LAND DOWNUNDER

[Kelli 0]

Sharyna......both times I flew over here with United, they had lost my luggage....for some reason it didn't get on the plane at Chicago ( I flew into Knoxville), but I had a 3 stops, so I don't see why you should have a prob with it. And don't forget you can pack an extra suitcase for $140 or something like that!

Have a safe trip!!!

Kelli - that extra suitcase - was that in checked luggage or carry on? cause i have a carry on bag ... but i'm finding that i cant quite fit everything in two large suitcases lol......... and if i do check in a extra luggage will they have a spit about it for the domestic flight? i did email united but they are so unhelpful lol.. and quoted me a reply directly from their website... but i'll go check again incase i missed something.

It was checked luggage..I flew from Brisbane to Sydney with Qantas, and they had no problem with the extra suitcase, you just check your luggage in, they will send you to a different counter to pay for the extra suitcase, and then you just show the reciept when you go through the UA counter...easy!

[SharynY 2]

thanks kelli!!

[Kelli 0]

Sharyna, have you joined mileage plus with United, because you can earn points and get upgrades etc!

[SharynY 2]

Sharyna, have you joined mileage plus with United, because you can earn points and get upgrades etc!

no i havent.. can i do that via the united website and even if i have already booked my flights?

[Kelli 0]

Yep, you can do it online, also, did you go through a travel agent, because they can do it as well.

https://www.ua2go.com/ci/JoinMileagePlus.js...;linkTitle=join

[SharynY 2]

yep went thru flight centre... they are a very nice bunch of people.

does it cost anything? .. i cant find that anywhere... lol... sorry for all the questions !!

[Kelli 0]

No, it doesn't cost a cent.....see if you can get the guys at Flight Centre to get a number for you, then they can re-print your itinery with you number on it.

[vylex 0]

Niphredil!!!! THANKS!!!!!

You well wish paid off... WE GOT THE VISA!!!!!!

Holy cow, it still hasn't hit me yet! We are back at the hotel and I jump right onto VisaJourney (after calling family and booking wife's return ticket LOL).

They will mail the visa out to us Tuesday and we should get it Wed.

As far as the process here is our encounter:

Talk to lobby reception. They go ahead and look at the interview sheet. They send us to Level 10 where we go through an airport like check in. We leave all electronics and whatnot at a counter and then proceed up to Level 59 where we go through another metal detector. Once inside it's pretty quiet with a lot of booths. We get a ticket at a machine and then wait.

Ten minutes later my wife gets called to counter 1. She hands over all the paperwork we brought. They asked her what other names she has gone by. They accidentally marked my last name (didn't do that name change part yet) so they removed it...no big deal. We sit back down while the clerk processes the paperwork. Make sure to do exactly as they ask where you put the original and copy back to back and then in the correct order. It makes things go smoothly. We had EVERYTHING as back up as well as extra ####### they never looked at haha.

After about 20-30 minutes they call my wife back. It was making me nervous as I watched her processing and having people come back and forth. I was thinking, what the hell is wrong now? What did I screw up hahah. It turned out there was a little snag where her birth certificate only listed the middle initial and not the middle name. No big deal. The clerk just pointed out that she will process that variation as an alias. She then says things look good and hands Malouvy some US immigration paperwork and collects her unsigned DS-230 Part II. My wife said she saw them opening my NVC paperwork (she saw the I-864EZ, letter of employment, etc). She then asked her to take a seat and wait to be called at window 5. We waited for about an hour and a half I think. We were busy chatting so time flew by.

Once she got called, there was a nice young guy that asked how my wife produced her name. He got her fingerprints on this cool little machine and then asked her to sign the DS-230 Part II. He saw me and greeted me. He asked how long we knew each other and when we got married. That was it! He congratulated us and I was like...uhm don't we have to pay? He flipped through a page and said...nope, it was paid at the NVC! WOOT! Mo money to celebrate with!! My wife asked...can we celebrate tonight??? He smiled and said, yes you can. We walked out and were still numb. We were so ####### in preparing the paperwork line-up and ready to do battle if needed LOL.

We spent literally 10 minutes of face time with these folks and they seemed very nice. I am so happy we had a great experience. I was hoping for the best and preparing for the worst! THANKS TO EVERYONE AT VISAJOURNEY FOR ALL THE HELP!!!!!! I could not have gotten this far and be this well prepared without you folks!

GOOD LUCK ON YOUR UPCOMING INTERVIEW NIPHREDIL! I see you are as frantic as I was in getting things together so I suspect you will also come out with good news.

=============================================================

On a different note:

Sharyna, I fly United a lot and they do tend to lose luggage...BUT they eventually recover it. I think they have a terrible transfer system. When my family and friends flew to Oz from United, they lost luggage for like 4 days! What the heck, that's almost 1/3 of their time here. I felt so bad for them but they took it in stride. Luckily, everything was recovered.

I made sure to fly Qantas this time and just booked my wife's one way ticket back with me in mid November. We are lucky though because the flight we have will have one LA stopover (that will be her POE) and then the plane will continue onto JFK in NYC, our final destination. Qantas has been good about not losing stuff.

In any case, you will have to claim your luggage at the POE so if you can get everything there, you will have no problem, because you practically get to inspect it's arrival. It's the other way around (towards Oz) where they tend to lose things.

Good Luck on your flight! Enjoy that feeling!!!!!

Oh, I agree with Kelli! Definitely, join Mileage Plus. I even got the United Visa card which also generated mileage whenever using it. I almost have enough points to get a free ticket to Oz. The irony is I was using it to book my Qantas tix LOL. They way I have been coming back and forth, I am building serious frequent flyer mileage with both Qantas and United hahah.

Ok, I am going back to lala land now. I hope everyone else is doing well and look forward to more good news from everyone else on their journeys!

-Alex

[SharynY 2]

oh please dont tell me they lose it..... damn!! now i feel like rebooking my flights with someone else.........

oh yay Vylex!! congrats!!!

and i'm not checking in my luggage all teh way thru.... checking in at sydney then picking it up in san francisco and then checking it back in for the domestic flight... maybe they wont loose it there...............

fingers crossed.

Edited October 26, 2007 by sharyna

[Niphredil 0]

CONGRATULATIONS!!!!

That bit about the NVC paperwork helps a LOT! Thanks for the information wow, congrats again fantasic!

[hawaiiandreams 0]

Niphredil!!!! THANKS!!!!!

You well wish paid off... WE GOT THE VISA!!!!!!

Holy cow, it still hasn't hit me yet! We are back at the hotel and I jump right onto VisaJourney (after calling family and booking wife's return ticket LOL).

They will mail the visa out to us Tuesday and we should get it Wed.

As far as the process here is our encounter:

Talk to lobby reception. They go ahead and look at the interview sheet. They send us to Level 10 where we go through an airport like check in. We leave all electronics and whatnot at a counter and then proceed up to Level 59 where we go through another metal detector. Once inside it's pretty quiet with a lot of booths. We get a ticket at a machine and then wait.

Ten minutes later my wife gets called to counter 1. She hands over all the paperwork we brought. They asked her what other names she has gone by. They accidentally marked my last name (didn't do that name change part yet) so they removed it...no big deal. We sit back down while the clerk processes the paperwork. Make sure to do exactly as they ask where you put the original and copy back to back and then in the correct order. It makes things go smoothly. We had EVERYTHING as back up as well as extra ####### they never looked at haha.

After about 20-30 minutes they call my wife back. It was making me nervous as I watched her processing and having people come back and forth. I was thinking, what the hell is wrong now? What did I screw up hahah. It turned out there was a little snag where her birth certificate only listed the middle initial and not the middle name. No big deal. The clerk just pointed out that she will process that variation as an alias. She then says things look good and hands Malouvy some US immigration paperwork and collects her unsigned DS-230 Part II. My wife said she saw them opening my NVC paperwork (she saw the I-864EZ, letter of employment, etc). She then asked her to take a seat and wait to be called at window 5. We waited for about an hour and a half I think. We were busy chatting so time flew by.

Once she got called, there was a nice young guy that asked how my wife produced her name. He got her fingerprints on this cool little machine and then asked her to sign the DS-230 Part II. He saw me and greeted me. He asked how long we knew each other and when we got married. That was it! He congratulated us and I was like...uhm don't we have to pay? He flipped through a page and said...nope, it was paid at the NVC! WOOT! Mo money to celebrate with!! My wife asked...can we celebrate tonight??? He smiled and said, yes you can. We walked out and were still numb. We were so ####### in preparing the paperwork line-up and ready to do battle if needed LOL.

We spent literally 10 minutes of face time with these folks and they seemed very nice. I am so happy we had a great experience. I was hoping for the best and preparing for the worst! THANKS TO EVERYONE AT VISAJOURNEY FOR ALL THE HELP!!!!!! I could not have gotten this far and be this well prepared without you folks!

GOOD LUCK ON YOUR UPCOMING INTERVIEW NIPHREDIL! I see you are as frantic as I was in getting things together so I suspect you will also come out with good news.

=============================================================

On a different note:

Sharyna, I fly United a lot and they do tend to lose luggage...BUT they eventually recover it. I think they have a terrible transfer system. When my family and friends flew to Oz from United, they lost luggage for like 4 days! What the heck, that's almost 1/3 of their time here. I felt so bad for them but they took it in stride. Luckily, everything was recovered.

I made sure to fly Qantas this time and just booked my wife's one way ticket back with me in mid November. We are lucky though because the flight we have will have one LA stopover (that will be her POE) and then the plane will continue onto JFK in NYC, our final destination. Qantas has been good about not losing stuff.

In any case, you will have to claim your luggage at the POE so if you can get everything there, you will have no problem, because you practically get to inspect it's arrival. It's the other way around (towards Oz) where they tend to lose things.

Good Luck on your flight! Enjoy that feeling!!!!!

Oh, I agree with Kelli! Definitely, join Mileage Plus. I even got the United Visa card which also generated mileage whenever using it. I almost have enough points to get a free ticket to Oz. The irony is I was using it to book my Qantas tix LOL. They way I have been coming back and forth, I am building serious frequent flyer mileage with both Qantas and United hahah.

Ok, I am going back to lala land now. I hope everyone else is doing well and look forward to more good news from everyone else on their journeys!

-Alex

Fantiastic news Alex! Your wife was sooo lucky to have you there with her!

It sounds like it all went so smoothly.. did they ask to see any additional evidence because I have been trying to gather everything I can get my hands on for that part of the interview.. i think I am a bit ####### like you and I am possibly going over board. ;-).. where as my husband is Mr cool, calm and collected so he is positive it will all be sweet ;-)

Anyway, from your note it seems like they really weren't too concerned with anything else which is good to know!

Congratulations and best of luck to you and your wifey! ;-) Go out tonight and have a nice tall beverage.. (or a few - haha)

Very excited for you both! Enjoy your lives together at last!

[Kath 0]

WHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO ALEX AND WIFEY...CONGRATS TO THE TWO OF YOU..

been hanging out to hear how you two went..knew it would be a breeze for ya ...and ya right it amazed us how much time it takes to get to the interview point and the actual face to face is no time at all lol

so happy for you both safe travels across the airways mate...smiling big time for ya's....

i just love reading such great news...safe flight to you too sharyna...

and good luck to all those others that have interviews coming up and to those who are just starting the visa journey..

take care all

kath

[vylex 0]

Thanks everyone!

Kath, you've been so helpful to others and myself since I found this thread. Thanks so much!

Sharyna, you'll be fine grabbing it from San Fran. I've flown through San Fran twice on my United flights and it has been fine there (no lost luggage in either direction). However, I noticed that people with baggage issues connected from LAX. Since you are heading towards the US, I don't think you have anything to worry about. Like you said, you have to go through customs and pick up your luggage before connecting domestically. Since you will be there personally, you'll be fine! Good luck and congrats again!

Niphredil, I am pretty sure you'll be fine. As long as you have what they ask for in the right order, you should be good to go. We had an extra I-864 and DS-230 part I and II and all they asked for the was the DS-230 part II which they supplied. It basically meant to me that they used the NVC package (I-864 and DS-230 Part I). As for the police certificate, I noticed they just wanted to make sure there was one. She just filed away the copy and put aside the original (which didn't look as impressive as I expected too lol).

Fantiastic news Alex! Your wife was sooo lucky to have you there with her!

It sounds like it all went so smoothly.. did they ask to see any additional evidence because I have been trying to gather everything I can get my hands on for that part of the interview.. i think I am a bit ####### like you and I am possibly going over board. ;-).. where as my husband is Mr cool, calm and collected so he is positive it will all be sweet ;-)

Anyway, from your note it seems like they really weren't too concerned with anything else which is good to know!

Congratulations and best of luck to you and your wifey! ;-) Go out tonight and have a nice tall beverage.. (or a few - haha)

Very excited for you both! Enjoy your lives together at last!

Thanks so much HD! Wife and I just went out to chow down and have a few toasts. We're back in the hotel to lounge around and watch movies haha. Life is good.

As far as evidence, they didn't ask for anything. All they did was say, things look good. My wife just walked up to the booth where they took her fingerprints and then the guy said, everything looks good, congratulations. He asked a few questions...

1) When did we get married?

2) How long have we known each other?

3) Where does she plan to live?

4) Where do my parents live? (That part seemed more like small talk since he talked to me! I thought they ignore the spouse hahaha).

Actually I think question 1) was the real question because he seemed to file everything away right after question 1! I think once he saw me with my wife, he knew we weren't playing games.

We still were nervous just because all our work over the last 8 months was at a climax. We could taste it but until we got the "nod", we weren't taking anything for granted. The people seemed very pleasant over there. All they made sure was that the requirements on the packet 3/4 instructions were met. Other than that, they were more than happy to give the good news. I could see where things like the NVC process made things a little faster at the embassy. If they had to deal with the I-864 paperwork and DS-230 Part I, it could take longer to process locally. It took them long enough to deal with the other papers like medical, certificates etc. I still can't believe how quickly it went after she got called to window 5. We turned around smiled from ear and ear and went back down to get our belongings. It almost felt as good as the day we exchanged vows.

Ok, I will let this happiness soak in for a little while longer before going back to the real world logistics of moving! LOL

[Kelli 0]

Woo Hooo!!! Congrats Alex on your wife getting the visa! That is excellent news!

Sharyna-don't worry too much about losing your luggage. I am sure that you will be fine!!!! Not long now!!!!

[Niphredil 0]

again, thanks That takes a HUGE weight off my mind.

I still am stressed about it though, how can one not? This is a HUGE moment in someone's life, and in the end, no matter how long you've known that person, how long you've been married, how much evidence you have, there is still that chance you could be denied, and have to go through the process again.

I'm so happy for you though grats again