[MrsScotland]

Hello! The day has finally arrived when I can get things started to extend my stay in the UK. I am preparing to start the process, and I am now confused on the concise order of doing things!

Two nights ago I went online and paid for my IHS. I got a confirmation number, so that part is done. It was 500 pounds.

So what is the next step if I want my interview to be in person? I qualify on 21 June, but I'm going to book now for an appointment in June.

Can I apply online and print my application to take with me? Am I supposed to book my appointment first, then fill out the form by hand and take that with me?

It's just not clear to me and I don't want to get it wrong.

Thanks for your help in advance. I'm truly hoping to get this done in the next few hours.

 

[sprite75]

my understanding is that you have two choices with appointments--book, then fill out form online. or book, then fill out paper form and take it on the day. I did the second, but that was in 2014.

i was going to do the online form this time, but it starts by asking me to list every place i've ever lived (not on the paper form!) and that would take me a very long time. no.

 

[nyclon]

Hello! The day has finally arrived when I can get things started to extend my stay in the UK. I am preparing to start the process, and I am now confused on the concise order of doing things!

Two nights ago I went online and paid for my IHS. I got a confirmation number, so that part is done. It was 500 pounds.

So what is the next step if I want my interview to be in person? I qualify on 21 June, but I'm going to book now for an appointment in June.

Can I apply online and print my application to take with me? Am I supposed to book my appointment first, then fill out the form by hand and take that with me?

It's just not clear to me and I don't want to get it wrong.

Thanks for your help in advance. I'm truly hoping to get this done in the next few hours.

If you are planning on applying in person paying the IHS fee is part of the appointment booking process. You can't book an appointment without paying the fee during the booking process so you will likely have to pay again and ask for a refund.

Other than that as the other poster stated, you can do things in either order and you can either fill the form out by hand or fill out the online form and print it to take with you.

 

[Whatshouldwedo]

I agree with Nyclon regarding paying for the IHS. It would have been better to wait until you book the appointment and pay the fees for IHS, the premium appointment and the visa fee.

While you have the choice of an online form to fill in or the paper form, you might want to consider the paper form. If you apply online, you still have to print it out to take with you.

 

[MrsScotland]

Hello. Thanks for all the replies. I'm not sure if the order was the best way to do things, but it seems to have worked.

I paid IHS first -- that was 2 days ago. At that time I also downloaded a paper copy of the VISA application. I'm glad I did, as it took me 2 days to pull out all of my documents and find the exact dates for everything again. I filled out the paper form and used that as a rough draft when I went back online today. The online application was slightly different than the form I printed out, but everything was basically the same.

There was a section to enter my IHS number in the online form and it accepted it with any issues.

Near the very end of the online application is asks you if you want to mail in your documents or pay for premium. It tells you the exact price for each. I selected premium and it then opened the page to ask me to pick my premium service center. After that, it let me pick an appointment day. And finally after selecting that, it let me pick an exact time. It even told me when time slots would cost 75 more (before 9AM and on Saturdays cost more). After I made my choices, I was sent to the payment page. With fingers crossed (I don't normally make such large financial transactions, I was worried the bank would decline) my payment cleared and I was then taken to a page where I was prompted to download a lot of documents which are all needed for the appointment. This took an additional 10 minutes as I created a folder on my desktop, downloaded and checked each form one by one to be sure there were no downloading errors, and saved everything together in the same place.

So, tomorrows task is to go through the pile of downloaded forms and start pulling together all of the supporting documents. This is going to take another few days. =)