I submitted my visa renewal on 8 May 2023 with a non-refundable flight to Canada already booked for the end of June. I was worried the timing of the renewal might clash with that trip. Now I was waiting for a decision, and I was worried I wouldn’t have everything back in time to travel.

That was the problem I meant when I said I thought I’d screwed up. I hadn’t discovered a rejection or forgotten to submit the application. I’d spent months preparing it, checked it line by line and paid the fees. The application was out of my hands, but the uncertainty about the flight made an already stressful day much worse.

Months of preparation didn’t make submission easier

By then I’d lived in the UK for seven years and dealt with several visas and renewals. It hadn’t become less frightening. I was fighting another cold, hadn’t slept well because I was nervous, and kept thinking about what a rejection would mean for my life here. Experience wasn’t making me calm about it.

I had started the online application a couple of months earlier, filling in answers and saving my progress. When I reached something I wasn’t ready to answer, I sometimes put capital A’s into the box so I could continue to another page. That was how I worked through this application, and it made the final check particularly important. Those placeholders weren’t answers I intended to submit.

On submission day, I checked passport numbers, dates and financial figures. I found a date I’d got wrong and changed it before sending the form. Then came the warnings that I couldn’t change my answers after clicking the final button. I submitted it, but that moment was scary even after all the checking.

The documents were the hardest part for me. Years earlier, I’d needed original paperwork for my applications, so I’d developed a habit of keeping letters in a document folder. It wasn’t all visa material, but much of it was. Saving those papers over the years meant I had things to look through when another application came around.

Alanna holding her thick black document folder edge-on above her hand
The document folder I’d kept over the years, with plenty of paperwork ready for another application.

I remembered taking two buses to a bank appointment so staff could print my statements, initial every page and stamp the set. My account was paperless, and getting the copies I needed had been a whole job in itself. For this renewal, I could upload electronic documents, although I was still keeping the hard copies because that habit was difficult to break.

Paying for another two and a half years

My application fee was £1,048. The healthcare surcharge was £1,560, and the biometrics appointment cost £139. Those were my costs for this 2023 renewal, rather than a current price list. Together, the three charges came to £2,747, before the train journey to my appointment in London.

The bank sent me a message questioning whether I’d been hacked after all that spending. Unfortunately, the payments were mine. I understood the value of the NHS and also paid tax and National Insurance, but another large payment on top of the application was still a lot to deal with that day.

I’d booked the earliest biometrics appointment I could find, roughly a week and a half away, near Stratford International. I knew the high-speed train would add another expense. At first I wasn’t sure whether processing would wait until after biometrics. Later, reading wording about a decision from the online application date made me think it wouldn’t, which felt a little better. I still didn’t know when my result would arrive.

The flight I’d already booked

My visa was due to expire on 10 June. Originally, we’d been thinking about going to Canada in late July, but the flight prices were expensive. We moved the trip to the end of June instead, and I’d already made the non-refundable booking by the time I put the renewal and travel dates together.

My understanding at the time was that I needed the approval and my travel documents back before I could leave. I didn’t know whether that would happen quickly, at the last possible moment or after some delay. If it wasn’t sorted in time, I wouldn’t take the flight. I was facing the possibility of losing an expensive journey home, and I didn’t know what else I’d do.

Even after submitting and paying, I still had to upload the supporting documents. I spent hours organising them into the portal’s sections, checking filenames and file sizes. The portal felt generic to me, so I couldn’t rely on it to explain exactly which evidence my particular application needed.

By that point I had a headache, had forgotten to eat and had nearly cried several times. I took a break for food, with the intention of finishing the uploads that day so I wouldn’t create another delay myself. The appointment was booked; the decision still hadn’t arrived.

Exploring England, visiting pubs and trying food were the parts of living abroad I loved sharing. This was part of my life here too. I finished the video emotionally exhausted, hoping the renewal would come through in time for the trip, with no result to report yet.

Watch my May 2023 visa renewal and flight-timing update.