Hello Mr Scouser, you seem to be the top man when it comes to this subject so I would very much like to be able to state my case and ask for advise please.

Wife and I (married since July 5th) would like to visit UK on 10-12-04 for 2 weeks.

Reason is to visit family for Christmas and have a party to celebrate our recent wedding.

We've been living together since April, I have been living and working in Thailand for 2 1/2 years.

We met 1 year ago, introduced by friends. After we met I contacted her with a few e-mails (not many) however I still have record of these. After this we met in person or contacted by landline (no itimised record). I have a few photos from this period but none that proove dates. Our proven phone records start from around February from mobile records. We also have tonnes of photos of our familys together for the wedding, our honeymoon, our house etc etc.

My wife has the following

a) Letter of financial sponcership for flights, accomodation, meals etc.

Letter from employer with 2 weeks holiday granted and job for return. The boss will be coming to the party in UK

c) Bank statements showing back pay

d) tabian bahn (house docs) + car docs

e) joint bank account (opened July) with 110,000 bt savings

f) marriage certificate

1) My questions are this. Do you think we've got the above covered? I can bring my work permit & passport + correspondance to me at our address.

2) Surely the embassy don't expect me to send all this in the post? if lost our life will be upside down.

If not please advise which parts I should send and if copies with originals on request or originals.

Your help on the above would be much appreciated.

Kind regards,

Savage

Oh and if you come to the embassy very early ie 0300 - 0500 is there a chance of getting in?

Thanks again.

Sav

I dont think you will have any problems as you are legit here and working. My GF applied for visa couple of years suported by my work permit - the only question they were interested in was are we travelling out and back together (we were) and that we intended to return to Thailand (which we also were). Visa issued same day.

Hope this helps. By the way, I provided copies of my documents not originals (at least for the passport, although that had been issued by them at the embassy in BKK, so they could if so desired go and look up all the original documents).

Hope this helps

Hi Savage,

You've got it more than covered. With a visit visa what concerns the visa officer is whether the applicant will return to Thailand at the end of their holiday and because you live and work in Thailand your wife has no real reason not to return with you. The chances are that the embassy won't need to see half of the paperwork you intend to provide. There is, however, no harm in showing too much. The most important documents to produce are your passport, your work permit and your marriage certificate.

You wrote that you intend to go to the UK in December. In that case I would wait a couple of months before applying for the visa. It is extremely unlikely that your wife will require a full interview. She should get the visa on the day solely on the basis of the paperwork you provide.

With regard to the embassy I believe that they are seeing in person the first 75 applicants per day but perhaps a quick phone call would clarify this. If you wish to send your application by post then copies may suffice but just to be certain I would have the copies notarised by a solicitor/lawyer as being of the original.

Scouse.

thankyou both for your kind advise. Very encouraging cheers.

Sav

You wrote that you intend to go to the UK in December. In that case I would wait a couple of months before applying for the visa.

Dumb question.

Why wait a couple of months?

- The visa has 6-month validity usually, so what's wrong with applying now?

FYI, I fly regularly from Dubai to BKK and back.

I am having a very hard time getting flights as we approach christmas, infact I have booked for December already and couldn't get the flights I wanted by a week.

This last time I came back (26th August) I had to upgrade to business or postpone my trip for nearly two weeks as the flights are all full.

Just a heads up Savage, it may pay to get in as early as you can.

Why wait a couple of months?

It is not necessary per saye but if for any reason Savage decided to prolong his and his wife's visit in the UK then she would have the leave to enter to enable this. It used to be the case that the visa was valid for presentation to an immigration officer for 6 months and the IO would then stamp the passport for a further 6. This is no longer so. The visa now constitutes the leave to enter and, in the case of a visitor, your potential 6 month stay starts from the date you get the visa. Therefore if you do not travel for 4 months after the visa is issued you can only have a maximum visit of 2 months.

Scouse.

Its all good dudes,

Based on the Scousers advice (it wont come back to hime as I had a hunch anyway) i've gone ahead and booked the tix with a view to going to the embassy within the next month.

Cheers all

Sav

Hi Savage

I was requested to post everything as well, I was also aprehensive however I decided to give it a go and sent a 26 page folder with passports and ID cards etc via TNT, (UPS do not do local deliveries) I enclosed a covering letter with my phone number rather than my GF's.

48 hours later they called to ask if I would like to collect or should they post the completed visa'a and passports back to us. I decided to collect and did not even have to wait inline, just went straight inside and they gave us it all completed.

All very smooth

You basically just have to love that!

Did you have your file in differant sections.

How did you lay it out?

Cheers Ben Dover