Shaggylom

They just announced last night in the Budget that they are upping the cap on family stream from around 42k a year to 77k this year to help with the backlog it sounds.  also looks like they'll be prioritising people in regional australia rather than people going to city centres

On 23/09/2020 at 06:17, JEN9316 said:

Hi All

For those who are waiting on 309's (and its been a long wait, and over the past few days its been pushed back to Sept 21 - so an extra 6 months from earlier in the month    ) - is there anyone who has applied for the 600?

If so, have you done this direct through Immi account ? Or started from afresh? I assume via Immi 309 account, but thought it was worth asking the question.

Also, some folk have said that that from the UK they can see that its being processed from London - but I cant seem to find anywhere that states an email address, location etc.

Any guidance would be helpful before we go down the 600 route as backup for early next year. Hoping the 309 comes through before then - but with things changing by the day there is no comfort.

As always, thanks in advance. So many folk in limbo now - which is horrible, but this forum is super helpful - so, thanks!

Jen

 

We applied for the travel exemption and put my 309 visa details in it. We went through an agent for the 309 but we then applied for the 600 ourselves and then had the agent reach out to immigration to let them know we had applied for the 600 and had purchases flights in August (with proof) and we were granted our 309 within 12 hours.  

On 15/09/2020 at 18:37, Bjv002 said:

Did you book direct or via third party? We want to book third party as it’s a lot cheaper but we’re worried any changes or flights being bumped if we’ll be affected booking it third party? It’s just so much money on top of the quarantine costs, but I believe we can pay them off via a payment plan?

you can pay off the hotel quarantine with a payment plan. we saw that option when we left our hotel in Sydney last month

On 27/06/2020 at 09:57, moominfillyjonk said:

Hi All 

Can someone clarify what an exemption is please, and the '600'? I've been getting notifications for this thread and just caught snippets! 

My husband is Australian - we live in the UK. We've been together since 2011, married since 2015.

We paid for our visa application (offshore 309/100) in July 2019 - we were quite slow at uploading all the info, but wanted to get it paid for and in the system. End of Feb we had an RFI, which we submitted. Now we haven't heard anything since. We did it ourselves and did not use an agent.

We hope to move out to Melbourne in September/October this year, but with the virus and not hearing about my visa we are on the slow - we need to sell our house etc in London.

Im just curious what the exemption and 600 is? Is it a way of getting out to Australia before the 309/100 is approved (hopefully it will be!)? And if it is, can you work out there on it? Is it for UK citizens? @Shaggylom @Aussie20

Is there a way to transfer the 309/100 offshore, to an onshore one and get ourselves out there? My husband said not but thought it is worth asking.

Any help much apprciated - advice on here better than trawling Google! 

Many Thanks!

you have a similar time frame that we did. we applied for the exemption but put our 309/100 as the visa to refer to and then had our agent speak to someone, which you can do via the e-mail address provided in your immi account (or any correspeondence recived from them) and we just had them look at our 309 as part of the exemption (we also applied for the 600 as the backup)

On 25/06/2020 at 20:26, kazronicus said:

massive congrats to @Shaggylom and @Aussie20 Makes me think we should push the 600 just as a prod to get things moving... such good news for you guys! we're all on similar time lines (June 2019 application, Feb 2020 RFI) - so I'm glad things seem to be being looked at, and I can only hope that ours will be looked at soon. Must be such an amazing feeling.

yeah i literally asked my agent to speak to immigration and had her send my flights and my exemption info over along with details on my 600 and my 309 was approved within a few hours!  the agent just asked them to look at the 309 instead of the 600 

19 hours ago, Aussie20 said:

Hi everyone,
 

Today after nearly 11 months wait, my husband received his 309/100, we are both so greatful. I was teary when I first saw it.

We received a RFI in early March and then everything slowed to a stop. As we are moving at the start of August, we decided to apply for a visitor visa, a couple of weeks ago.

We actually applied for an exemption first which was declined, as we got it the wrong way around lol. Last week we received a second RFI with a 3 day deadline which was today.

Thank you to everyone for keep us going over the last year by posting your updates.
 

Hopefully this will give some hope to others, best of luck to you all!

 

similar timeline to us. mine was 1 year to the date!  Congrats!

So spent the morning talking to my immigration agent based on stuff i'd seen on the forum. I had my exemption approved and i had asked them to just advise immigration that we had that sorted and to look at my partner rather than my 600 visa. 4 hours later I get the email stating my 309 had been approved!! beyond happy, called the misses she was crying at work. We had just sorted our plans for how she'd work and i'd stay at home and we'd live with her parents till we got the go ahead this weekend, now its full steam ahead. Flights already booked for 3 August to Melbourne!!

On 19/06/2020 at 18:24, RosieH11 said:

I thought you had to apply for to 600 visa and travel exemption at the same time, this is what i did for my partner earlier this week, i hope i haven't done it wrong !

How long did it take them to approve your travel exemption after you applied for it?

only a few days

11 hours ago, dunstan88 said:

Hey guys, I just had my exemption for a 600 granted (which is lovely news), and was just wondering if anyone has had their 309 granted since receiving this?  

 

Have a lovely Monday

 

Jack

 

Applied from London (front loaded everything) - 15 October 2019

Living together in London on a de facto, been together for 8 years

Not yet. I got my exemption through mid May and nothing yet. Applied for the 600 on the 25th of May and still waiting for that decision as well

14 hours ago, darch said:

thanks @Neill that's really helpful - appreciate you replying. I've heard/seen that too about the medical clearance only lasting a year - bit of a pain when the website's estimating 13-17 months!! will just keep everything crossed I guess. 

 

Hope the move went well if you've made it already.

we were told to wait till about month 8 to do our medical check. which worked out to be roughly when we got our RFI due to the timelines of 13-17 months 

On 09/06/2020 at 13:53, lepea said:

@Shaggylom have you had any luck with your visa(s)? 

nothing yet. its only been 17 days and it does say 44 days or so. I had spoken to someone on the phone who said it should be a bit quicker but couldn't say how much.

22 hours ago, lepea said:

@Tmduk I agree. It’s so frustrating seeing approvals from visas submitted this year.

I assume that received means that it hasn’t been looked at but who knows what’s going on behind the scene. 
 

@Shaggylom how interesting, perhaps your visa is now being looked at? When do you plan to travel. Please keep us updated with your progress. 

planning to travel mid August as thats when my visa ends in the UK and gives us a few months to pack things and sort the house out here etc. i have also applied for a 600 visitor visa to at least let me travel as they are 'prioritising' people in the exempt category. hopefully it expedites my partner visa as well and i wont need the visitor one but we needed to be covered

On 22/05/2020 at 16:18, lepea said:

My understanding on the exemption is that it isn’t a visa but that it allows immediate family members travel on the visitor visa subclass 600.
It also states in the home affairs website that they are prioritising processing the visas of those who in the exemption category.

Good to know. I just got confirmation my exemption has been approved but I can't apply for an ETA so am a bit confused on how i'm meant to actually get in.

On 16/05/2020 at 09:55, Kayse said:

An update from us. My husband was granted his 309 and 100 a couple of days ago. We are super happy as we have tickets booked for may 27 to move to melb. We had applied for a evisitor visa and exemption to fly for my husband but dont need it in the end  

this was our timeline: 

- applied 29 Jan 2020

- RFI 20 Feb 2020

- submitted RFI 14 march 2020

- notified immi that we were going to travel to australia on 8 may 2020  (received email back stating they are in the process of further assessment and will be in contact in due course) 

- grant 14 May 2020!!

 

good luck to you all. hope this is some hope for everyone  at least immi is working we know that

 

Thats great news. i've got almost the same timeline as you in the RFI department so hopefully we get ours soon. I just applied for the exemption visa 3 days ago.   Has anyone else applied and gotten one? how long did it take?  My visa to live in the UK is now being cancelled in August due to being made redundant so hopefully something will come soon as my Australian partner can't come to the States with me either (and honestly i dont think its wise going there anyway!)

4 hours ago, lepea said:

Hi, I’ve no news on visa grants but I did notice today (on my daily immi check) that processing time has changed to 13-21 months. 
The fact that have adjusted processing times slightly, gives me hope the department is still moving along albeit slowly. 

Ah thats good news. We went through an agent so we can't check our account. We submitted our RFI at the end of March just before this all kicked off even more. Now that I've lost my job due the virus we're just looking for the good news so we can start moving preparations or start the job hunt again here and possibly have to move during the search

So little stressed here.  RFI came on 18th of Feb (well 14th to our agent but she sent it to us on the 18th). Medical done 4 days later, UK background same.  Applied for my US FBI Clearance on the 18th of Feb and am still waiting for it to come back with the cut off for documents being today... they said it would be 6-8 weeks to get a response. We have uploaded the application for the Clearance to the site.  Anyone else had any issues before with not having all documents for an RFI by the deadline?  Just worried this will affect getting my visa for the sake of checking 1 year of living history 9 years ago and being stuck in bureaucratic process

Thanks!

So it may not be a grant but my agent finally told me we've been assigned a case officer so i need to now submit my Medical and my US FBI background check (already did the UK one for a job so that was accepted) .  We applied around June 25th 2019!  so heres to a speedy last few months!   now off to get my fingerprints done

21 hours ago, Aussiebird said:

Applied for 309/100 May 23rd (from London).  Not heard a thing. I can see the police checks and medical being repeated next year as processing very slow and very long wait!

yeah we were told to hold off on those till about 6 months after we applied and were advised to not do it when the the immigration account said to as it could expire and have to be done again.  at least this is the info our agent fed back to us after speaking with their immigration contacts at the High Commission 

On 28/10/2019 at 16:27, mhcornwall said:

Is that completing through to grant? Or just getting to the RFI stage?

completing through to grant

My mara agent had said last week that immigration was a bit behind and hasn’t started any applications from March yet. But had finished most of January’s 

On 25/09/2019 at 16:05, Ryem said:

Hello - thought I'd add our timeline as well incase it's helpful to anyone.

Lodged - June 14th 2019.

Police checks and medical - August 2019.

De facto for just over 3 years. No kids. I'm an Australian citizen and my partner is from Wales.

Good luck to everyone else waiting!

good to know some movement has happened for those of us applied in June of this year. All we had was our agent asking us to submit our sponsor app in July and nothing since then  . We aren't planning on moving till June next year when my Visa and my partners visas will both expire for the UK. hopefully sorted before then or i may off to the US for the unforseen future

On 01/09/2019 at 03:57, SarahR said:

Hi All,

Just jumping on this tread.

I applied whilst in Oz on the 23 July 2019 along with police checks, medical done a few days later and on the system a week later.

Immigration are saying that it is going to take 22-28 months!! I have been with my husband for 14 years, married for 5 and have two sons together who have dual citizenship.

I've not heard anything and don't have a case officer yet.

Has anyone out there who applied at the same time as me heard anything yet?

Cheers

I applied end of June 2019 and nothing as of yet, spoke to my immigration agent and she said we are now in the fun 'waiting' period sadly.

I've known loads of people from my Rugby team to use PSS Removals

22 hours ago, Belfastchild said:

Hi guys, the move is a month away and I need to get about 100kg of stuff sent over. Can anyone recommend a shipping company. I’ll be sending from Northern Ireland.

Thanks.

On 17/08/2019 at 12:07, DPA said:

Hi,

I found this website where you can check if you have a valid visa using your TRN, DOB and Passport number rather then badgering your agent to check the immi account.

Not 100% if its completely up to date every day but atleast it gives you something to look at.

https://online.immi.gov.au/evo/firstParty

excellent! good to know  

congrats everyone that's got their recent approvals!! sounds like the agents are all back from Holiday!