China Visa Centre London questions

[supergraeme]

Hello all.

I’ve had a few Chinese visas in the past but always with an appointment, which they’ve now done away with. I have several questions which aren’t covered in the terrible FAQ:

– Is there any chance I’ll be able to get there at 3pm and still be seen that day?
– This is for me and my partner – does she have to come to apply? She didn’t before.
– Will I be able to give them one Special Delivery envelope to return both our passports?
– I’ve read a suggestion elsewhere that it can take quite a bit longer to have your passport returned by post – that can’t be right, can it?

Thanks all!

[JDB]

@supergraeme – yes, each applicant must go in person every time, even if you have been fingerprinted before. You also need to have each flight, hotel confirmation copied for each of you and ideally make sure both names are on hotel confirmations and definitely do so if different surnames.

The wait at the visa centre can be very long for the two separate stage processing queues. Yes, it does take much longer for the return of passports by post as they process the ones with fixed collection dates in priority. It’s all a bit of a pain, but well worth it!

PS I replied to your questions re Shanghai yesterday.

[JDB]

PPS You don’t both need to be there to collect if you choose to do that in person.

[supergraeme]

Thank you, I saw – but sadly this has overtaken all of my other thinking! Multiple African visas have taken up my time and passport so far this year, so I was waiting until I was back to work this out – and then had a panic as I had wrongly thought we could get the 144 hour visa, but hadn’t realised that we’d need to move on to a third country (the less said about that nonsense the better). We go on the 29th of March but I’m travelling on the weekend of the 7th so can only do everything after that.

I’m not concerned about the length of the wait – a complete lack of annual leave and a preference to go in the afternoon is more of a problem! Thinking we may go on the morning of he 15th.

That’s really handy to know about posting – thank you. Do you think I’d be able to turn up at 4pm and still collect? Or even later, perhaps?

Haven’t been fingerprinted before and we’re certain that I went alone to apply for us both in 2018 – but we could easily be wrong.

Thanks again for the advice. It’s been a big help.

[JDB]

@supergraeme – if you went alone, it was before they introduced mandatory fingerprinting, taking no chances, both hands, all fingers and thumbs and photographing, verified against the photo on your online form! You can collect up until 16.00; personally I wouldn’t turn up at 15.45 either!