KhunDave

1 hour ago, macahoom said:

The only way to find out, really, is to apply.

 

The application is quite simple and she should be issued the Esta within a few minutes (or seconds) of applying.

Took your advice.

I declared the previous application, which meant that it was referred for review, but the authorisation was granted after about 30 minutes, so all is good!

My wife is Thai-born, but now a British Citizen residing in the UK. We are looking at a short holiday in the US soon, and on the face of it she will qualify for an ESTA. However, I am wondering if a prior application to travel to the US will have any bearing on an application.

Back in 2000, when our relationship was in its' infancy we made an application for a visa at the Bangkok embassy for her to join me on a US holiday. With the benefit of hindsight, this application was never going to succeed, and of course it didn't!

My question therefore is - will that refusal all those years ago have any bearing on her application for an ESTA in 2016, as my wife and a British Citizen?

Thanks for any opinions.

I'm in two minds whether this should be posted in the migration to other countries forum, so mods please move if appropriate.

Looking for some advice for my wife from all you professionals in the field of education, as I have no personal professional experience of the field myself. Briefly, we moved from Thailand to UK about 5 years ago and wife is now a British Citizen. After studying for the necessary immigration requirements she has continued in college to further improve her English and is presently at CEFR B2 level.

She has done a fair bit of freelance interpreting work for an agency and makes a reasonable income at this. However she is keen to add to her qualifications in furtherance of her career, and this is where my question arises. She enjoys interpreting, but is also attracted to the possibility of teaching. When I retire in around 15 years' time we may choose to spend part of each year back in Thailand, and she is unsure about the best path to proceed with, study-wise, to end up in a situation which will be most beneficial in the future if we were living part-year in UK and part-year in Thailand.

The options appear to be to continue developing the interpreting route which will mean studying for the Diploma in Public Service Interpreting, which opens up the prospect of working for UK public bodies such as UKVI or the Police. Alternatively to pursue teaching - possibly TESOL or CELTA.

What do respected forum members think would be a better bet for the scenario I outline here? Other suggestions would be equally welcome.

Thanks in anticipation

I found myself in a very similar situation a few years ago when I was almost wiped out in the financial crash. Thailand is a scary place to be in such circumstances.

I chose

to go home. Maybe not the best decision of my life, but absolutely certainly the wisest.

Five years on, my wife is a British citizen and loves living here

, my kids are doing great in school, and I am greatly relieved to have that bit of security which is our birthright as Brits.

No regrets mate. I'd say come home.

Mods please move this post to a different forum if appropriate.

This has taken me a couple of days to post as I have been on the road. On Monday 22 December at 3pm, BBC Radio 2 broadcast a news item about the UK Police report into the murders. I cannot quote it verbatim, but it referenced David and Hannah by name and stated that the UK Police had serious reservations about the strength of the evidence against the Burmese suspects.

This item in the 3pm news bulletin was not repeated in the 4pm news, and I cannot find any reference to it anywhere online. It happened though - I was not hallucinating! My guess is that the BBC have an advance copy of the report and someone mistakenly broke a press embargo. This happened during Steve Wright in the afternoon, one of the UK's most listened to radio shows. Surely I was not the only TV member listening.

So did anyone else hear this???

Mrs KD opened a Barclays Cashcard account about two months after we arrived. All that was needed was passport with settlement visa and a council tax bill with her name on it. It comes with a Visa debit card. After holding this account for six months she was also offered a Visa credit card with a 400 quid credit limit.

Later this year; is that before October?

If before then an ESOL with citizenship course or a LitUK test pass is sufficient.

From October she will need to have passed the LitUK test and achieved at least B1 in speaking and listening, but as I understand it her previous B1 pass will still be valid.

To be sure you may want to contact the UKBA and ask.

It will be November, so LitUK and B1. I will try a question to UKBA and report back the answer (if any...)

Apologies for bumping an old thread, but it seemed the most logical place to ask the question.

Mrs KD will apply for ILR later this year. She passed the language requirement at B1 level in Thailand when applying for the original settlement visa. However this qualification will be two and a half years old when she applies for ILR. Will this be enough, or will she need to sit a new exam?

We only got the visa for about 3 weeks, Do you have to apply for a year visa? and have holidays booked during that time?

Over the road is a photo copy shop, £10 to photo copy documents, so make sure that you have all your documents done.

I suppose it's up to their discretion - the form doesn't give you any options about length of visa duration. We applied giving travel dates for one week in Spain. The visa they granted commences two days before our date of outward travel, but runs for a full year from that date.

Here's an update which may be useful for anyone else looking to apply in Edinburgh.

We arrived for our pre-booked appointment a few minutes before the due time. The consulate is in a small terraced house in central Edinburgh, just off Princes Street. The security guard was helpful and checked that we had got all of the necessary documents, but quite firm in stating that my wife was the only one allowed into the main office. I mooched the streets nervously for 15 minutes.

Once inside, my wife told me that the Spanish staff were pleasant, but not particularly helpful. As her English is near-fluent this wasn't a problem for her, but she did tell me that there was a Chinese lady also applying at the same time who struggled to understand what was being asked of her. This lady was berated by the staff and told that if she couldn't get her documents in order quickly she would have to book another appointment and come back again. This attitude is a bit poor considering that this consulate is the only option for the whole of northern England and some people (such as ourselves) will have traveled hundreds of miles to apply. Anyone with a wife/husband whose English is not too good should make sure they give them a very thorough briefing of what to expect.

Anyway, back to the application. We submitted both our passports, our marriage document (stamped by the Thai ministry of foreign affairs, the application form itself, a recent utility bill for proof of address and our flight and accommodation details. Reading from the list of requirements issued by the consulate, this seemed to be all that was required for a spouse of an EU citizen. I decided to go a little beyond this for safety, so we also submitted bank statements, details of my wife's business in the UK, travel insurance and copies of our children's passports. Also photocopies of every original document. Originals were checked and returned on the day, copies were retained.

The result: passport back in three days. One year Schengen multi-entry. Worth the long trip!

Thanks everyone for the helpful suggestions. In the end going to Edinburgh for the Spanish consulate seems to be the only viable option. As theoldgit said, there is a firm requirement to show booked plans for France or Germany to use their embassies.

On the upside though the staff at Edinburgh are very helpful and flexible in terms of schedulling the appointment, and the visa itself seems to be something of a formality once you demonstrate flights, accomodation, insurance and cash to cover the trip.

Hello folks, not posted for a while - amazing how much there is to do when you move across continents - but here's a question for those in the know.

We moved to UK last year, and my wife is presently here on a settlement visa with leave to remain until early 2014. This December we'd like to take a short holiday in Spain, and from what I've read on the forum she seems to need a Schengen visa. We are living in the north of England, but the Spanish consulate in Manchester has been closed down and its' workload transfered to Edinburgh, which requires all applications to be made in person. As we are both working a visit to Edinburgh would be neither cheap nor convenient, and we are inclined to write the whole thing off and do something in the UK instead. However it would be nice to escape the winter weather for a while. Do we have any other options open to allow my wife to visit Spain?

Thanks for all replies

The UK end don't issue a DHL tracking number, but the Bangkok embassy can get hold of it for you.

Is that what you did?

Did you call them up, or, ask them via email?

I emailed the consular enquiries address, they got the tracking number for me in about 24 hours.

I just received 2x kids first-time passports after a wait of six and a half weeks. The UK end don't issue a DHL tracking number, but the Bangkok embassy can get hold of it for you.

I think you need to be in an "emergency situation" to get the temporary travel document, and it doesn't sound like you qualify based on what you say. In your shoes I'd get a passport application lodged right away.

I'm presently waiting for two kids' passports, and the 6 week period passed yesterday. I have called the ridiculously priced passport careline, which cost me £16 and left me no wiser. I then emailed the Bangkok embassy, who were very quick to liaise with Hong Kong and establish that they have a backlog there due to a recent typhoon! I'm told that my passports will be leaving the UK in the next few days. The embassy staff have followed the matter up several times for me, and I really can't fault them for helpfulness and efficiency.

And the second day:- a lot of flooding around Khon Kaen, Maha Sarakham and Ubon itself, but none of it high enough to affect the roads. Hundreds of people camping out in temporary shacks on the Ubon ring road. Very sad.

I'm at my overnight stop on this trip now at Chumpae. The trip so far has been flood-free. Traffic was quite light and the only thing of note was that there have evidently been many landslides on Highway 12 between Phitsanulok and Chumpae. A lot of mud on the road in several places, but still passable.

Planning a road trip to Ubon via Lampang, Uttaradit, Khon Kaen. Anyone know what the flooding (if any) is like along Highways 11, 12 and 23?

wow congratulations.. i wish there is thaivisaexpress here in the philippines. im going to apply my settelemnt visa soon, hope it will be a positive result.

Drop Paul an email, I'm sure you'll get good advice. The process is much the same wherever you're applying from - it's UK law we're dealing with.

Well after 23 nail-biting days, Mrs KD has the longed for stamp in her passport.

I know there has been a bit of debate about visa agents on this forum in the last few days, so I wanted to publicly thank Paul and his team at Thai Visa Express for the invaluable assistance that they gave to my family. You see, it's not just filling in the form and dumping a crate-load of paper at VFS. The real value of an agent is the depth of detailled knowledge that they have - and have access to.

My situation: partner and two kids. My original plan: 3x settlement applications at 40,000 Baht each. As we weren't married at the time the kids were born (pre-2006 when the law on this changed) I had assumed from my own research that the kids were not eligible for British passports and would need to go through the full naturalisation process with mum. When I retained Paul's services, he quickly established with the Embassy that our kids could qualify for passports provided that we made statutory paternity declarations. Thus what would have been 120,000 Baht for settlement visas became 40,000 for mum and 2x 6,000 for the kids. The decision to use Thai Visa Express saved me money even after I'd paid for their fees, and even now after the visa has been issued Paul is still working away at getting ILE added to it as he believes that we qualify.

So horses for courses, but I'm dam_n glad that I went the agent route. Cheers Paul.

Anyone know if the post is getting through? I've got some stuff coming up from BKK by EMS.

Sure is. Ordered something Wednesday from bkk by ems. It arrived in less than 24 hours here in san sai, Chiang mai.

That's a relief. Thanks.

Anyone know if the post is getting through? I've got some stuff coming up from BKK by EMS.

Ok I was wrong. Sorry.

I'm wondering if we're seeing the end of this year's South West Monsoon today. Humidity is noticeably lower, and a steady North-East breeze has set in for the last few hours. Also looks like former typhoon Nalgae is going to track south into lower Issan/Cambodia.

End of the rainy season? Or do I presume too much?

Ah well,thats xxxx it, I thought the new service was gunna start oct 31, but not so according to latest posts, can someone tell me for sure, I will have to go via BKK on nov 2, never mind , still be balls up in afternoon. B)

The website was showing flights starting on the 31st this morning - albeit at quite a high price. Then later all flights before 16th November disappeared. My guess is they're still loading the flights into the system. Only a guess, but if it were me I'd give it another day or two before giving up.