Bloody Australians

6 weeks ago my wife applied for a visa (South African passport) to go to Australia. Nothing. Rang them up, they said "we can't pass any messages to the case worker until 48 hours before the departure date, and even then, all we can do is pass them a note".

We fly tomorrow night. Or not.

She rang them up on Friday, explained the situation, "ok, we'll give the case worker your message". Monday, end of day, still nothing. Can't get through to them.

I'm so livid right now. I've spent a LOT of cash on booking stuff and these lazy bar stewards can't even be arsed to do their job. I'm currently on hold to them to see if I can get anything else out of them.

Useless ****s.

Seen as you're in London, pay them a visit? http://uk.embassy.gov.au/

Is this for a Holiday? It's all done online, surely?

https://www.border.gov.au/Trav/Visa-1/600-/Visitor-e600-visa-online-applications

It was all done online. I just spoke to them, "nothing we can do, can't give you any more info, no contact details for case worker, lol goodluck kthnxbai".


*****.

Sounds like a shocking situation.

It's pretty late there now. I know it's a PITA but you'd have been better ringing them at 2 a.m really.

Never book travel before obtaining visa

They do it from here from what I can tell. They only serve English speaking people from 12-4 on weekdays and even then trying to get through to someone involves half an hour of spamming redial, another 20 mins of listening to how I can find all the info online, then finally getting through to a talking wall which just goes "can't help soz lol".

The woman I just spoke to, and I'm not joking, "your best option is to call tomorrow morning if your wife can speak a european language".

Oh and I've emailed them, she's emailed them (multiple times), we've both used their online help form thing, not heard a word back.

I'm probably going to go there tomorrow morning and kick up a fuss. This is ********.

Diddums said:

I'm probably going to go there tomorrow morning and kick up a fuss. This is ********.

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It sounds horrendous, but I'd advise your wife going tomorrow as well. You're not going to be able to get anything done there on her behalf.

I love Saffies!!!

[TW]Fox;30408775 said:

Never book travel before obtaining visa

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Unfortunately a lot of times you have to book travel/flights before applying for a visa - to show you have a ticket for onwards passage/can leave the country. That leaves you in the catch 22 of having to buy flight tickets before you even apply for a visa.

No idea if this is the case in this specific incidence but it may well be.

Yep. Needed to have tickets before flying. Also, can't go in person without appointment.

This was meant to be a holiday of a lifetime. Three weeks, 7 day roadtrip, her best friend's wedding. We both pulled every string we could to get the time off and the costs of everything was £lol. I'm so deflated right now.


My Dutch passport = same day visa.
Her Saffer passport = lifetime of misery when attempting to travel. I also missed my father's funeral because of her passport (yes, could've gone alone but there were complications which meant I needed her by my side).

She's starting an application for a British passport tonight and this saffer passport is going in the bin. The amount ofextra hoops and checks we've had togo through and the amount of time spent waiting around airports for her passport to be checked is unbelievable.

That's crap man. Utter crap. Fingers crossed something happens.

Diddums said:

She's starting an application for a British passport tonight and this saffer passport is going in the bin. The amount ofextra hoops and checks we've had togo through and the amount of time spent waiting around airports for her passport to be checked is unbelievable.

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South African passports are literally useless - on a business trip one of the guys who only had a SA passport was refused entry to the US at the last moment, ended up stuck in Canada for 3 weeks and then had to do some crazy stop over in another country because he couldn't go directly to the UK without applying again via another country that wasn't the UK or Canada or something nuts.

Aren't there services that let you "book" flights and get a PNR which should be enough to proceed with a visa application?

I can't suggest anything but fingers crossed for you.

Has she only recently been in a position to acquire a UK passport?
You say she is starting that process tonight.
Shame, as it would have been the best solution, apply, do interview, get passport, then get electronic aus visa.
Obviously they do not allow SA to acquire such, and it requires a full application?

Probably too little too late, or you've visited here already but...

http://satravelbug.co.za/

Looks like it'll take 5 - 15 working days though

No, but she didn't want to lose her saffer heritage. And we were lazy.

The first 5 years of marriage she was on an EEA family member's permit so could travel almost anywhere with me. When that expired she went on to a residence permit and unknowingly forfeited her ability to travel with me, which is why we arrived at Gatwick ready to go to my father's funeral and were denied. That's when we found out about it. We thought this one would be ok seeing as their website said 4 weeks processing time so we did it 6 weeks prior. They've since changed their site to say "6 weeks or more". The thing that got me the most is their complete lack of willingness to assist in any way whatsoever. No replies to emails, no replies to webforms, the 40 minute phone calls result in "cant help soz" and that's as far as they will go. It's absolutely unbelievable. If they'd declined it we would've at least been able to recoup some of the money but at this point the minimum this is going to cost is £7k.

Just completely lost atm. 3 weeks with nothing to do. We've been looking forward to this for 8 months now.

We're so disappointed it's ridiculous, but there's literally nothing I can do. I've exhausted every option and hit the same wall over and over.



Ah well. Maybe tomorrow but I doubt it.

As harsh as it sounds, can you not go alone? Seems very wasteful to essentially lose £7k with nothing to show for it bar some heartache. I assume your travel insurance won't cover eventualities like this?

My wife and I have a very close relationship, I'd never do that to her.