EDIflyer

Haha, I love it - go Grandma c-w-s!

rpjepson

Apologies if this has already been asked.

i was given conditional approval on 29th Oct. I am next in the US around Thanksgiving, but at present all of the possible slots I could do at ATL are taken.

I see the 30 day time limit, but it isn't clear exactly what this means.

Is it you must do the interview within 30 days of the offer?

Or, is it just you have to schedule an interview within that period - in other words, as long as I log in and book something before the end of November, it doesn't actually matter when the interview takes place?

Finally, reference is made to taking "some documents" proving address. How many is "some" ?

Many thanks,

corporate-wage-slave

My understanding is that you need to get an interview down in the system within 30 days, but you could have the appointment date to be after 30 days, or reschedule it later on. Have a good look at locations around ATL, some places are much easier to get to, and in any case you may be able to try to get either a cancelled appointment or a walk in at ATL. If you don't get the appointment in you will get a series of ever more urgent emails reminding you of the deadline.

When you have scheduled the interview you get a letter detailing your documents, but as a minima it seems to be passport, proof of being a good boy (or girl), proof of address linked to your ESTA and GE address(es). Driving licence is fine for this, but they're ok with utility bills and letters from government bodies.

jozdemir

Just had my interview at IAH (only scheduled on Tuesday) but they were wide open for Saturday.

Very straightforward, expecting my email any minute now!

mikeecix

UK Citizen just approved:

Applied Sept 24th
Provisionally Approved Oct 29th
Interviewed Nov 1st at Washington Dulles intl Airport
Approval email received a couple of hours later

Mikee

RichardMannion

SEA has pretty good availability for interviews if you're over this way.

My conditional approval took some time like others have mentioned, applied early September and notified late last week. Interviews were available from tomorrow onwards.

Wozza2404

What do you think my chances are of being approved and having an interview scheduled by the 4th December if I send it off this week? (Assume that I already have the police cert.).

jozdemir

So...are you saying you have the police cert? If you haven't put your application in for the conditional approval I wouldn't like your chances, most of us waited 6 weeks for that initial approval to come through.

You never know, they might've cleared whatever backlog they had but I wouldn't bank on it if your application isn't in yet.

Wozza2404

I'm saying I can get one in 24 hours if I need it. I'm more concerned with the processing time at the US end.

NWIFlyer

I would doubt any of us can give you a definitive answer, partly because we don't even know how long each part takes. It looks like the US passes the application to the UK Government, which then takes an indefinite amount of time to pass it back to the US, which then takes another indefinite amount of time to do the conditional approval.

If what appears to be batch processing somewhere in the chain continues, then the likelihood is that you will be waiting for a fair while. I think I just missed a batch by a day or so and ended up at nearly 8 weeks. Others who got conditionally approved on the same day as me, but applied much later, were as short as 2-3 weeks. Based on that, if you apply today or in two weeks your approval will probably come through around six weeks from now.

Wozza2404

Thanks. I'll leave it for now then, I think. I don't want to miss my December dates in the US and then have to keep pushing appointments back until I'm there again at Easter. I'll apply in the New Year.

NWIFlyer

Well, personally I'd apply and hope for the best given no more codes are being given out, which should do something to improve the processing time - there's no enormous grief in pushing appointments back. I'm just saying it's probably not, on balance, worth paying out the extra for an expedited police check because it likely won't gain you any time overall.

Don't forget also that the promo code (unless something has changed in the later issued ones) is only valid until the end of December, so you will need to apply sometime this year.

EDIflyer

That'd be my take on it too - better to chance your arm with applying now and hoping things have speeded up rather than risk not being able to apply at all.

jamespvg

Well, I was approved yesterday, although the (friendly) officer at SLC was a little dubious of foreign nationals with visas, rather than green cards.

I didn't get a demonstration of the kiosk, so a question for those who've used them: how does the machine know what status I'm entering in? Presumably I could be WT or using my F visa. (And I know others have multiple different visas.)

Jet Ranger

Were you told to scan your visa page or passport page in the kiosk? I was told very firmly at my interview to scan the visa page only.
However a poster on the BA forum thread currently running said that they used their passport page and it worked for them, even though they have a visa.

I guess I shall find out on arrival in the US for the first time with GE in a couple of weeks.