Visa Start Dates

[THO]

Hi All,

My wife is off to VFS tomorrow to take her passport etc in, so she can have her spouse visa attached. Stupidly, the HO drags their feet for weeks on end before making the decision without giving a date when the decision will actually arrive, and then the recipient has to leave town within 30 days or pay £250 and get an extension.

Since we do not know what date will be on the visa, we can't plan her flight here. We want to leave HCMC on the 18th Nov, but if it comes back too quickly and is already active, she won't be able to do this. So, has anyone (would be great if it was in Ho Chi Mihn) asked for the visa to be valid from a certain start date? So then we could ask for 1st Nov start, and 30 days from that.

The last MVV visa she got for the UK was actually 3 days old when she picked it up, and because she had to give 6 weeks notice, we lost this much time from the 6 months she could have had in the UK, had we been able to ask for a start date.

THO

[DanaMarie]

VFS doesn't have the authority to change her vignette dates. What intended date of travel did you put on your application? Anecdotally, unless there was a delay in processing it seems like they aim to get fairly close to that date. I received mine today and it is effective 15 October, I had indicated a travel date of 11 October on my application.

[THO]

Hi Dana,

I replied to your other post. We know that VFS are as much use as a whole in the head, can't answer anything and can't do anything right. So, we did not ask them, basically my wife sent an email to visa email in Sheffield, (as per the instruction received in the email she received confirming her visa had been granted) to let them know that she has paid her IHS payment and visited VFS and given them her passport. She made a request for the vignette to allow her to stay in VN until 20th Nov at least.

As you will see, I wanted to know if the vignette was already active when you picked up your passport, or did they give you the full days to make leave arrangements from the day passport is received back. Obviously flights are more expense (normally) the closer to the date of travel, and I would expect the HO to give enough time for people to hand in notice to work, and say their good byes, and sort out leaving their accommodation etc.

But then this is the HO we are dealing with, so unlikely.

THO.

[THO]

Oh, and we did not have an intended date, as our case had to go to appeal, so that date passed way way ago, and the granting of the visa arrived out of the blue.

[DanaMarie]

Congrats on winning your appeal! My vignette dates started 6 days after the date of receiving my passport. That's definitely not always the case though, it seems to vary wildly. But since you have put in a requested date hopefully they will honor at least something close to it if they haven't already printed the vignette!