Originally Posted by
ft101
For comparison purposes I applied, also from the UK, in the early hours of yesterday (Sunday 27th) local time. The acknowledgement of application and grant notification emails came with exactlly the same time stamp. Is there anything unusual about your application or any changes from previous ones?
Nothing, none at all. They were literally instant approvals from 2018 and 2017. I just called the Global Services Centre in Australia and they told me my application looks OK but they can't fast track it (or influence the decision). All they could do was put a note on my application to say I'm stuck in Singapore. I was told to expect the usual processing timeframe, up to 2 working days and it would be processed in order of when it was received so no fast track. They received my application Friday 25JAN Australia time.
It's my fault entirely, I had a whole 2 months since booking my flights to apply and I waited until the last minute. Before I checked out of my hotel in HCMC I pondered all the alternatives. I enquired about extending my stay but then I still had to pay extra to change my flight to KUL, and it was going to cost me extra to extend my stay. Also how much was a new ticket to Australia from SGN or KUL from there? I decided to leave SGN as planned and booked a one way flight from KUL to SIN, and redeem some points to stay at the Crowne Plaza Changi. No idea how long I'm going to be here. My flight back to the UK leaves from MEL in a week!
Originally Posted by
Mwenenzi
Such a request would not be considered urgent by government employees.
You are spot on!
I'd like to thank everyone for all their helpful responses so far!