petepete99

Hi all,

Thanks for your help and tips with all the visa questions. This morning I got my L-1B Visa approved at Grosvenor Square in London. All went pretty well.

The one thing I would say for anybody who has an appointment in the next couple of weeks, is to be wary that the processing for the fee payments is ludicrously slow, because they are moving to a new Embassy building next month. It means they were running on backup servers which are really slow - what would have normally taken about 30 seconds at the cashier window took 10 minutes. And there is only one window, so the queue was super long. It took me about 45 minutes but I was towards the front at 8:10am, so I can only imagine how long the people were waiting at the back.

The only heart-in-mouth moment for me was when the Visa Officer took my papers, then muttered under his breath whilst flicking through the pages "hmmm, that's strange". My heart stopped momentarily as he swivelled his chair around and asked his colleagues something along the lines of "the box hasn't been checked". Then somebody said something to him and he said "ah gotcha". I tried to hide the relief as he carried on with the 'interview' and then said "you're good to go".

The VO's estimate was that my passport would be ready to pick up at DX next Friday. I'm not sure if that's a conservative estimate or not, but I booked my flight on a flexible fare this evening for January 8th.

A nice early Christmas present indeed!

tom169

Congratulations! Best of luck with the rest of the moving process. Cherish the UK Christmas and new year in the mean time.

bottle123

What fee did you have to pay? I have an appointment soon but it is under Individual Peition so not sure. Also do they take just Debit Cards but also Credit Cards?

KK85

Congratulations! What a fantastic Christmas present. I echo Tom - enjoy your Christmas in the UK, and safe travels for January.

petepete99

$500 but that was the blanket fee. I assume that means you won’t have to pay anything as your employer/attorney would have taken care of everything. But others on this forum will know more than me.

They accept pretty much all Debit/Credit cards including Amex

petepete99

Thanks KK and Tom! One last time

bottle123

You are correct. I didn't have to pay anything so I was out so much quicker. Had appointment at 8.30, went it at 8 anyway. Finished by 8.45. So swift. Approved now!

petepete99

Nice, congratulations! The non-fee payment made a massive difference. My appointment was at 8am and I left at 10:45.

Did they tell you when you'd probably get my passport back?

tom169

Congratulations

bottle123

The interviewer said within a weeks time, you?

Issue is that it is christmas holidays, so hopefully that won't delay it.

Thank you!

petepete99

Cool. They said "probably Friday" to me. But yeah, not getting my hopes up.

Rete

Congratulations, Pete and you will be off to sunny Ft. Myers soon. Sis says the weather has been extremely dry with no rain in the last 3 weeks. Enjoy the beach and keep an eye out for the dolphins. Love watching them when we are swimming in the Gulf at Bonita Springs.

petepete99

Thanks. I am really looking forward to the beach and boating elements. I used to take advantage of it a lot as a kid when my Mum and Dad had a timeshare in Cape Coral. Now I get to live it as an adult. Fun times! The only issue is I still haven't found anywhere to live and I land 2 weeks today!

bottle123

Hello pete, has your status changed on - https://ceac.state.gov/ceacstattracker/status.aspx

petepete99

It says it’s in Administrative Processing. Not sure if that’s good or bad?