What comes first, CITIC bank fee or online date selection?

[Ciyin 1]

Alright, things are moving along with our application. Got the email from GUZ last night asking my fiancee to register and sign up for an interview date.

When she was trying to do that, it said she can't select a date until she's paid the visa application fee. I'm confused, because I thought you selected the date first and just had to pay any time until your interview date. Does it have to be done in this order?

I ask, because there's no CITIC bank in her city and she's having trouble doing the online payment, so it'd be more convenient if she could just select a date and handle the fee along the way.

[JD & Coconut 35]

You have to pay first

[DJ&L 83]

I haven't heard of anyone having any luck paying online with a debit card. My fiance was trying to do that herself. We've decided that she'll go to a CITIC bank location on Monday.

Your fiance may have to make the trip to a bank location unfortunately.

I was wondering about the timing of the fee myself. Everything I've read here on VJ says...as soon as you have a case number from Guangzhou, create a ustravelcdocs.com account and get your fee paid. They don't make that clear in the official communications.

[Big Baby 11]

Payment Information

Although fees are listed in U.S. dollars, payment must be made using local currency. You can pay your fee at any of CITIC Bank’s more than 800 branches, or at any CITIC ATM, or online using debit cards issued by a Chinese bank. More information about payment options is here. To find a CITIC branch or ATM, click here.

http://www.ustraveldocs.com/cn/cn-niv-paymentinfo.asp

Pay first. Everything changed March 16, 2013.

[Ciyin 1]

Another question: what's the CGI reference number you get when you sign up for ustraveldocs.com? Is that info you need when paying the fee?

Yeah, I'm very mad about the change. I actually paid the fee almost a year ago when we were getting started with the whole process and I misunderstood what fee was paid when. I held on to the receipt, figuring we would just use it when the time came... only to find out it was just more money down the drain because of the system change in March.