It's rarely seen here but I have to say two big thankyous to the VFS and British Embassy.

First for my parents in law who are just on their way to the UK after recently receiving their tourist visas. Very helpful in VFS and got them back from the Embassy in 7 days.

Secondly for one of the wifes friends who recently heard that her husband, whilst back in the UK, has been diagnosed with a serious illness.

VFS submitted the application to the Embassy within an hour Tuesday afternoon and then the Embassy phoned the lady in question that her visa was ready to collect first thing Wednesday morning.

Very good service on both counts imho.

Nice to hear. There's a lot of moaning on the forum about VFS so good to hear some very positive news about them.

Well done on getting the visas too.

Both VFS and the embassy get a lot of knocks on this forum, obviously as people usually only post when they have a problem!

Nice to see some positive feedback for a change.

Hope your in-laws enjoy their visit and that your wife's friend's husband recovers soon.

I have found them good to a degree on the phone but appalling in terms of never bothering to replying to emails, even when connected with an application. I think if they were more transparent with their processing times and perhaps owned up to why a completely straightforward and very well documented application should take more than perhaps 30 minutes or at worst a couple of days to assess. The idea that it can take weeks on end with no interim updates is why they are berated. If they upped their game and installed better procedures then I feel a lot of the animosity they currently receive would simply go away.