You will probably have landed on this page because you are searching for a way to make an online appointments booking with the UK Border Agency (UKBA) and are having difficulties in finding out how to do this. Detailed guidance about how to do this is provided by the UKBA. Unfortunately the detailed guidance is almost entirely useless. Those of you who are willing to spend the time to find a way round this will eventually discover how to register an account with the UKBA with which to book your appointment. This process, including researching how to do it and actually getting the job done can take anything between 30 minutes to half a day. Eventually you will be led to a very promising web page where you choose your appointment time and day. At this stage you will be forgiven for thinking that you are almost complete. You will enter the date range that you want and the next page will inform you:
We do not have any appointments available for your preferred dates and locations.
Please change your preferred dates and location and search again.
You will choose a different date and try again. You will get the message:
We do not have any appointments available for your preferred dates and locations.
Please change your preferred dates and location and search again.
Over time you will gradually extend the date range over and over again, yet again you will receive the message:
We do not have any appointments available for your preferred dates and locations.
Please change your preferred dates and location and search again.
One tip is to try an enter a date range covering the next 10 years. That will result in the message:
We do not have any appointments available for your preferred dates and locations.
Please change your preferred dates and location and search again.
Now that was a surprise wasn’t it?
You will be forgiven for thinking that the system is casually trying to tell you to ‘give up and go home’! Clearly this system is not designed to be in any way helpful despite the fact that people using this system will normally be paying application fees of well over £1,000. Your next move will probably be to call the UKBA. That too should take up a day or five of your time and the results of that conversation, if indeed you ever get to speak to anyone, will be – ‘refer to our website, all the information is available there’!
October 12, 2012 Update:
We are receiving an increasing number of calls and enquiries seeking the Same Day Service from the UK Border Agency. At present enquiries are at an unprecedented level, often exceeding 100 calls a day. This is placing a huge strain on our resources. Please note that in accordance with the UKBA guidelines for Solicitors, we are unable to sell appointments. Our arrangement with the UKBA is that they provide us with appointments for our clients only. This means that where the applicant is our client and we are conducting and preparing your application for you, then we are able to obtain Same Day Appointments for you. However we are not able to simply book you an appointment where we are not at the same time preparing your application for you. We apologise for this inconvenience and would have preferred to be far more helpful, however we must follow the rules of the UKBA.
At the same time we take this opportunity to warn you that we are hearing of increasing numbers of agents and immigration advisers offering to ‘sell‘ Same Day Appointments at the UKBA. You should be very wary of these offers. To start with this practice is a breach of the UKBA rules and furthermore we have seen many instances of people being charged for appointments which turn out not to exist. It is often all too late by the time you find out and often money paid will be lost and worse yet, your visa may have expired in the process! Prospective applicants are strongly advised to take advice only from firms of Solicitors, registered with the Solicitors Regulation Authority of England & Wales.
Prospective applicants are advised not to seek a Same Day Appointment unless this is absolutely necessary. These appointments are in very short supply and provided strictly on a first come first served basis by the UKBA. Wherever possible applicants are advised to post their applications to the UKBA using secure post, before their current leave to remain (visa) expires. Applicants should be aware that most applications sent to the UKBA after the expiry of leave to remain will qualify for automatic refusal and in accordance with the most recent UK Border Agency Rules, any application sent more than 28 days after the expiry of the existing leave to remain (visa) will be automatically refused in any event.
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