rasg

It's true.

It was ridiculously overpriced to extend it for the first couple of years then they about halved the premium though personally I don't bother any more.

ps wonder if it covers a dropped iPad with a broken screen. I like minimum size and weight and never use a protective cover.

I have never paid for extra Apple Care yet Apple still fix my stuff.

They even fixed my five year old G5 FOC as it turned out to be a known fault.

One of the big things about Apple is the resale value of any of its products and that one can be useful.

I have three original iPads that I bought for a particular job that still do that job. I just can't upgrade them but I have no need for that. Most of my iPads are 2s that I use for the business with my own app and I also have a couple of minis. All work fine and upgrade fine and work well with the latest ios.

Anything I buy that is new will have touch ID. Excellent.

Applecare is the best when you have a problem and quite a few times when it has run out they have still fixed or replaced my gear for free or very cheaply. My 2012 Thunderbolt display had an issue last summer and they repaired it FOC.

Also two two year old iPhones replaced with new phones for very modest money (about 100 quid). One of them after it was driven over three times.

The Apple refurb store is the place to go. Fairly good discounts and the same warranty. I buy most of my Apple stuff from the refurb store unless I need the latest.

MightyDeals in the UK are also pretty good although they are refurbs . Two 16gb iPad Minis for my great nieces for Christmas were £260 for the pair.

As you have a MacBook you can't beat the integration of the the Apple gear. I wouldn’t touch any of the Android kit with a barge pole. Two many friends and family who have them are always complaining and telling me they wished they'd bought Apple in the first place.

It would be helpful if you could edit a previous application - or at least part pre-fill a new one.

It's a shame that you can’t change the type or length of visa after starting one too. I hope that will change when it is out of beta but I won’t hold my breath.

Before submitting an application a screen appears with all the input data (about 8 pages on Word). I simply copy and paste into a Word document for future reference.

That was the thing I was was trying to think of as I have mine as text but also as a PDF. Both do the job as far as copy and paste is concerned.

That is very true for the first one.

Gathering all the information for my GFs first Visit Visa last year took many hours over quite a few weeks. With any subsequent visa it is simple to refer to the previous information as much of it is the same.

A tip. When you have completed the application you can download the information you have supplied to your computer. It may have come as an email, I can’t remember. Make sure you keep it somewhere safe!

I have a folder with all of the information gathered for the first Visit Visa on my computer. In another folder Information for the second VV was pretty much the same with more photos of us together, more passport stamps, more boarding cards, airline tickets where we have flown together, newer bank statements etc etc. All backed up to second hard drive on my computer.

I had the same problem with my .tv address last year and switched to a .com account that I rarely use.

Just read more closely. It only seems to apply to Visit Visas.

Check out the pass back service on the VFS website.

http://www.vfsglobal.co.uk/Thailand/user_pay_services.html#10

I will bow to your experience but all I can say is that what I outlined has worked for me.

The decision for my GFs first 6 month VV that we applied for back in June came through in four days. The decision for her two year VV that starts today came through in three days.

I will repeat what I said in an earlier post.

Everybody has their own ideas of what they should included based on their experience because there are no hard and fast rules about what you should include.

Your mileage may vary but it worked for us.

If you are going for a UK visa in Bangkok afterwards there is a place within a couple of hundred meters of VFS at the Trendy building where you can get it done.

I'll try and find it.

You need a Standard Visitor Visa. They will typically give her a six month multi entry visa.

Lots of hoops to jump through for the first one.

She can apply in her own right or you can sponsor her but the big reason is that she has a reason to return to Thailand. Her business may be enough and that she has the money to support herself in the UK. You also have to prove your relationship is genuine.

I apologise for copying and pasting a reply I gave to somebody a few days ago but 95% applies and I have edited quite a bit.

Everybody has their own ideas of what they should included based on their experience because there are no hard and fast rules about what you should include.

I have submitted two VV applications for my girlfriend this year and been successful with both.

I was the sponsor for my GF on both occasions where I showed my income, bank statements, mortgage details etc.

Don't waste money on a visa company as long as you have the time to put the application together. In the end if you use a visa company they will ask exactly the same questions and you or your partner will have to supply them with the same information that you can compile yourself.

I just did it myself with no bother but the first one did take considerably longer than the second because you need parents dates of birth and other stuff that wasn't that easy to get hold of. Make sure the application looks good. Professionally laid out without spelling mistakes and reread it a dozen times over to check that all is good. And then get at least one other person to check it again. I split the application into three plastic see through folders. Sponsorship details. Applicants details and then Proof of relationship for the third. All with labels on each folder. This is assuming you are the sponsor. If your partner applies in her own right, probably split it into two folders. Applicants details and then Proof of relationship.

If you are the sponsor you need to complete the sponsorship undertaking form SU07/12. My sponsorship letter ran to two pages of A4 and the third listed everything that was included in the whole application. That last page is a "map" to everything within the application.

The sponsorship letter was separate to a semi formal invitation letter to my girlfriend to visit. For the latest two year Visitor Visa I included a letter from one of my sisters who invited my GF to spend Christmas with us as a family as she was missed so much after her first visit.

I included a letter from my girlfriend explaining why she would return to Thailand, edited a little. Her written English is not great.

We included dozens of photos of the two of us from all over Thailand and each photo had text embedded in the photo explaining where and when the photos were taken. Also photos of her family with me and photos of her with my family.

I supplied translated copies of my Gfs divorce papers.

You might do things differently but I prepared almost everything in the UK and took the laptop with me to Thailand where I did the last little bit. The online application asks about your latest trip to Thailand. That date can't be in the future so I had to wait until after midnight on the day we flew to Bangkok to complete and pay for the application and book the appointment. My own sponsorship letter needed a little tweaking when i got back to Thailand and the hotel reception allowed me to email them the PDF and they printed it for me.

You need to book an appointment for your girlfriend to visit VFS at the Trendy Building in Bangkok to submit the application and it can take up to ten days to get a decision.

It is pretty daunting when you see the information you have to supply but the main bulk of information can be submitted online.

It isn’t easy but it's not that hard either and very satisfying if you do it yourself.

I'll dig out a couple of links where you can go to explain a bit more a lot of what I have said.

Here is the main one for the online application. Register and account and take a look.

https://www.visa4uk.fco.gov.uk/home/welcome

I can't help you with lawyer details but in my travels around the visa minefield I found a few interesting things about Ireland and visas. An example is if they hold valid UK visas they can go to Ireland for up to 90 days without a visa.

Is this on a permanent basis or for a visit? Lots of info here.

http://www.inis.gov.ie/en/INIS/Pages/Irish%20Visa%20Information

I bow to your greater knowledge.

All I can say is that it makes me happy that my accounting dates are from 6 April to 5 April.

Sorry. Only just seen your post. I was editing the other one a little.

The requirements are onerous enough without having to pay your accountant to redo your accounts for different dates. Surely?

The problem with any of these questions, and I've had a few over the last six months, there is nobody to phone from the UKBA and these difficult questions are not covered in the FAQs. So frustrating.

I tried the £1.37 a minute line a few weeks ago and the woman on the other end couldn't, and to one question, wouldn’t answer the questions. Bonkers.

How long have you been self employed?

I have applied successfully this year for two visit visas and in each case I supplied my previous two years worth of accounts but also my last VAT return. Also the latest three months of transactions of my business account and my main personal account and screen dumps of my savings accounts. I realise that a settlement visa is quite a bit different from a visit visa though and the requirements are a lot more detailed. I'll be doing the same in the new year. My accounts end of year is the 30th April and I haven’t submitted them yet. )

I doubt that they would expect you to change your accounting dates. As far as I can see they are looking for your last full financial year where you have submitted them to HMRC. This is what it says on the settlement visa requirements.

Once again, I have found out about something I didn’t know!

The EU line?

This was a very interesting read, by the way.

http://www.statewatch.org/news/2007/jan/uk-ho-immig-decision-making-study.pdf

Once granted a visa, I had no idea that UKBA essentially, can take the visa holder through the whole thing again, if they are the mood to do so, when you try and use that visa.

7by7.

You have explained more to me about the system in a few paragraphs than you can ever find on the official website because you have explained it so well. I think you should write the UKBA website for them.

Thank you for your help. Without it we would have been in trouble.

I am fortunate that I have a business that gives me the freedom and money to be able to visit Thailand reasonably frequently based around my workload. I feel sorry for the people who work hard for a living on a salary that only just hits the £18,600 threshold who struggle to get any type of visa in the first place.

That it is called a visit visa should, to me at least, make it fairly obvious that it is intended for visits, not for living long term in the UK!

I honestly don't see the difference between a one month trip to the UK and an eight month visit to the UK if the person is in a position to do it.

Validity of Visitor Visa



With a visitor visa you can usually enter and leave the UK any number of times while the visa is still valid. You cannot stay for longer than six months on each visit. Visit visas can be valid for six months, one year, two years, five years or 10 years. You can apply for a visa valid for any of these periods. The Entry Clearance Officer may decide to make your visa valid for a shorter time than you have asked for, for example if you are not a regular traveler or have never visited the UK before.

And this paragraph is downright misleading to somebody who is thinking of applying for a longer visit visa than six months or already has one.

Bob. I think you are right. From the responses I have had, everybody who commented, here and elsewhere, was surprised that we actually got a two year visit visa in the first place. It is s a shame to find out it is no more use than a 6 month visit visa apart from the lack of schlepping to and from Bangkok. This forum has the most knowledge, by a long way, by the way.

I don't think that visas should be any kind of revenue source, by the way. At all. I foolishly tried an official helpline last week to get some more information last week. £1.37 a minute! A disgrace as the information the woman provided was as much use as a chocolate teapot. She simply couldn’t answer my questions.

Sorry. It's me again. )

The other thing I find very frustrating is that the wording in so much of the guidance can be very misleading and it is the reason why I went for the two year visa in the first place. We wanted at least another six months or so together in the UK before we decided to marry. It was also the same cost as the one year...

Here it is. This is all over the web and also in the UKBA guidelines.

Validity of Visitor Visa



With a visitor visa you can usually enter and leave the UK any number of times while the visa is still valid. You cannot stay for longer than six months on each visit. Visit visas can be valid for six months, one year, two years, five years or 10 years. You can apply for a visa valid for any of these periods. The Entry Clearance Officer may decide to make your visa valid for a shorter time than you have asked for, for example if you are not a regular traveler or have never visited the UK before.

I read this to mean you can stay in the UK for six months, leave the country, say to Turkey, for a months holiday in the summer, come back to the UK and stay another couple of months. There is nothing to say that six months in one year is the maximum and could be refused entry.

If I hadn't been fortunate enough to get the second visa and have the "two visit visa conundrum" that I originally asked about I would have never known about the "guidelines" that are not rules. We could have come back from Turkey, or wherever we went, and my girlfriend could have been refused entry back into the UK and would have probably had trouble returning at all.

For me, it's all too vague.

Visit visas are for visits and are not to be used as a way of living in the UK in a manner similar to using visa runs to live in Thailand. Which, the more you post, seems to be what you want your girlfriend to be able to do!]

I don't think my four trips to Thailand and her one to the UK show that at all. I do have a business to run too to finance the good stuff, hence my four shortish trips. It's the lack of freedom for us to come and go as we please that applies to so many other nationalities that bugs me. If it is a genuine relationship and is proven to be so, in my opinion, if a visit visa is granted, the terms should not be so onerous. If a visitor isn’t using public funding at all, I just don't see why things are made so difficult.

Another difficulty for me is that you spend hours or days putting a visa application together, pay your money, and spend time waiting for a yes or no. You have the visa granted and you then have to go through the same interrogation, when you arrive in the UK. You've been through all that to get the visa. Why oh why, does it have to be done again when that visa has been granted? It's a poor system.

I have often said, and will always believe, that a couple should never marry in order to get a visa. They should marry because they love each other and want to spend the rest of their lives together.

My thoughts exactly and a lot of what you just said I put in my sponsorship letter...

If at the end of this visit the two of you are not sure that you want this, then wait until you are.

But you can’t actually do that with an engagement/marriage visa. You have to get married in that six month period the way I understand it. Presumably you can change your mind and everybody simply goes home?

Yes, long distance relationships can be difficult and do require work. With modern ways of communicating such as Skype and Line it's a lot easier to maintain and develop a long distance relationship than it was for my wife and I: all we had whilst apart before we married and she moved to England was the telephone, email and snail mail.

I agree 100% with this. I spent two years with a girl who was English but was living in Los Angeles back in the late 1980s. I remember a phone bill for a one hour telephone call was £50! Maybe I should find somebody closer to home.

I was surprised when the two year visa was granted too! I pointed out in my sponsor letter that two years was the same as the cost of applying for one and we didn’t want to rush to get married. At the time I didn’t realise the limitations of the two year visitor visa or any of the visitor visas. Amazing how much you learn along the way.

The visa system isgeared to forcing people into a six month time frame to get married and is probably a factor in so many failed marriages between thai women and to UK men. We did only meet in very late January and I don't want to be one of those statistics if I can possibly avoid it.

On that basis, bearing in mind that with a visit visa, the visitor can't work, can't study for more than a few weeks, I wonder what reasons they might have to come to the UK on a visit visa?

Interesting that it's a convention and not a rule and seems to be down to the individual officer when a visitor tries to enter the UK. A long way to come to be turned away.

Only in England...

Thanks for the information.

I was hoping that the two year visit visa would postpone the need for an engagement/marriage visa for a while, bearing in mind, we did only meet in very late January this year. I can't imagine life without her.

It seems that isn’t the case at all but an extra few months will make our minds up.

I think you are right.

She has spent 14 weeks here over the summer and I have spent 9 weeks in thailand. Interesting that she didn’t receive an exit stamp when she left. Is that normal?

She wants to get away right now but a two week wait is fine. Like me she will not be doing anything to jeopardise a future visa.

It does make me wonder why they issued her with a two year visitor if you can’t actually use it. I was a little cheeky applying for two years in the first place because a one year was the same cost. At least it saves schlepping to and from Bangkok.

Many thanks for your help. It's really appreciated.

Any visit visa can be cancelled by an ECO if the visitor is outside the UK. This includes long term visit visas (eg a 2, 5 or 10 year multiple entry visit visa). ECOs should use the process set out below in ECB18.4 to exercise this power.

I know nothing about this but a few things jump out at me that I would love an answer to if possible please?

The above paragraph. Does that mean that she is still in Thailand or is sitting at Heathrow waiting to be allowed in?

ECOs cannot revoke entry clearance that has taken effect as leave to enter (i.e. once the person has arrived in UK), or revoke, cancel or curtail that leave.

Does that mean that she will be allowed to enter the UK if she is allowed to leave Thailand? And the reason you suggest that I call BA?

Cheers, Richard

There have not been any change in circumstances and I am her sponsor and financially support her.

I originally booked a flexi ticket with BA so that she would arrive at Heathrow on the 1st December with a return date on the 27th May next year. If she arrives this coming Tuesday she will be coming on her old visa that runs out on the 12th December. Presumably she would have to leave on the 12th December as she didn't enter the UK on the new two year visa that starts on the 1st December?

I didn't realise that this could be so complicated!