Tier 4 visa, arriving too soon

Hello.

My daughter is will be studying at LSE for the year next year. I was planning to accompany her to London to help her get settled in her flat, and I booked our travel before I knew all of the visa requirements. Apparently, she is only allowed to be in the country for one week before the start of school. School starts 9/22. I have us arriving on 9/12 on nonrefundable tickets, of course. Can we pick another European destination and continue travel on 9/12 to that destination and come back to London on 9/15 or 9/16? What is the earliest date we could return to London if school starts on 9/22? The flights would not be on the same itinerary at this point, but if I show boarding passes and we have the correct stamps when we return to London, would everything be okay?

I suppose I could cancel my trip and reschedule hers if worse came to worse, but we are trying to salvage the trip.

Thank you.

To avoid confusion...you mean 22nd of Sept?
In the UK we write the date first and the month after, unlike the USA.

Where is this restriction specified?
On T4 visa?

Where are you coming from? US?
A Visa-free country?

If visa-free you might be able to come in as visitors for few days.
Not sure if you'd still have to skip over the border and back to activate the T4 visa.
And what UK visa do you have as parent anyway?

Do you mean to arrive in UK then transit straight out to hop to somewhere else?
Do you have visas for this somewhere else?

Yes, sorry. 12th of September, 22nd of September.

We are coming from the US. I will not have a visa, I am just a tourist for a week in London/Europe. She will have a T4 visa beginning the 22nd of September. She will apply for that in July using her acceptance letter from LSE which states the start and end dates of the program. I read that students are allowed to arrive one week prior to the visa start date. So we would leave London on the 12th of September (the same day we fly in) to fly to a country that does not require visas for US citizens for tourist travel for a few days and then return to London. Does that make sense?

Not clear if its a visa limitation or just the Uni not wanting students around the place too early?

Yes you could transit off somewhere on that basis.

However, as from US, you could both enter as visitors on 12/9.

Thank you for your replies.

LSE & other Uni websites advise applying early as possible; as early as 3 months before first term (semester). This is to avoid the late rush & visa delays.

And you can enter UK up to 7 days before date you specify for intended travel; up to 1 month before term/semester starts.
How cool is that.

Problem solved (unless you really want to go to Paris).

... date you can arrive in the UK will be the 'valid from' date on your visa. This will usually be seven days before the ‘intended date of travel’ you put on your visa application and not earlier than one month before your course starts, ie your intended travel (or arrival) date cannot be earlier than one month before your course starts.

PS Suggest pack an umbrella.

khoregon1 wrote:Apparently, she is only allowed to be in the country for one week before the start of school.

Where are you getting this from? If she is applying for a Tier 4 visa for a one-year course, she can specify a travel date up to one month before the start of the course.

noajthan wrote:And you can enter UK up to 7 days before date you specify for intended travel

This doesn't seem to make sense. The date you specify for intended travel can be up to one month before the start of the course, and that will be the start date of the visa. Obviously, you cannot enter the UK on any visa that has not yet started.

sah10406 wrote:

noajthan wrote:And you can enter UK up to 7 days before date you specify for intended travel

This doesn't seem to make sense. The date you specify for intended travel can be up to one month before the start of the course, and that will be the start date of the visa. Obviously, you cannot enter the UK on any visa that has not yet started.

Who says it has to make sense. It's still the advice that unis are clearly giving to their international students.

And date of intended travel (or that day-7) is not necessarily the start date of the visa.
Evidently UKVI in their wisdom add on some sort of buffer period.

Examples:
https://www.ox.ac.uk/students/visa/before/tier4?wssl=1

https://www.welfare.qmul.ac.uk/document ... 135544.pdf

https://www.sant.ox.ac.uk/sites/default ... y_2015.pdf

OP will still be fine with the one month grace period which is the crux of the matter here.

I think several separate matters and deadlines have now become conflated here, and it's probably not helpful to OP to unpick them.

To answer OP's question, when your daughter applies for her Tier 4 visa, she can specify a travel date anytime from 23 August (i.e. one month before the start of the course). The vignette in her passport is then likely to have a start date of 23 August or possibly shortly afterwards. Whatever the start date is, she can then travel to the UK whenever she likes.

You are mistaken that she can only specify a travel date up to 7 days before the start date, or that she can only travel to the UK maximum 7 days before the start date.

Separately, if for some reason her travel was delayed and she could not enter the UK within the validity of the visa vignette, she needs to contact the university for advice.

sah10406 wrote:I think several separate matters and deadlines have now become conflated here, and it's probably not helpful to OP to unpick them.

To answer OP's question, when your daughter applies for her Tier 4 visa, she can specify a travel date anytime from 23 August (i.e. one month before the start of the course). The vignette in her passport is then likely to have a start date of 23 August or possibly shortly afterwards. Whatever the start date is, she can then travel to the UK whenever she likes.

You are mistaken that she can only specify a travel date up to 7 days before the start date, or that she can only travel to the UK maximum 7 days before the start date.

Separately, if for some reason her travel was delayed and she could not enter the UK within the validity of the visa vignette, she needs to contact the university for advice.

I have already corrected OP's misapprehension about 7 days nonsense. She never explained where she got that misunderstanding from in first place.

noajthan wrote:I have already corrected OP's misapprehension about 7 days nonsense. She never explained where she got that misunderstanding from in first place.

Would be good to know, so it can be corrected. So much poor information out there that has no basis in any rules or guidance.