LHR immigration with the American family
 

Flying home in 2 weeks - woo hoo. Taking the kids for their first overseas trip to see the homeland, can't wait. The wife and 2 kids have blue passports, can they come through immigration with me at Heathrow, or do they have to stand in the huge line with all the other ROW folk. Plenty of you must have experienced this, so hopefully someone tells me they can come through with me.

Re: LHR immigration with the American family
 

I think you should race through on your UK passport then taunt them through the glass through the medium of interpretive dance.

Re: LHR immigration with the American family
 

If there are not many people in the line the IO may well do it. But if it is busy and there is three US passports to deal with don't be surpised if they say no. You can go through the non EU with them if you like.

Last time I landed in Manchester the EU line was horrendous and there was no one in the non EU line. I put my UK passport back in my pocket and used my US one.

Re: LHR immigration with the American family
 

Exactly the same as me at Gatwick when I came back from Bulgaria, wished I had my US passport with me.

Re: LHR immigration with the American family
 

Generally speaking, no they can't come through the line with you. ..... Not Heathrow, but I got a mild telling off when I once drove off the boat at Dover and through the UK line with Mrs P ...... WTF was I supposed to do? Kick her out and make her walk through immigration? :frown:

Re: LHR immigration with the American family
 

Every time (four?) I've come through passport control at Heathrow with my wife, I've been told to bring her (and the kids if there) with me through the UK line.

Pulaski, when were you last told you couldn't, or are you just making assumptions?

Re: LHR immigration with the American family
 

I brought my USC wife through UK/EU line at LHR with no issue last summer (2014).

Re: LHR immigration with the American family
 

My tip - have a nice word with the one of the cabin crew and ask for the pink VIP immigration passes they give their First Class customers. They always have ones spare.

Re: LHR immigration with the American family
 

Assumption. My bad. :o

Re: LHR immigration with the American family
 

Mixed advice. If the queue is short, sod it, their coming through with me. I've had plenty of battles before with jumper up immigration bellends in my previous job, I look forward to renewing my battles. Cheers Horace, I'll see if I can get one of those slips off the crew.

Re: LHR immigration with the American family
 

In fact I'll let you into a little secret told to me by an immigration officer at Heathrow. But this is between you and me and mustn't be made public. ;)

You are required to present yourself to an immigration officer, once you do that, that IO is the one that deals with you. They are not suppose to send you to another queue.

They don't like to do it because if the queue gets too long, and that means the wait time as well, the bellends from BAA get on their case and start complaining and about the inconvenience. Also if there is a problem with someone they have to deal with it, which means they have to leave the EU desk to take the person to the waiting area, and that person doesn't get dealt with until the IO finishes their stint on the EU desk. Some of the IOs get round it by not taking their stamp with them to the EU desk and then they cannot deal with non EU passports.

But usually they are ok to do it. But as I said earlier nothing to stop you going through the non EU controls so you don't get split up. :p

Re: LHR immigration with the American family
 

The ones United hand out in BusinessFirst have not been pink for a while, I always kept these and gave them to my wife to use if traveling alone. I'm sure it varies by which terminal you arrive at, but that express line can also become backed up, there are less officers, so it only takes a couple of non straight forward people for it to get backed up.

Re: LHR immigration with the American family
 

Not entirely related but thought I'd pass on my recent experience that it is quicker to go through the regular EU passports line than the epassport line (for passports with the chip in them). It seems very few people understand the instructions - green means go, red means wait, take your glasses and hats off, put your passport in this way, etc - which adds to the delay.

Re: LHR immigration with the American family
 

LOL, I was one of the bellends from BAA, but apart from that cool. Decision made! We're all going through the shortest queue. :thumbsup:

Re: LHR immigration with the American family
 

Agreed, I stopped using that when they replaced IRIS, which was much better (and required registration so less people had it).