hi mga sis
sorry for this long post, share ko lang experience namin sa visa application. it was our first time to go to europe and to apply for a visa anywhere.
we wanted to go backpacking style, just my husband and myself. so no formal guided tour packages booked. around 90% of the travel agencies we visited in makati told us that we will probably be denied since we didn't book any guided tours. Naturally, we were scared. But, thanks to the assurances of our helpful sisters here in femalenetwork (especially to mama squeak!), we stayed firm.
We went to a travel agency in Makati that seemed most accommodating (quick replies via email, text and calls) to reserve our flights and for visa application assistance. The fee for the assistance was around 1500+ per person lang. You pay that plus the actual visa processing fee. Their service includes review of documents, application scheduling with the french embassy and may sasama sa inyo on the day of the application itself and sila narin magc-claim ng passport nyo whether denied or approved. It was worth it, for us, kasi nga first time namin mag-apply ever.
The travel agency also offered us travel insurance from Malayan and the rates were competitive so we got the insurance from them.
Back to the visa application.
Around 2 weeks before our scheduled visa application, my hubby and I did the following:
- requested for bank certificates and bank statements from all our banks. when they were ready, we went to the bank to claim them there's a fee for some document requests, around 100pesos i think)
- scanned all our documents. IDs, Credit Cards, credit card statements, birth certificates, marriage certificate, old passports, current passport, employment certificate, latest ITRs, latest payslips, letter of leave approval from managers, health insurance policy, all hotel vouchers, cover letters and filled-out application forms, etc etc. We even included a notarized letter of support from my hubby's mom, stating that they will shoulder all expected and unexpected expenses of the trip. With this, we also included a copy of her bank certificate.
I also printed out copies of tour reservation confirmations. We only had 2. One was a free tour. But I also had one from the Vatican directly, for a scheduled Scavi tour
Reserved that via email lang (had to send my credit card info, since you have to pay alredady, 12euros per person lang)
After all the documents are complete, we had the agency review them and they gave us a printed copy of our airline reservations (We scanned this as well) We printed all the scanned documents and had a separate envelope for the originals and another one for the photocopies.
On the day of the visa application, we met up the the "assistant" at Pacific Star building at around 730am. The scheduled time is at 8am. A few minutes before 8am she told us to go up to the embassy. There were other applicants there already. The guard let us into a waiting area. The first step was payment. The assistant already had the exact fees with her (since part of the fee we paid to the agency was the visa application fee), so we didn't have to worry about having the exact dollar-peso converted rate. She went to the counter to pay. After a while, my hubby and I were called over to a second booth. There was a fingerprint scanning machine and a camera to take our photo. After that, the interview process began.
Our interviewer was a woman. She seemed nice but very professional. She sifted through all our documents and asked us to confirm our monthly salaries and our itenerary. There was one slightly awkward moment when I told her my salary and mistakenly said it was my gross salary when in fact it was my net (after taxes) - I always mix up these terms
. After stuttering for a bit, trying to clarify things, she calmly looked at us and said, "So what is the actual salary?". You have to be clear and concise when answering questions. I was nervous and excited at the same time. I was a bit confident because our documents are complete and we had enough money saved and that we both had good compensations from our companies. Add that to the fact that I am under a 2-year bond with my company (which means bigger chance that I will come back), I was very hopeful. Everything seemed fine. She even positively remarked on the letter of support from my husband's mom.
After the interview (took about 10 minutes total), we signed letters of authorization so that our "assistant" can claim our passports in our place. We were(though in this case, the assistant) asked to come back 1 week later for the results.
On the day when the results were to come out, we were so excited and nervous. We kept texting the assistant. She was already there in the morning. At noon, the embassy announced that not all visa applications could be processed and released. Our results release was rescheduled to 2 days after.
After 2 days, the same thing happened again. The assistant was asked to come back after 2 days again. There seemed to be some backlogs in the applications and the embassy was also doing some further checks on our application.
By this time we were getting anxious. One reason is that our airline ticket reservation rates might change if we don't book soon. This can impact our budget significantly. Also, the inter-country train tickets within europe have not yet been booked since these are not refundable. We've already planned the routes and trains to take but prices are going up as dates get nearer. And there's a chance that the train schedules we want might get completely booked.
Finally, the results were released and we were approved! We were asked to report back to the embassy when we get back, but we were approved!!!
Unfortunately, there were changes in the airlines' tax rates 2 days before so our ticket prices did go up (around 180 dollars total! Sheesh!). Sigh. I checked the ticket rates online and the rates the agency offered were still better so we decided to go ahead and buy the tickets from the agency. We paid for the tickets in the agency and that night, we immediately started buying train tickets online for our travel among the different countries/cities.
And now we're back. we need to report to the french embassy, as stated in the visa in our passport. anybody experienced this? can you please give some feedback? did you need to make an appoinment? where did you go? in the same place where the visa application was conducted? did you need to bring anything aside from the passport? what happened there? how long did it take?
if you have any questions, pm me or post it here and I will try to read it and answer when i can (currently very busy with catching up with work after our long vacation)
