UK Standard Visitor Visa - How soon are appointments at VFS in Bangkok available?

[thaitanic]

Does anyone know how soon UK visa appointments are currently available at VFS in Bangkok?

 

It seems there is no way to see available appointment slots until we've completed the application and paid the fee, but we really need to know how soon the appointment is likely to be so we can plan the trip.

 

Thanks for any insights.

[mnomad]

Can't recall exactly - but it was within a few days late March suspect it will be similar today,

Edited April 25, 2022 by mnomad

[thaitanic]

Thank you @mnomad.

 

We paid for the visa application today and were forwarded to the VFS site to make the appointment. The first free appointment was 19 days away on 18th May. However we could get an appointment on 5th May by paying 3400 Baht for the "Priority Lounge" service, or we could have got an appointment as early as 4th by paying 3450 Baht for a "Prime Time" (after working hours) service.

 

So we went for 5th May and paid 3600 Baht for the "Gold Premium" service, which includes document scanning on top of the other Premium Lounge services. We can't face doing self-upload of so many documents after the traumatic failures in previous years.

[mnomad]

On 4/29/2022 at 3:09 PM, thaitanic said:

Thank you @mnomad.

 

We paid for the visa application today and were forwarded to the VFS site to make the appointment. The first free appointment was 19 days away on 18th May. However we could get an appointment on 5th May by paying 3400 Baht for the "Priority Lounge" service, or we could have got an appointment as early as 4th by paying 3450 Baht for a "Prime Time" (after working hours) service.

 

So we went for 5th May and paid 3600 Baht for the "Gold Premium" service, which includes document scanning on top of the other Premium Lounge services. We can't face doing self-upload of so many documents after the traumatic failures in previous years.

Sorry it wasn't similar to us, maybe songkran backed things up, we literally booked ours within a few days of applying (and for free) ..

[mnomad]

Just fyi, Our result took just under 4 weeks if it's of any help, I think songkran pushed things out from the 3 weeks someone experience just before us. Collection took 30minutes of waiting .

Edited May 8, 2022 by mnomad

[barry553]

I have tried to book an appointment. There are tons of paid 3400 Premium lounge or 3450 after hour appointments. There is not one single free biometric appointment. All this after already paying the 4000 plus baht visa fee. Just naked greed.

[Captain Jack]

This is a very real problem. Has anyone got any helpful experience here? I have seen agents who can somehow check available appointments online in seconds but when we apply ourselves we have to spend an hour completing the form, including finalizing the visa start date and our accommodation dates and paying only to find no available appointments. Then, to cancel the application they take 28 days to refund the fee (and don't tell you that until after you've already cancelled it).

 

I assume the agents keep floating applications and just cancel them when they expire.

 

This is obvious anti-consumer practice as they want you to pay for "premium" service out of desperation. They whole application process is a miserable experience is being at the receiving end of greed. Money talks after all.

[thaitanic]

Well, the visa was granted and collected today exactly 2 weeks after my girlfriend's appointment, not 6 weeks as we were lead to expect. She does have a history of going to the UK and returning, so that is in her favour, and we were extremely careful with the documentation, but nonetheless it is surprising. Perhaps they've made some changes to the approval process to try and clear the backlog.

[SidJames]

Appointments are free if you are not in a hurry & need an immediate or close to immediate appointment but without doubt there is now an averist element now established in the private business that is VFS.

My Thai (child at school) nephew is now waiting 6 weeks for an answer to whether his application was successful so is anyone else waiting this long for a reply?

All the applications that my missus have put in over the years have taken 2-3 weeks for a response.