Is it just London that don't accept postal applications or Birmingham too?

Blondepuff
Birmingham don't accept postal applications either.

They only issue 50 visas each day.

The surgeries are very busy and a lot of the appointed agents have 3 or 4 week backlogs.

Good luck if you're travelling in the next month and haven't got your visa yet.

Polly

Hi everyone

Very nightmarish this whole Visa lark. We have flights booked to Mumbai arriving on 9th Jan 08 will then fly down to Goa a few days later for 5/6 weeks or so.

We will visit HCI in London to get our visa's in person. Has anyone been recently and what is the current position? Have just trawled through over 60 pages of the VISA sticky at the top and the gist of it (as I understand it) is that is you apply in person at the HCI in London you may have to wait a while but you should be able to get your visa that day.

We are prepared to get there by 7.30am latest and wait all day if necessary but not really sure what to expect - am sure I read somewhere that some people were gettimg tickets to come back on futuire dates but I have been unable to establish how much further ahead the future date was. We can't go just yet as we are spending the whole of 2008 in India and so we need to leave it as late as poss to get the visa as it will only be valid for 6 months. We plan to travel to Nepal in June/July time to renew visa for a further 6 months.

If anyone has any info on the HCI London in person process I would be very happy to hear from them.

Many thanks

Sian

Dogfish
If you read back a few pages on the visa sticky above you should find all you want to know. A quick rundown on our experience is my OH went the other week on the Monday to be given a ticket to go back on the Thursday. The ticket is a queue number and states a time. He got there early and they would not let him in until 10:30 the time on the ticket. He said once you are in the embassy its issued in the normal way and he had them by 12:30.
If you want them the same day I would get there at 6:30. I have read somewhere that if you are travelling that week they may prioritise you but I would not rely on that.
Hope this helps

Dogfish - to be more certain of getting a same day visa, 4:30-5:30 is the time to aim for. Someone I know, queued from 7:30am last Wednesday and when they got to the window, was given a lemon ticket to return in 10-14 days time.
The situation THEN, was that the HCI was issuing same-day visas up to around the 400-500 mark. After that you're told to return. There have been instances where people have 'cried' emergency - i.e they were travelling in TWO-DAYS time and URGENTLY need a visa; it's touch and go, whether they allow that as a valid reason.

So, they decided to get there for MIDNIGHT - yup, they took sleeping bags, coffee, a good book......long story short - they were number 1 in the queue - by the far window closer to the entrance - and got a visa; out by 09:30am.

Now HCI London opens at 08:30am

Getting there for MIDNIGHT is (at the moment) a little extreme. You may have to adjust what time you get to the HCI, as xmas nears and the season, gathers speed - meaning larger numbers are applying for visas closer to their time of departure.

In MY case I got there for 5:20 am was 37/38 in the queue, let in at 08:35, at the visa window 08:48, visa collected 09:25. So, the actual process didn't take that long, it's the queuing thats the problem.
No point in my partner also queuing - she was at home sending encouraging texts and chat....which helped.

Have to say, it WAS a mild day.

On the way out (having checked visa: correct spelling, dates etc) I took a pic of the queue.......you don't wanna know

Hope this helps in your judging what time to queue up

Thanks Ginlizzy and ve94n for your replies of recent experiences at HCI London.

Have decided we will go ridiculously early (2am sort of time) probably just before Xmas or between Xmas and New Year and then we should in theory be one of the first in the queue. Even if we weren't and ended up getting given a ticket to come back another day that should still be Ok as we don't fly til 8th Jan.

Would go tomorrow but as we are in India for 12 months want to get visa as close to time of initial departure as poss so that the 6 month expiry happens roughly in the middle of our trip. Will probably renew in Nepal in June/July.

Thanks again

Sian

I was planning on going to the Huddersfield surgery but have had a nice e-mail back from your travel shop, so with Bolton just down the road from Leeds we will have a day out there shopping, and call in at the shop with all the requirments - saves queuing and losing some Saturday overtime as well !!

Hiya Spike, I would ask them what back log they have when dropping off your passports they have had mine now 14 days sitting in their shop.

Hi Spike, if all else fails there is a visa surgery in Leeds 22 December

we went to hci london yesterday....didnt get there till 8am (traffic hold ups due to shootings in streatham) the queue was horrendous and they stopped giving out q cards at 9.20 and started giving people appointment times to come back on november 6th and 7th and there were still at least a hundred people behind us . the only people getting same day visas had queued since 5am, there were people flying out this week and they refused to help them in any way other than say try tommorow but get here before 5am
we were given a flyer whilst waiting in the queue for seagull travel( you will find them in the visa agency list) and they said if i took applications in to them yesterday , which i did, that they would send my visa to me this thursday or friday, the cost was £30 on top of the £30 visa fee plus £5 for registered post,
so heres hoping!
will let you know when they arrive.

hope this might help somebody

Hi, well we go long term we live in wales so for the last 3 years i have used a visa service in london with no probs. it would cost us about £200 for train fare & day in london, been to birmingham wont go again, its cheaper for us to use this service and its only a 7 day turn arround. paul

I got there for 5:20 am was 37/38 in the queue, let in at 08:35, at the visa window 08:48, visa collected 09:25.

A lot calmer today (tues 30th) at HCI London.
Arrived 05:46, was 34/35/36/37/38 in the queue, let in at 08:32, at visa window 08:55, visas collected 09:14.
This is now the fifth year that I've done it and it was the quickest ever.

Went to the hci in london today also (after travelling for 4hrs) but because of getting stuck in so much traffic when we turned up we were told they were not giving out any more today and said to come back tomorrow.... unfortunately due to having to go to work i cannot get up to london again until friday - when i said Friday to the man he said that was ok and gave me queue number cards 471/472, I am confused though as they are dated -7 Nov 2007 ?? Does this mean these can be used up to the 7th Nov or only on the 7th Nov!? Can anyone shed any light please?!
If these queue numbers cannot be used and I go up on friday anyway because of train times i cannot get to waterloo until 06:30, is that too late and going to be a waste of a journey again?! thanks in advance for any advice!!

If a friend of mine takes everyones visa's who are going on the holiday can he get them for everyone or does the person on the passport have to get their in person.

I can see holiday numbers dropping next year as i'm sure people are not going to want to do this eveytime!!

Candicer

By the sound of it he did not listen very carefully to you and I don't think they will be valid for Friday, but I might be wrong. If you get to them by 7 am on Friday I would have thought you should be OK to get them the same day.

An alternative is to use the postal route which will be reinstated from 5 November.

Candybabe

Mardon, have you not seen the announcement at the top of the forum?

Postal applications are being restored at London HCI as from 5th November this year.

Mardon

You do not have to go in person - I always get them for my husband and myself. I imagine there may be a restriction on how many one person can get, otherwise you could be construed as an agent. How many are you thinking of?

Candybabe

rather than merge this to the visa thread I'll lock and ask folks to continue posting on the dedicated thread