Post
by layman » Wed Jul 18, 2012 4:05 pm
The tickets can be non-cancelable(ie no refund) but are they also non-changeable ie cannot be changed for a later departure?
Try booking an earlier appointment, very difficult but not impossible.
If not, best case scenario, you will get your BRP just before your spouse travels. Many have got BRP within 2 days assuming the decision is given on the same day.
Worst case scenario - you dont get the BRP and travel is a must. What then?
As long as you have the passport, I dont think that the UK visa/BRP is checked while leaving UK. People who have traveled recently can confirm since I cant remember what happened when I had traveled.
Even if vignette on passport is checked and assuming that the old visa is void and null in 2 days, in all fairness, one is not on the wrong side of the law to leave the country without carrying BRP. If yes, then you cannot do anything further and will be turned away from the airport. If not, no harm in turning up at the airport and trying to leave.
If your wife is able to leave, need to check if it is really illegal to send BRP outside UK by post. Passport - definitely illegal, but BRP - dont know yet. Now that BRP is not a vignette in the passport, am sure there would be cases in the future where people will simply forget to take their BRP along unless it is mandatory to be shown on exit(the way a passport is since it is a travel document). What happens to them?
If it is indeed illegal to send by post, then you have following options
1. After receiving BRP, you go to India and take the BRP with you. Yeah, seems like throwing good money after bad money but you might as well enjoy the monsoon with your better half!
2. Alternatively, find someone in your friend/relative/acquaintance circle who is traveling to India(after you receive BRP and before 27th Aug) and is willing to carry the BRP in person and send it within India to your wife by whatever means.
3. Do note that if your wife is able to leave without BRP and you cannot find anyone traveling, you will have to go before her return (or postpone her return until the BRP reaches there somehow)
All if and then scenarios depending on the legalities of leaving UK without BRP and sending it by post, but hopefully will get you thinking now that you have got yourself in this situation.
