URGENT | Block an Appt. date | Please Help

[bittu218]

Dear Fellows,

I have been trying to deal with this VFS from last 10 days for my parents visitor visa appointment and am going through a lot of painful experiences with this new system while trying to block an early appointment date. This is a very critical situation for me as my wife is expecting in the 2nd week of May and at the same time I have my meetings scheduled for which I will have to be out of town. Hence having parents here on time has become an extremely critical issue. Here is a set of things I did to address this to get an early appointment without any success:-

1. Blocked an appointment 10 days back and I got 30th May. I kept observing the website and noticed that the website was displaying available dates randomly. However, when I went ahead a tried to reschedule the appointment, it never showed me those dates in my calendar. I went back to the available dates link and was surprised to see that those dates were still available. So, failed to understand the issue. Any advise? Thoughts on this?

2. After realising that the resuledule stuff is not working, I went ahead and cancelled the blocked appointment in the hope that redoing the app might gimme an early date. So, started filling in all those preety DS forms again and by the time I reached the appointment confirmation point, the date I got now was 2nd June ... hmmm, again frustrated. Kept this there not to touch.

3. However, since this 2nd June was not helpful for me, so after 4-5 days I again cancelled the appointment. Filled in all those preety forms again and this time I did not block any appointment and just saved my apps to the website so that the moment any date is visible, I can quickly get to get if I have the filled forms already available. From last 2 days I have been observing the website with my filled forms ready to grab the date ... I get to see the available dates through the available dates link on home page but, when I try to get those same dates, they do not show-up on my calendar. Hmmm, I am now totally frustrated and do not what to do to address this issue.

Guys, am I doing something wrong here? Can anyone please help and advise me about what needs to be done to address the issue I have in hand? Please...

[nityavraman]

Hi you are not the only one experiencing it. I am facing the same problem. A date appears on the calender but when you open the application it disappears. For some time the website kept saying no dates at all too.I thought that it was a technical problem with the website and wrote to them. But they were of no help.
heres their reply.

Dear Sir/Madam,

Thank you for your email.

Kindly note that allocation of dates are done by the US Embassy. As and when the dates are allocated and available it will be uploaded on the site. Kindly check the website for earliest available dates.

Even when approached in person at the VFS office in India all they do is to let you use one of their computers and check the same website.

I wonder why the US embassy has cut a deal with the VFS which is cheaper than the earlier TTS, plus they take ur money in advance and is non-refundable and the customer service and website is retarded.

[aks_mtr]

Please have the forms filled in first and then go to schedule appointment date. When you reach to calander, it will show you currently available dates and there would be hyperlink arrows on calender to move to previous months. Click on the arrow .. you'll most probably get the message that "Dates Not Available". Press arrow key again to go previous month you might again get the same message. Do it till you reach to March. Then press key for fututre month till you reach say May. Again back to march. Keep repeating this back and forth till the the time you see a date available in Mar/Apr/May. In this course , your session will expire many times and you will have to restart that. The difference in the way you are doing it and the way I have told you is that you are first seeing the availability and then trying for appointment. But the availability screen is not synched in real time. So when you try to schedule after seeing the availability the date has already gone.Try this during night ( India Day time). Mostly variations are during 12:00 noon IST.
Let me know should you have any doubts.
Good Luck ....

[nandkisham]

Guys:

The shown availibility is for a single person slot, if it is for 2 or more people the system checks for two combined slots (i.e., slots opening say 10.15 and 10.30).
If says one opens it does not show it as available for 2 people.
This is based on my experience.

The best way is to the keep you forms filled(even with crap and u can edit them later) and then be ready to grab the open slot.

hope this helps,

Nandu(484.478.0135)

Note: The VFS email reply are not the most supportive. they suck with convoluted replies.

[neeru123]

Hi.

I have been trying to find out the availability of appointments for visitor visa in Chennai and have been consistantly receiving the "Server Error". My parents took the appointment in India (through VFS) and got an August 1st appointment. I am trying to reschedule this to an earlier date. Please help me answer the following questions:

1) When I try to reschedule the appointment, I have been receiving the "Invalid Receipt Number error". I triple checked that the number I was giving is accurate. Is this normal? Can I reschedule their appointment on the website eventhough the appointment was made by VFA field office in India?

2) If I can't reschedule their existing appointment, can I cancel it or do we have to go to the field office to have them cancel the appointment first (and then restart the application/appointment process online)?

3) Why am I getting the "server error" when looking-up for available appointments? Am I doing something wrong?

thanks for your help.

[srinivasan_23]

Hi Folks

Regarding Rescheduling of appointments, you cannot prepone your appointment as per the rules. You can only postpone & that too only once. That's why it doesn't show the dates available when you try to Reschedule the Appnt. So if you find a date after fixing an appointment, only option to grab that date is simply delete your current appointment. & it will display the date & try to grab it. Or else Fill up the DS156 & DS 157 forms Save & Continue. Whenever you find a date for your suitablity just retrieve the application & grab the appointment. This is the only way you can Get an Early appointment.

Happy Hunting