Visa renewal - please help
 

I am working in the US on an L-1 visa which is now expired. i have an extension but of course as soon as I leave the country I must renew to get back in. I'm going back to the UK for 10 days in August so attempted to make an appointment with the US embassy in London (don't get me started on that - premium rate line which cannot be dialled from outside the UK!!! :mad: ) and the first appointment they could give me was on the 12th (Friday) and my flight back is on the 18th so I would need the visa by the following Wednesday i.e. only 3 working days.

Does anyone know anything about this? Because I cannot call myself I am only able to get second hand info from my sister who made the appointment. She did not get any more info about when do I go back to the embassy to get my visa, how long does it take, is there any way to expedite??

Any help much appreciated!

Re: Visa renewal - please help
 

no way to expedite

I think you may need to delay your flight back to the USA

it normally takes a couple of weeks for the visa to come through

Re: Visa renewal - please help
 

We have just gone through exactly the same thing. There is absolutely no way of expediting it. It has just cost us $1000.00 to change our flights by one week. The first appointment we could get was August 9th and we were due to fly home on August 10th.

My Dad called the Embassy first and got a provisional appointment for the 2nd August, he called us to make sure this was OK and by the time he called back to confirm it had gone and the next one was August 9th. All the information can only be sent to a UK address, we had ours faxed over and the amount of papers we have to take is incredible. We have to have our original marriage certificate but that is with USCIS at the moment so I will have to get another copy in England. I have just filled in 4 x DS-156 and 1 x DS 157. We are off to have our 2"x2" photos taken this week. The US Embassy only supplied is with one Barclay's payslip and so my Dad has to call yet again to get 3 more sent. The envelope I have to take with me is getting fuller by the minute. I just hope to God I don't forget anything because it would mean I can't get back into the US to get it.

Good Luck.

By the way a straight forward L1 renewal (hopefully) takes about 3 days to process. The visas are then sent to a UK address, you have to pay 10.00GBP for this, you cannot collect them from the Embassy.

Re: Visa renewal - please help
 

I don't know if the time taken depends on the visa issued, but I had my H4 visa appointment in London on a Monday and had my passport back in my hands on the Thursday.

Re: Visa renewal - please help
 

Whatever you do book a flight with the option to change the dates. I had exactly the same problem last May. I was on a B visa but as I had got married I was able to upgrade to an L2. I had my appointment at the embassy all went well, although they wouldn't let my husband come in with me and then I was questioned about my marriage (I told them that if they had let my husband in they could have checked with him directly) Anyway 3 hours later I left the embassy and awaited the return of my passport with new visa. They have a new visa delivery service now which is £10 but it allows you to track the progress online.

After my visa was issued the tracking just stopped between 2 departments. I called and called and no one could tell me anything other than one girl that said that loads of passports had gone missing that week!! Then one night I got a call from the guy that runs the visa delivery service to tell me that basically the embassy had lost my passport and ddon'texpect them to admit to it, he said that it was up to me to make the decision that it was lost, report it to the police and apply for a new passport! I ccouldn'tbelieve it, I was also upset as I had that passport for years and it saw me through all my years of backpacking so it was something I wanted to keep. My husbands company in the US were great and they got their lawyer onto it right away as I had to delay my return flight (luckily I had booked with a change return date option) however my husband had to return back to the states. So basically I was stranded in the UK and my husband in the US.

I thought the embassy would really stand up and take notice of my husbands lawyers but to be honest they are so aarrogantthat they were telling them yarns. My husband's dad had a friend that is an MP, he got him on the case. However by now I had been stranded in England for weeks and it was getting so stressful thats when I decided I would give up on them finding my old passport and would just have to get a new passport. I made the appointment at the passport office in London spent the day sorting that out, got home at 10.30pm to a call from the guy at the courier service telling me that guess what? my passport had been found! I think the MP came through for me. I then had to cancel my new passport which caused more problems until I said I would have to get the MP onto them, they then relented and let me keep my old passport and agreed to cancel my new one. (otherwise I would have had to have gone back to the embassy to get another visa put in my new passport)

Part of the reason we were under more stress is that the L visa I had put in my passport was running out shortly and our lawyers said they would renew it in the US, however if I wwasn'table to get back into the country until after it expired my husband would have to have renewed it in the US while I waited in the UK. A delay of months. Thats the main reason we are applying for our green cards as we want to have the freedom to travel and ddon'twant to go back to that aarrogantembassy again.

I hope everything goes well for you for renewing your visa sorry I have gone on a bit but the embassy issues really wind me up especially as I cannot see why they ddon'tissue passport visa's for the full length of the visa, why do they make everyone go back and forth every couple of years? Anyway let us know how you get on . :)

Re: Visa renewal - please help
 

Not true, we had ours returned by the courier within 3 days, and have read of others who have received them as quickly. It is tight tough, and as Lisa's experience shows, it sometimes can go wrong. If you can put the flight date back a week best do that, although with some tickets you have to wait until after you have missed the flight and reschedule it with a charge added on.
According to Travel.state.gov the London US Embassy is taking 3 working days to process the visa. http://travel.state.gov/visa/temp/wa...don&x=112&y=12