I am a Philippine passport holder married to a British citizen. As we are not yet sure that we will settle in the UK, we opted to get a Family Visit visa for me to be able to regularly visit my husband. I was issued a 2 year Family Visit visa last Dec 14, 2012 and have been to England the for the following days - Feb 8 to Mar 12 Apr 19 to May 12 (Paris trip in between) May 16 to May 27 Sep 22 to Oct 3 (Amsterdam trip in between) Oct 6 to Oct 14 That is a total of 90 days so far. The immigration officer warned me about my visits and that I am flagged because of the frequency and "just by looking at the stamps", I am near the border line of 6 months or 180 days. And the frequency of my visits would show that I do not have ties in the Philippines. I don't understand why I am being flagged as I have only been 3 months out of the 6 months that I am allowed to. Am I breaking any rules? Even if it is a rolling 1 year, I am still not in any way near the limit She also told me to consider a spousal visa but the thing is, we are not yet ready to settle in the UK for the next few years.
In my opinion, if you were advice to get a spouse visa, then you should as Family visit visa seems to be limited and not the right visa for you to have because you are married to British. As far as I know you have to go back to your port of origin. This must be the reason why you are flagged. I myself never apply any other type of visa, we applied for a spouse visa directly and it's pretty straight forward if you follow their instructions. Wait for Micawber to answer your questions.
^ thanks for your reply. We didn't apply for the spousal visa because we have no plans of settling in the UK anytime soon. I can only go there 2-3x a year for a period of 4-5 weeks. I have a multiple visa and i don't overstay my 6 month period in a rolling year. If I do the spousal visa route now, I would have to stay in the UK for a period of time. I always do return to Manila as I managing our family business. We also checked the UKBA before we applied for the family visit and it does include being a wife to a British citizen.
