I need help completing my application for my daughter in laws visa.

I have filled everything out and have booked an appointment. When it comes to paying its charging me $1773 but the gov.uk says £1195 for a child to join parent. Why?

Has anyone else applied for this? why am I not going through gov.uk to pay and can I trust making a payment to visa4uk.

How long does it take to make their decision usually? We are going to Bangkok in 2 weeks time for a 4 week stay. I'm hoping it can be decided by the time we go back to the UK.

Erm well 1773 dollars is 1195 pounds.

Erm well 1773 dollars is 1195 pounds.

yer i now its £1225 but my point is why not gbp like the site says. I was a bit wary that the website was a scam but anyway its booked now.

It is a scam; but the scammers are the British government!

When they started doing this I, among many others, attempted to discover why UKVI charged overseas UK visa application fees in USD when Parliament set those fees in Sterling; including asking the then Immigration Minister. See the attached document for the reply I received..

All sorts of excuses were offered, none of which made any sense.

The most ridiculous one was that the company they use to process the transactions, World Pay, insisted on it.

World Pay is a British company and confirmed at the time that they will process transactions in any currency the customer chooses, including Sterling.

So the simple answer is; because they can and, as they use their own consular exchange rate instead of the commercial one, it makes an extra bit of profit for the government.

Visa fees in USD.doc

How long does it take to make their decision usually? We are going to Bangkok in 2 weeks time for a 4 week stay. I'm hoping it can be decided by the time we go back to the UK.

It all depends on demand; the more applications they receive at any one time, the longer each application will take to reach an ECO for assessment.

The latest processing times for Bangkok (for decisions made in January) show that 92% of settlement applications were processed within 15 working days.

But this does not mean applications submitted now will be processed within the same time frame; it all depends on how busy they are.

Fingers crossed they can process it before I go back. With it being Songkram there may be a backlog.

The embassy, including the entry clearance office, does close for Thai public holidays as well as UK ones.

See the pubic holidays information on the embassy website.

I can't find it on the UKVAC website, but assume they will be closed on these days as well; at least on the Thai public holidays. Which will limit the available appointments.

I can't find it on the UKVAC website, but assume they will be closed on these days as well; at least on the Thai public holidays. Which will limit the available appointments.

It's at the foot of the VFS home page, under "useful information"

http://www.vfsglobal.co.uk/thailand/public_holidays.html