MattG

I'm not finding that returns are cheaper. Leaving about a week before Christmas, searching on the ebookers website, and travelling from London to San Francisco, I'm finding that singles are about £100 cheaper.

Am I doing something wrong?

Any general advice for booking these tickets would be appreciated (I *know* it's going to be expensive to travel just before Christmas, but that's the way it's going to pan out for us).

Matt

MattG How did you get on??

I was approved

I wrote a review of my experience if you're interested.

Reviews

Very tired now. But happy. Hoping we can get our moving plans organized in time for Christmas.

Matt

Good luck Claire!

I also have an interview that day, at 10am. Maybe I'll see you there!

Matt (very excited)

If you're missing vaccines then by all means try to get them off your GP. However, be warned that your GP may refuse to give you certain vaccines...some GPs here refuse to give the MMR to adults...and you may have to pay for the vaccines anyway.

Your GP could also do an immunity screen but those take a while.

Thanks for the info.

Having read the medical information a bit more closely, it's probably only the Td (adult formation tetanus and diphtheria toxoids) than I might need. I had MMR when I was younger, and Varicella is not available in the U.K. I shouldn't worry too much about one vaccination I guess.

Sorry for not reading the forms more closely. I think there's only a limited amount of information about immigration I can absorb each day. On the bright side, every day I'm becoming more competent!

Matt

I've found in my packet 3 documentation that the doctors will courier the results to the embassy after 4 working days, so it would speed up processing to get it done beforehand. I guess I'll book one soon to get it over with, though I could have done without another London trip.

Matt, why make 2 trips?

What does it matter to you if yoiur visa isn't issued for a week after your interview?

For most people, the separation is the issue. For you, not so much, right?

True, there is no separation issue, but I would like to have the visa in hand as soon as I can so I can solidify our moving plans. I guess I have to trade off the benefit of only a single trip against the cost of getting it a little later. You may be right meauxna.

Thanks

Matt

I should add I don't recommend doing it the way my husband has done it. We hit a snag at the medical (they need a letter from hubby's GP saying he's not a nutter) and would have been approved at the embassy that day if we'd gotten this ####### cleared up BEFORE our interview.

Now we're waiting. And waiting. And waiting. And waiting.

Thanks for replying homesick_american. It's useful to know that this is the downside of scheduling them on the same day.

I've found in my packet 3 documentation that the doctors will courier the results to the embassy after 4 working days, so it would speed up processing to get it done beforehand. I guess I'll book one soon to get it over with, though I could have done without another London trip.

Another thing people might have experience of... I have got my vaccination record off my GP, and can see that several of the ones requested by the embassy are not ones I have. Should I arrange with my GP to have these vaccinations before I go down for the medical, or should I wait for the doctor at the medical to tell me what I need? Does it cost extra to be given the injections at the medical?

Sorry I'm so full of questions. Hopefully you don't mind the quiz :-)

Matt

Hi all,

I got Packet 3 last Friday, so I'm working to get all my documents together over the next few days (mostly now waiting for the affadavit of support material to be FedEx-ed over from my joint sponsor.) I think I should be able to send off the request an interview in about a week or so.

I've got myself slightly confused about the medical.

I got material about the medical in Packet 3, so I could just go ahead and make an appointment. But living quite far from London, it would be good not to have to do multiple trips, and schedule the medical on the same day, or consecutive days. Is it reasonable to wait until I have a date for my immigration interview before booking the medical?

Matt

heheh, no need to be paranoid, but it's healthy anyway!

There is nothing you need to do ATM. London CIS will process the I-130 and on approval, forward it to the Consular section. You'll get a notice of that, I believe.

The IV Unit will send you the "P3" but you can look up what is required and start gathering papers now. When you get that notice from the IV Unit, you can respond immediately with 'yes, I have all my papers, sign me up for an interview!'.

The I-864 is often the most confusing part of the next step; it wouldn't hurt to start on that now.

Best wishes!

Thanks for the reply! I know that the I-864 is probably going to be the most difficult part to fill out to get to the next stage. I think we're going to have to have my wife's parents as a joint sponsor. I was going to wait until all the instructions arrived before starting to collect all the tax returns and forms together, but if Packet 3 is going to take a while to get here I suppose I should get on with it.

I have my police certificates already. Thought ahead about those

MattG

Hi there,

This site is the greatest resource ever I have a very quick question about Direct Consular Filing in London.

My wife is a US citizen, and I am a UK citizen. We have been married for almost 2 years now, and are in the process of applying for the IR-1 visa at the London embassy. About a week ago we received the notice that our I-130 petition has been accepted.

My question is, do I need to do anything now in order to receive the next set of forms from the embassy? (I think this is called Packet 3 in other places on this site.) I can't find written confirmation of this anywhere, but it seems like I should just wait at this point to get the forms in the mail, but I am getting paranoid that I should be doing something like sending a copy of the approval back to a different department in the embassy.

Can someone ease my paranoia?

MattG