GlasgowBoy

I recently applied to change status from L1-B to L1-A and we received notification this week that its been approved.

That's the good news.

Bad news is this totally complicates a trip we had planned to the UK at the start of November.

Somewhat naively, I had assumed the renewed visa could be issued at a local USCIS office, but it looks like we're required to go to the US Embassy in London for this.

At the moment, it looks unlikely we have time to attend an appointment (my wife is working), even if we could make one for the time we are in London, which is unlikely - appointments are typically granted for 30 to 40 days from the date of application.

Another problem is if we do make an interview and assuming it all goes well (no reason to suppose it wouldn't) they then have our passports for anything up to 15 days - long after our scheduled return to the US.

Third problem is my UK passport is due to expire prior to renewed visa's expiry date. I'm assuming I'll need to get a new passport that covers the validity period of the renewed visa?

So - my questions are:

1. Am I reading this right - do we actually have to travel all the way from LA to London to have a US visa issued? This seems like lunacy.

2. Can we continue to enter the US on our current visas or are they now invalid? It would be a lot easier if we could use our existing visas for our November trip and actually plan a trip to get the renewed visas sometime later.

3. If I send my passport off to the embassy in Washington to be renewed, is my US Visa automatically transferred to the new passport?

4. Why is this stuff always so bloody complicated...

Elvira

1. You can probably get it done in Canada. When we did it, they returned the passports on the same day, although I have heard it could take a few days, so please check.

2. Don't know.

3. No, but they return your old passport and you just have to travel with both.

4. No comment...