Ticket or visa first ?

Me and my philippine gf of 4 years are applying for a visit visa for here in the UK. We have completed the online application and she is scheduled to go to mnaila tomorrow at the visa application centre. I am just thinking should we book the flight before she goes there in 2 days so she can have a return ticket already booked to show that she will leave the country?

Also does she need to take an itinerary with her to shoe them ? Because she will only have one flight here and then the flight back, so not much at all to put on it

Any help would be greatly appreciated

A big NO NO. Don't purchase the ticket yet.

What about taking an itinerary with her to the visa office. What would need to go on too because there's only the flight to and from the uk ?

Provide a simple itinerary that would show when she's planning to come to the UK and when she's going back but don't purchase a ticket yet.

Would that be enough, because it would only be 2 things on it. Do we not need to put things we will be doing here and dates ?

I did not do that but others provide itinerary of the things they'll do in the UK. You can submit that if you can. It won't hurt.

I remembered when i applied for my visitor visa, i had to provide a budget for your stay in the uk. In order to show that we do plan to do that, we had made an itenirary of the trip with daily costs. For example,
-day 1 - big bus tour £20, sky garden lunch £15, dinner £15, etc

This would then give you an estimated cost you need for the travel plus 'shopping and others' which can then be used in the online forms. In the end, we didtched the detailed plan just followed where our feet would take us.

Buy a ticket by all means if you are 100% certain you will get the visa, problem is, I don't know of anyone who has been a 100% certain of getting the visa

Better to leave it until you have the visa in hand, its no big deal

I agree, there is no harm in including an estimate of travel costs and in a way it probably helps with the application as it shows you are responsible and have done the maths on the cost of the trip.

a return ticket doesnt prove she will leave the country. and it will cost a lot more than the visa fee!

Don't book the flight until you secure the visa.

We didn't book a ticket for Jasmin either, but did state the approximate period she'd stay for and a breakdown of costs and which ones she would pay, like the tax when leaving Ninoy Aquino airport for example - and got the visitor visa

Congratulations @JoshuaTree