sleepynoodle

It's not illegal or against any regulations, and won't hurt your chance of getting approved.
 
HOWEVER, it's a very bad idea to buy non-refundable tickets (or make non-refundable wedding plans) before you have your visa in hand. Your case could take longer than expected from interview to visa in hand for any number of reasons (long administrative processing, shipping delays, etc.). There could be a mistake on your visa that needs to be corrected. The sealed envelope could be damaged in shipping and need to be re-sealed. Etc.
 
Having said that, if you can get reasonably priced refundable tickets (or other tickets with zero or low change fees), it's fine to get them now. I ended up getting Anastasia's ticket to the US while her visa was in post-interview administrative processing because a refundable ticket was similar in cost to a non-refundable one when you added an assigned seat and a second checked bag, and ticket prices for the date she wanted to travel had been going up and unexpectedly came down.

Yeah; Aeroflot's pricing structure for one-way flights from SVO to LAX last March isn't similar to most airlines (and I only discovered that the fares worked out that way when I was pricing out Anastasia's tickets and looking at what was included at each fare level).
 
But it is worth mentioning, because if you can get a good deal on refundable or other low change fee tickets (you usually cannot), then buying them early isn't a bad idea.

We have same issue and same approval date! First we thought our case is at NVC, sent inquiry to NVC, in two months they responded they didnt receive our case.
My fiancé called USCIS, they accepted service request and were supposed to respond in 30 days, in 30 days he called again they say they cannot answer why they dont send our case to NVS

Hi everyone! Has anyone's approved petition also been lost by the USCIS after NOA2? We were approved on April 13th 2022 (NOA2) BUT our approved petition never made it to the NVC. It has been 3 months of tirelessly trying to have both NVC and USCIS find our paperwork but it has led absolutely nowhere. Please, if anyone is dealing with the same issue - let me know. We received different suggestions on what to do next - from contacting the ombudsman to sending our local congressman a letter but we were curious if we are the only ones experiencing this awful nightmare.

Sorry for posting so much, but I feel somewhat lost and confused right now. It took almost 400 days for the USCIS to approve the petition and just to keep waiting just feels so horrible. It's been 55 days, with nothing. I sent an inquiry May 23rd but haven't heard anything. Does anyone know why this is occurring? Could it be that the consulate currently has no open interviews? They were closed for 8 months, it's the one in Auckland, New Zealand. I find this to not be right though because on their times that show how long getting an interview takes, their non immigrant interviews take 100 days or so. I know this doesn't apply to K-1 visa but I figure it would give some look into how busy they are. Or is it something like they haven't received my case yet? I'm just not sure. I've been doing everything I can but I can't stand not having any direction and feeling so lost. My lawyer doesn't seem to care but I'm scared of what to do. I can't call the consulate because they never have a real person on the line I can talk to, and the NVC doesn't answer. I look at their times, but they didn't even update them yesterday. Maybe due to the holiday? I'm not sure, but I'm losing hope. I don't get it.

I have been having that too, been waiting since April 27. I have no clue what's going on with my case and I'm at my wits end. I've sent the NVC an inquiry on the 23rd of May but have heard nothing.  I think cause the consulate was closed so many months might be where the delay is. This is absolutely ridiculous. :(

My approved petition arrived okay, but everything is a mess. My lawyer isn't very competent and my fiance is always confused about what's going on. I have to watch every single little part of the process that I paid the lawyer to do, and the stress is eating away at me. Even the check list we got from the consulate has inconsistencies and I just am so confused. We have had to correct the DS-160 several times and it still isn't right. My fiancé tried getting the police clearance but I think he messed it up. I ask my lawyer questions and he is completely out of touch. When getting the police clearance it says that I have to mail it in but on the actual police website it says we don't get a physical copy and that they send it directly to Consulate, so how can we? Do we send them my fiances actual birth certificate? It says I need to submit my financial info like my last paystub and my 1040s, but my lawyer doesn't know how far back I should go with the 1040s (I'm guessing 3 years). I have to have all this stuff together to even get an interview. It says arrange a medical appointment but I dont know if it has to be completed before we schedule an interview. What a mess... If anyone has any ideas, please let me know. 

Please don’t trivialize the concerns, they are real.
 
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.nbcnews.com/news/amp/rcna35228
 
Yes, these issues are not directly related and there is no immediate effect on same sex couples. But it is not unreasonable for someone to be concerned with what this may signal could be coming in the future. Even for those of us who are no longer working on getting our spouse into the US (my husband got his citizenship last year) there are concerns over what might happen if some of these decisions are overturned.

Finally after 15 months!! Tomorrow I leave for Buenos Aires, I am going to attend the interview on the 28th.  I know every Embassy is different, so not sure how I will be treated, if anyone out there has been through the process I would appreciate a little insight.  
I think we are prepared, I have all the original documents, the original application, the approval letter, the NVC confirmation, the DS-160 barcode.  I have my I-134 support form with documentation of income and assets, and a file with proof of relationship that is almost overbearing!! Including photos and letters from friends during the 6 months we spent together in Mexico!!!  I think ours is a slam dunk, but nothing is ever guaranteed!  I hope they can issue the visa without too much delay, it is winter time in Argentina and we want to enjoy together what is left of the summer here in the Midwest!!!!!
Here goes nothing!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Tomorrow is 2 months since we received our NOA2 and STILL NO NEWS FROM NVC! I have read here that after the I129F is approved we have 4 months to schedule the interview and we are starting to get super worried because we just don't know where our paperwork is. Since we can't call NVC we left them a public inquiry but who knows when they will look at those, if at all? USCIS said they sent our case to NVC and can't help us. Same with the consulate in Kazakhstan - they said until we can provide them with a case number from NVC they can't do anything either. 
Anyone else here has the same problem? What can/should we do? Any advice would be greatly appreciated. 
 

Mine hasn't been 2 months just yet but almost 2 months in about 2 weeks. I'm just so lost and upset. Just when I thought I'd see my fiance again we are stuck back to the waiting game. I hope we hear something soon.

Hello again J
We provided an email when we were filling out the I-129 form so I think they should have your email address.
But also there is a way to update it. Please use this PDF file page 1 to see how to update an email.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1nfin98c33IEpB0T0FlURERriblYmlm5O/view?usp=sharing
When our case was sent to the Embassy they sent us a notice email so it seems that it works but only when they already sent cases out from NVC.

Thank you so much for your reply and thanks for sharing the other number (but yes, they won't pick up that one too now)! No, we haven't had a chance to register our email with the NVC. How do you do that? Is that through the Public Inquiry Form. Because they no longer answer their phones we submitted a Public inquiry form (https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/us-visas/visa-information-resources/ask-nvc.html) but haven't heard anything back. We just want to know our case number so we can start tracking and now after over a year of waiting for I129F approval it feels like we are back in this "uknown void of waiting" again. It's heartbreaking. Again, thank you so much for your reply, it means a lot. Glad you have your case number)))))

Hey!
Our NOA2 is 17th of April, NVC got our case on 12th of May.
i called then first time about our case number on 16th of May and no case number at that moment. Then I called them on 18th of May and they told me our case number.
Out case is still at the NVC according to their track website. Also when they assigned us the case number, there were no notice email although we registered one. And still no email 😅😅😅so if I hadn’t called them, probably we wouldn’t have learnt it until it got to the Embassy.
Did you register your email with them?
The number that you called is for immigration visas. I called 603 334 0888.
But it was before they announced suspension of the calls….
 

I think they'll receive your petition from USCIS any day. from my experience so far, from the time they got it, it took them exactly a week to create a case number. i got my approval on 4/1 and they received it on 4/19 so if they didn't get yours already, it should be any time! for the shipping to the embassy part, the embassy has to request NVC to send them cases. so it's good that there's no backlog at yours!!

I just got an email with my case number and instructions for my fiance. The email says it can take several weeks to get to the embassy - we'll see!

We received our NOA2 on 4/7. I talked to NVC and some bad news, good news.  Bad news it can taking up to 60 days for receipt of case from the service center, the good news is if your Foreign embassy is accepting the applications they are going immediately to the consulate there for processing and interview

Hey! I just called NVC - I got my NOA2 4/1 and they said my case was received by NVC on 4/19 but that it still doesn't have a case number. She told me to call back, so we'll see how long it takes to get that. I'll keep everyone updated so you all know what to expect for the timings of things 🙂

We are in 72000s and just got approved! We can't thank you all on this forum for keeping us sane and giving us the hope and encouragement to keep on going even in the darkest of times of this excruciating wait. We appreciate you so so much! Best of luck to everyone here and much much love. 

We are in 72000s and just got approved! We can't thank you all on this forum for keeping us sane and giving us the hope and encouragement to keep on going even in the darkest of times of this excruciating wait. We appreciate you so so much! Best of luck to everyone here and much much love. 

We are in 72000s and just got approved! We can't thank you all on this forum for keeping us sane and giving us the hope and encouragement to keep on going even in the darkest of times of this excruciating wait. We appreciate you so so much! Best of luck to everyone here and much much love. 

We are in 72000s and just got approved! We can't thank you all on this forum for keeping us sane and giving us the hope and encouragement to keep on going even in the darkest of times of this excruciating wait. We appreciate you so so much! Best of luck to everyone here and much much love. 

We are in 72000s and just got approved! We can't thank you all on this forum for keeping us sane and giving us the hope and encouragement to keep on going even in the darkest of times of this excruciating wait. We appreciate you so so much! Best of luck to everyone here and much much love. 

We are in 72000s and just got approved! We can't thank you all on this forum for keeping us sane and giving us the hope and encouragement to keep on going even in the darkest of times of this excruciating wait. We appreciate you so so much! Best of luck to everyone here and much much love. 

We are in 72000s and just got approved! We can't thank you all on this forum for keeping us sane and giving us the hope and encouragement to keep on going even in the darkest of times of this excruciating wait. We appreciate you so so much! Best of luck to everyone here and much much love.