JimEddie

Given the US Government shutdown, is Larry Panetta still there to issue codes to those that ask nicely?

EuropeanPete

My application has been "Pending review" for a couple of weeks now. I was wondering whether the Govt Shutdown might have something to do to with that.

EDIflyer

I'm in the same situation but it was like thing prior to the shutdown - they just seem to have had a lot more applications and thus be taking longer to process. Hopefully the officials dealing with them are CBP staff that are thus unaffected!

GUWonder

GE applications are still being granted conditional approval, denied, etc.; and GE interviews are still being fulfilled as scheduled or scheduled like before; and GE status is still being revoked as before. The only major differences I have heard about are that a sliver of the GE enrollment centers aren't open (and that I haven't been able to verify) or that walk-ins aren't being done as frequently as before -- that I could see hitting some who have already been granted conditional approval.

Maybe they would slow down granting conditional approval because of other resource constraints, but it certainly hasn't lead to all being stuck in "pending review" limbo.

That said, I'm talking about US citizens applying, so take the above with that grain of salt.

EuropeanPete

Helpful, cheers. Guess it's just the Brit FT backlog

Ironically enough I'm now unlikely to be travelling to the US with anything like the same frequency of what I have been doing, so there's no real rush if I'm being honest.

PICA

I had Pakistan and Saudi Arabia listed and still managed to get through!

PICA

My application was pending review for roughly 3 weeks before I got a conditional approval, although this was before the shutdown.

DominicB

I've been pending review since 13 Sep - well before the shutdown. Not very impressed given the fee they charge, and, although I read that revenue earning functions are meant to be unaffected by the shutdown, I bet it won't help.

Noting another point above, I should say that BA was very happy to give me a promo code as a mere Gold Card holder - I'm nowhere near GGL, and never will be.

NWIFlyer

I'm nearly at 5 weeks now, as is MrsNWIFlyer. They do quote 4-6 weeks on the website, so I've hardly got any reason to complain (even if I like doing so). I'm not entirely sure $100 entitles me to quite as much as you expect though!

billinghamn

So I have read somewhere that they advise it could take between 4 and 6 weeks to process initial GOES applications. I submitted my app on Sun 8 Sep, so I could be waiting until Sun 20 Oct. I expect there's going to be a mass of applications from Brits about now, so likely to be the full 6 weeks I expect.

I also haven't seen any updates claiming they have been approved in the past week or so (since the shutdown). The last one I saw was ccarmock who submitted an app on 04 Sep and was approved late Sep.

Still hoping I can bag an interview slot when I am next over in the US mid Dec.

NWIFlyer

I'm not entirely sure that the hold-up is at the US end. In the thread referenced in post #1, US citizens still seem to move to conditional approval extremely quickly - just a day or two.

A super-efficient UK Government could never take longer to process applications it's effectively already approved through the police check than a US Government in furlough, could it?

billinghamn

I would have thought that the US would prioritise applications from it's own citizens ahead of foreigners for a start, so we will be at the back of the queue to start with. From what I have heard the CBP case officers seem to do all the real checks, so I'd be surprised if the initial review is any more than a quick check to see whether the ACRO id is valid and is indeed reported as No Trace, which I would have thought would be available online. Perhaps I am being naive about how these cross border checks work however!

It may be someone has documented the checks the US are doing and I haven't seen it. But in my experience these types of things tend to spend 99% of their time in a queue and then a 5 min processing effort before moving on to the next step.

I think there's just a mass of applications, on the basis they have just flung open the doors to a number of countries they will have been deluged. I wonder whether we can infer anything from our Application Ids - mine is 3548452 and was submitted on Sun 08 Sep. I imagine they will be sequential. If someone else posts their Application Id and when they submitted theirs we might get some insight into how many are being submitted every day (not that's really going to help us get processed any quicker).

knifeandfork

I've just rung BA Goldmembers. I'm a plain Gold, not a GGL. They have tightened it up.

No codes for Golds any more. Just GGL and Prems.

Globaliser

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/21572177-post322.html

chistery

Just email Larry instead.