Indian Visa advice

katylittlelady

Hi all,

I've read about indian visas on a few threads here but I wanted to get some advice on our slightly complex situation!

We are getting married at the beginning of August and going travelling for a few months with our first destination breing india. The difficulty is to do with me and changing surname!

Originally I had planned to get my passport in advance and then get visas etc sorted!

However, I have been lucky enough to win a weekend in Russia! but the only weekend we could take it was the weekend before our wedding!! And because at this point we wouldn't be married I am travelling under my maiden name!

We had booked our honeymoon in my married name so there is no way of changing that without having to rebook the ticket.

So we plan to the day after we come back attend the passport office to get my passport changed! This just leaves my indian visa to sort out! Fortunately we are not going away straight away and essentially we have from Monday to Thursday the following week to sort the visas out. I realise this will involve another trip up to london but want to be fully prepared so there won't be any difficulties so wanted to get advice on people with experience on getting visas already! I did contact them via e-mail to ask and they adviced an on-line application followed by appointment up in London. Has any one done this before? Any words of advice will be gratefully received!

Rylo_2

I will be honest and say that I don't know what the current situation with Indian visas is since I haven't been to the London Embassy for about 6 months but at that time it was pretty horrendous. They were only allowing a certain amount of people in per day (250???) and the rest were being offered appointments to come back at a later time. When I went, that was 10 days in advance and they weren't really bothered that I needed to travel in a week's time and told me I should turn up at 4am the next morning. I live in London but couldn't possibly get there that early so the only thing I could do was to pay a courier to stand outside the embassy from about 5am, to ensure he was one of the lucky few to get in. He managed to get the visa the same day but only because he was there so early. I don't know if it's got any better or anyone else can offer any advice but good luck and I hope you have a lovely time.

katylittlelady

Thanks rylo!

I know we are going have to get there really early if we want to get them, I'm just not sure if it will help doing the application online before hand because I could do that as soon as I have my new passport!

Does anyone know the address of the embassy? And the link to the official website? I think I have found it but there are lots of courier websites as well!

How much did your courier cost?

Rylo_2

http://www.hcilondon.net/index.jsp

I think this is the official website for the High Commission. And I've just noticed this link - something to do with them outsourcing the visa application?? (Sorry don't have time to read through it).

http://www.hcilondon.net/visa/OutsourcingOfVisaApplications.html

Re. the cost of a courier, it was around £100 (luckily, work paid!). He charged by the hour and was there from 5am until he collected the visa at lunchtime.

Good luck!!!!!

alanrowell

www.hcilondon.net

www.cgiedinburgh.org

www.cgibirmingham.org

Whichever you go to ensure you fill in the correct form as the form for Edinburgh is different from the form for London and GET THERE EARLY - before 7:00am preferably as they process a limited number of visas each day

Pollycat

Visa applications for India HAVE been outsourced.

From what I've read on a couple of holiday websites (Tripadvisor & HolidayTruths), it's all a bit of a mess at the moment.

I'd suggest you check out the comments on there to give you an idea of what's happening.

Voyager2002

Rather than get to the Embassy for 4am, wait around for hours and worry about not getting a visa in time, I would use a visa service. Trailfinders are good (I have used them more than once) and with a service charge of about 45 pounds per passport I think that using them is cost-effective. They should also be able to give good advice about the married name issue. My own comment is that airlines and so on are used to people (specially women) changing their name on marriage. Rather than spending scarce time and money on a trip to the passport office, I would just travel with a passport in the maiden name but of course with the marriage certificate. Your travel agent should be able to advise on this.

Pollycat

From reading the notice about out-sourcing of visa applications, you don't go to the HCI (London) or CGI (Birmingham or Edinburgh anymore.

The company now dealing with visa applications have opened 2 centres in London and 1 each in Birmingham & Edinburgh.

Katy
if you've not already done so, you need to check the relevant websites out.
Alan Rowell has already given you the links.

donny_osmonds_mad_fan

Voyager2002 wrote: »

My own comment is that airlines and so on are used to people (specially women) changing their name on marriage. Rather than spending scarce time and money on a trip to the passport office, I would just travel with a passport in the maiden name but of course with the marriage certificate. Your travel agent should be able to advise on this.

please do not do this...having worked on check in, in this day and age they do turn people away. I even as staff was not allowed to travel with my passport showing as my maiden name, even though my work related travel tickets are in a double barrelled name with my maiden name and married name, even if I took my certificate. I had to get a new passport done and also pay for a name change on a previous booked full fare flight I had booked before starting work for the airline.

katylittlelady

Hi sorry I meant to reply yest but my post got wiped and didn't get chance to do it again!

From what I have been adviced I def need my passport in married name as flight is in married name as some countries areas will turn you away! The passport shouldn't be a problem its just the visa!

At the moment as far as I can work out I have two options for getting visa.

The first is to get someone else to do it - this would give us a bit of extra time as they could do it on the week before our wedding when we will be busy
or we do it online ourselves and then go and queue up!

I have read all the posts and the embassy site but what I am really trying to work out is the bast option but since they have outsourced it seems to be more confusing. I did e-mail them yest but my e-mail bounced back! Maybe they are trying to get people to use their premium rate phone line - 60p a minute!!

katylittlelady

Think I'm beginning to panic! Phoned up trailfinders and they panicked me rather than helping!

Any one has to get one with the last couple of weeks or done the queuing up business?