top_secret

They are usually good for one year. There have been infrequent cases where for some reason USEM asked for one less than 6 months old but it is uncommon.

An interesting experience ticketing just now. We plan to fly our 10 y/o daughter home to grandma unaccompanied this summer when school lets out. I have seen Philippine Airlines handle unaccompanied minors in the cabin many times and I think they do it well. I have no concerns. But EVERYTHING from Philippine Airlines or any other airline was ~$2k this summer. Suspiciously, almost exactly matching dates that US school is out. But I decided to bite the bullet and pay for PAL since they are nonstop and I would trust them with a 10 y/o kid. So I called reservations since you can't book an unaccompanied minor online. Reservations transferred me to "special handling" in Manila. "Special handling" in Manila quoted me a price that was $700 cheaper than anything I found anywhere, which obviously I said book that now. Furthermore, the $150 unaccompanied minor fee fell to $100. I'm convinced the only difference is that "special handling" ticketed from Manila rather than the US. So while in the ol' days it was true you could get better deals ticketing in Asia, it seems, that everything old is new again. Antiquated advice, but definitely make some good ol' fashioned phone calls to Manila ticket offices before booking online.

Some recent reports on CFO is that they will evaluate whatever documents you submit and schedule you accordingly. Those with issued visas and eminent travel plans they will at least make a token effort to accommodate. As of last week there were some people who did not yet have visas saying they were being scheduled in July. A number of people have reported Saint Luke's let them get their physicals early by signing a waiver acknowledging they know it may possibly expire.

The embassy switched from 2Go to LBC sometime last year so like it or not that is the only option. We just used LBC from the US (local LBC office in San Diego) and they were awesome from here. $11 to send some documents from US to Philippines and it took 4 days total with tracking. FedEx, UPS and DHL were quoting like $120 and last time I used UPS Express it took 2 weeks and the mailer arrived opened and damaged. With 2Go you could track the passport with the UID number from the ustraveldocs site as the tracking number. I have no idea if that remains true with LBC though.

Congratulations!!!! The interviewers time estimate is meaningless. It's just a canned response. Keep checking on the CEAC status page for it to become "Issued". Also you can check status here https://www.ustraveldocs.com/ph/ph-niv-passportretrieve.asp When we got ours the courier was still 2Go and at that time you could get detailed delivery tracking. Now the courier is changed to LBC and I assume tracking is still available but maybe someone else with more recent experience could here could give updated info on LBC tracking. Good luck getting the visa on hand quickly.

I think on February 6, pretty much anyone and everyone DQ up until about Jan 23 had already received interview letters or at least had their cases sent to the embassy by then. 3 months later??? Pretty much nothing has changed. Still sitting at that Jan 24 threshold. I have been thinking they would do a new batch 'soon'. But I've been thinking that for a while.

Log back into https://www.ustraveldocs.com/ph/ and check if it still shows as scheduled. At various times in the past other people have received "appointment canceled" e-mail's that turned out to not be valid so it's a known bug in their system. More than likely it's a false message but it would be important to verify that. I would think the Embassy help desk should be able to verify you still have an appointment though.

The only name that matters is the name that is in her Philippine Passport on the day of her interview. The visa, green card, and social security card will all bear that name so it will be very convenient if it is the desired name. Changing her passport is the greatest importance. NVC and the Embassy are really flexible on what name you use on the paperwork as long as you always give ALL names ever used where it asks. She will need your name on her NBI Clearance too.

I think I saw the case you are talking about on the FB group. If it's the same one, that person previously reported having an approved expedite and the cancelation notice is probably just a web site glitch that is known to happen from time to time. The approved expedite is notable since those have been as rare as unicorns lately but it does not represent any kind of ordinary scheduling activity. Of our two VJ Philippines members who recently updated their timelines with June interview dates, one is reporting the interview is scheduled at US Embassy Seoul, not Manila and the other is another approved expedite case, which is unusual for Manila lately. For the last week and a half or so, any time I see a CR/IR-1/2 case self reported as documentarily qualified and currently waiting on an interview at US Embassy Manila I have been adding them to the list. That list rather quickly grew to well over 80 cases which I would think is at least a statistically significant subset of of those waiting. Basically nothing has changed since I last posted here. I still can't find a single ordinary case with scheduling initiated after February. Only 3 IR1/CR1 waiting from before January 24 without any unusual circumstances. Large numbers waiting beginning January 24 onward which means all of them are now a week and a half past the 90 day mark.