Hi all,

After SO MUCH UNNECESSARY STRESS and multiple phone calls back and forth between us, our MP’s office and UKVI, we were told today (66 WORKING DAYS) that my priority application was approved and the visa was getting ready to be processed. However, our MP also confirmed that our application was NOT being treated as priority, and that the HO confirmed this via email, which he is forwarding to us now. Despite us having paid Priority Service through VFS, and me sending an email back on Feb. 11th asking for confirmation of Priority Service on our application (because we had reached 39 working days and heard NOTHING), and sending a copy of my Priority Service receipt to them via email, as well as including a physical copy in my application and writing “PRIORITY SERVICE” on the envelope - The HO claims that our application was being processed as NON PRIORITY. Because of their stupid mistake, we’ve missed two sets of flights (both were this month because our application was straightforward and should have been processed in time for March), we had to cancel our international movers booking, had to rearrange our son’s home carer several times and we’ve jerked around our very understanding landlord with our move out dates.

So we definitely want to pursue getting a refund for the priority service. What routes can we take to do this? Can we possibly claim a refund through our credit card company and provide them with the evidence of not getting priority service and our application being treated as standard? We spoke with our MP who said he might be able to help us as well but we want to use the fastest route and he told us that the HO is “notoriously rubbish” at processing anything correctly nowadays (his words not mine) and the last thing I want is to sink more money into phone calls/emails to the HO trying to get this refund. Any advice on how to go about this would be much appreciated! Thanks!

hi! Yes, both my MP and HO have said it was successful and visa was approved. However, the HO wrote an email to our MP claiming we never paid Priority, therefore our application was being processed and treated over the last 3+ months as NON PRIORITY. The MP said if we did pay priority we should be entitled to a refund since we now have written proof that the HO never processed it as priority - despite including a receipt of priority service purchased in our application and writing PRIORITY SERVICE on the envelope. We’re definitely waiting to do anything until after we landed, but since priority service was NOT used for our application we do feel we are legally entitled to a refund, as our MP also said. The flight bookings, I agree, we shouldn’t have chanced it. We just felt that most Priority applications were being processed in reasonable time frames and never expected such a huge mistake to be made on ours.