Healthcare surcharge???

I will start one.

And well deserved too

I'm glad the saga is almost sorted out. Congratulations and enjoy the drink.

"I don't BELIEVE IT!!!"

Look at this email and SPOT THE DELIBERATE MISTAKE!

There is NO WAY TO REPLY TO IT!

And I already gave them all the info! Three Times!

Two of which were at £18 a go.

This is a "no reply" email!!!

quote:

Dear C...,

Thank you for contacting UK Visas and Immigration international enquiry
service.

With regards to your query, as previously requested, please provide us with
all the following information, for each visa application, so that we can
expedite the case:

Type of escalation:
Full name of applicant:
Date of birth of applicant:
Original visa application number (GWFxxxxxxxxx):
Date of original visa application:
Amount of Original Visa payment:
New visa application number (GWFxxxxxxxxx):
Date of new visa application:
Amount of new Visa payment:
Immigration Health Surcharge(IHS) reference number:
Date of IHS payment:
Amount of IHS payment:
Place of application (City and Country):
Location of the VAC:
Date of biometrics:
Type of Visa applied:
Nationality:
Passport Number:
Brief Reason for escalation:

Please note, your Contact ID Number is: xxxxxxx

For any further details, or should you need to contact us again please
refer to our website at https://ukvi-international.faq-help.com/, select
appropriate country, click next and then select “E-Mail form” and
complete as instructed. We will aim to come back to you within 1 day.

Kind regards,

Keith

UK Visas and Immigration International Enquiry Service

We would like to invite you to participate in a brief survey about the
service you received from us to identify strengths and opportunities for
improvements.

http://www.smartsurvey.co.uk/S/130335JPJLG

Thank you in advance for your time.

I'm sorry. celebration short lived then Maybe you should consider a multi-pronged approach such as.. 1. Send them the email (with that contact ID and all the details) on the 'official' website, 2. call them up (with the same information) and finally 3. Write to/email :

Asif Ahmad
Her Britannic Majesty's Ambassador to the Republic of the Philippines.
British Embassy
120 Upper McKinley Rd,
Taguig,
Metro Manila,
Philippines

Well, nice idea. But what email address do I use??

Who will do precisely NOTHING. Our Embassy exists solely as an extension of the Department of Trade: if you ain't buying or selling, they ain't interested. And our esteemed Ambassador will reflect that, by not helping, he's helped his Whitehall masters reduce immigration by preventing two more migrants from being added to the statistics. As these will show quite an increase (Calais anyone), our government (viz May and Brokenshire) will conspire to make things even more expensive and difficult for those seeking visas. Legally visaed travellers are the only migrants that that useless pair can affect.

Well.. I didn't guarantee that it would have any effect. However one thing is certain. Not writing will certainly have zero effect, so it can hardly make things worse. Particularly if its known that you are making a fuss. You need to try and find a way past the wall of BS that these bureaucrats sourround themselves with and get in 1:1 touch with someone who has the power to help you out.

On a cheerier note, the bottle of rum in the picture with the pewter quart tankard is Don Papa, which is produced in Negros and is the brainchild of an English ex Cognac executive who had the idea of producing a high quality rum in the Philippines. I first came across it in the duty free shop at NAIA T2, and, after finishing that bottle, I persuaded my local independent wine shop to try it. It is now selling like hot cakes in Woodbridge, Suffolk! The rum connoisseur will spot that it uses a lot of vanilla. My German friend Martin Schulz who lives in Flensburg, the capital of the German rum industry, says it is the best he has tasted.

as for contact details the best I can find is:
https://www.gov.uk/government/world/organisations/british-embassy-manila
Perhaps you could send a fax to one of the numbers and a PDF copy of the letter to the email address given. And copy VFS and any other email addresses you have gathered so far... Just a thought.

I was wondering about that, a very nice looking bottle.

It ain't the cheapest but it certainly is the best of the Philippines rums. Not a rum to be polluted with Coke, etc - it is best sipped on its own! Named after one of the more obscure leaders of the Philippine Revolution, Papa Isio.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Papa_Isio

I will declare an interest - K's family come from the Mount Canlaon area, although her parents moved to Mindanao when they married.