My Family Visit Visa Experience - Uk

[Ch23]

Dear all,

Just received good news that the TW, stepdaughter and Conyai got their family visit visa's and thought i would share my experience in hope that someone else would have success too:

Background.

I am from the UK and have known my TW for 4 years, we have been married for around 6 months. I spend a lot of time in Thai but she only came to the UK for the first time last summer on a visit visa for 5 weeks.

This year we thought it would be a good idea if the stepdaughter came for a short holiday; as we are all very close we didn't want to leave conyai out so we thought it would be fun if she came along too. My stepdaughter is below 18 years old, lives with the TW and conyai; her Thai father has very little contact with her. The TW takes all responsibility for her upbringing and conyai helps when she has to go to work.

visa.

After doing some investigating and a few questions on here we got all of our supporting documents together and made our application for 3 family visit visas (6 month validity). They submitted their documents together, but had individual appointment times, back to back.

Documents.

I have attached a copy of the contents page we used (i have blanked the names out and added some pointers in red so it makes sense). The reason for the contents page was that it would make it easier for the bloke reading it to identify what we have included, be a safety net for appeal if they missed anything & refused us (we could say it was there) and we could use it as a check list to see what we had left to do.

The main points are: showing they have a reason to return (a job, property, investments), have somewhere to stay in the UK (my mums got a big house in the countryside so we included a letter of invitation), have money to pay for the trip (i was part financial sponsor as i was paying for flights, the rest was in her bank account) and in my stepdaughters case permission to have time away from school and permission to leave the country from her dad (TW took him to the local Amphur, got a form filled in then translated it but im not sure if it was stamped at Cheangwattana)

For important documents in Thai get them translated, be sure to read them over before handing over the cash and take them to Cheangwattana for a stamp to make them official (it costs about 120 bht + toll way from Rama 9 in a taxi so we go there and get them to post the stuff back so we don't have to go twice (50 bht p&p)).

She went to the bank and changed the fee from cash to cashiers check, got her passport photos taken and made photo copies of all the translations and passport pages (anything important basically).

Problems.

When they went to VFS to hand in the docs and get finger prints taken the TW was told (by someone behind the desk), that our stepdaughter did not qualify for a family visa as she is under 18. Woops, i was pretty miffed as i did a lot of research and was certain that i made the right choice, even when i filled the applications out it came up with sections for under 18's. I would have loved to have questioned this employee. Anywho, the TW was sat down at some computers and told to fill in a special child visitor application and handed that in instead.

Waiting time.

The missus paid for the sms to alert her to when she should pick up each application, @ 75bht a pop. Last time it worked but this time we only found out by email a week later to go back to VFS and pick everything up. Strange :S. When we arrived we checked all of our documents to make sure we had everything returned.

Anyways, we got what we wanted and I cant wait for our holiday.

hope this helps somone in a similar situation. Thanks to everyone who has helped answer my Q's in the past.

Till next year....

Regards,

CH23

for thaiv visa edit.pdf

[irlguy1]

Well done mate

I will be going down that path in a year or so if I can get a dam_n visitor visa for my gf first

Great post

[Ungabunga]

Great news mate, well done.

Just over 1 hour ago I received visas by courier for my TW and stepdaugter and am over the moon. We handed the application in on 17th, so its not a bad turnaround. It was my first time applying and felt a bit lost at times but I'm sure others will benefit from the advice and experiences such as yours shared on the forum. (Edit: Including good advice from forum sponsors Visas Plus and Thai Visa Express too).

Right.... now to spend a small fortune on the flights argh!

Edited February 25, 2012 by Ungabunga

[Ch23]

nice one pal! if your in Bangkok at the moment Qsncc (i put a post in the travel forum) is having a travel show, selling cheap flights the missus brought eva air return to LHR @ 30,000bht each. this is even cheaper than my ticket through STA travel which is always best for me as im under 26. although we are flying in a few months time.

It just proves its not that difficult to do in the end (although they try to make it).

CH23