then, at the end when she was explaining to me what to do courier wise she adds: " Just change the date on the rental agreement and it will be fine....." Huh? Does she realize it needs to go back to the US? I just said: "I'll get you the notices and the airline bookings, don't worry....bye."

Hi Kitty,

I think I saw Emma and her fiance they were probably I-903 if I'm not mistaken. He looked a bit tired, poor guy. I was I-905.

LOL! We met because of bedbugs! Of all things! I still laugh about it today!

My wife had moved into our shared house from the hostel they lived in for a couple of days after arriving in the UK. Unbeknownst to the poor woman she brought a few of the critters along from the hostel....and all hell broke loose in our house! The French housemate wanted to leave, the English guy decided to stay in a hotel for a couple of days and the 2 remaining South African guys?

We made a plan to help this poor US gal that wanted to leave as well now - back to the US!! LOL! We bombed the house with bedbug smoke and sprayed it down with specialist bedbug repellent. But to no avail. These things were tough to get rid of! At the end of the day we had to throw out her bed, smoke the place again and buy her a new bed.....I helped her to get the new bed and arrange a van.....and as they say, the rest is history. The cherry on the cake was - we put the bed out in the street with a note on it about the bedbugs - because the council was going to collect it the next day, but some numpty decided to "score" the bed during the night....he got a bit "more" than he bargained for!

I dunno Holly, but she wears glasses and wasn't very friendly. Not impolite or something but not very friendly. She didn't laugh at my story about how my wife and I met, and I know it's funny the way we met because people always laugh about it...bit she didn't look amused at all with the story.

I was very laid back, and calm because I thought I was well prepared and she couldn't "phase" me.....maybe it was just a bit of a "power trip" thing.....anyway. Not much we can do now but gather the "proof".