Schengen Visa Questions ?

[battersea]

Thanks to all for the advice on applying for a UK visa for my Thai girlfriend....we were successful and I am very happy.

We decided to go one step further and were knocked back on a Schengen Visa from the French Embassy. We only wanted a weekend in Paris and provided a very detailed application but to no avail.

Does anyone have experience of applying for a German, Spanish or Portuguese Schengen visa ?

Does anyone have any tips ? We would like to travel somewhere in Europe for a weekend in May and also July.Are there any embassies with a quick turnaround ?

Any advice or tips would be greatly appreciated.

[kerr17]

I'm also interested on the subject as I have the same problem (already holding a UK valid Visa).

Applying to Italian embassy its almost impossible and staff are very very rude in there, looking for tips on other Schengen Embassies.

[7by7]

Battersea, did she apply for the Schengen visa in Thailand or the UK?

If in the UK, what type of UK visa does she have? Schengen visa applicants must apply in their country of residence, so if in the UK with a visa valid for 6 months or less, e.g. a visit visa, one cannot apply for a Schengen visa in the UK, and if one does it will be refused.

Did they give her a reason for the refusal, and if so, what was it.

The Schengen Information System means that if she applies to a different Schengen country, they will know about the French refusal and the reason for it. So she will have to deal with the reasons for that refusal for any application to a different Schengen country to be successful.

[liveforever]

interested in your comments,

my wife is in the uk on a settlement visa and last night we registered with the french embassy for a schengen visa via their website. we can apply by post and were going to post everything this weekend.

does that mean she will be refused as she is not applying in bkk?

thanks 7by7 and hope you are well.

kind regards

[7by7]

No, a settlement visa means that she is resident in the UK, so she can apply there.

[liveforever]

No, a settlement visa means that she is resident in the UK, so she can apply there.

thank you for your swift reply as always.

kind regards

[liveforever]

last night when we registered the application we chose the postal option as we live a way from london; just been looking at the application form and in question 27 they ask "fingerprints collected previously for the purpose of applying for a schengen visa?"; does this mean they need more biometrics and postal application is not possible even though they are not on the application checklist?

kind regards

[battersea]

She applied for the Schengen Visa in BKK as is required .They took 2 weeks to give us the refusal but there was no reason or explanation.

If the Schengen Information System shows this refusal if we apply at another Embassy (and we do not know why it was refused) then I do not know what else we can do .

We had the bought and paid tickets from UK and Hotel reservations and flights to Paris , Medical Insurance and 100,000 Baht in her account, employer's information and reference statement, and evidence of my identity and a covering letter from me and still refused.

Any ideas anyone ?