The Christmas visa rush in the Philippines

Christmas comes but once a year, and every year Down Under Visa put up some BLOG posts about this important Christmas topic. Visa Processing Times! Because everyone wants a Christmas visa!

Everyone wants their beloved Filipina lady to be with them in Australia at Christmas time, so we get a flood of “Oh, can we get a tourist visa in time for Christmas?” requests. And they don’t cease. Sometimes we get them a few weeks before Christmas, where we have no chance at all of helping.

Tourist visa processing times – the facts

Australian tourist visa applications from Manila normally take 2 – 4 weeks to be processed. They also need preparation too. Even if you’ve lodged tourist visa applications with us beforehand, they are still brand new visa applications and still need preparation as well as documents and evidence that the visa applicant has a genuine reason to visit Australia and isn’t likely to do a runner once they arrive.

Can’t they dig out the old application and get the facts from that? Let’s put it this way! If you were working there, would you go digging through the archives of old applications to see if there was anything useful there? Or would you just make a decision based on what you had in front of you? Well, they do the latter. And we know this, which is why we lean on you for sufficient useful paperwork which will make your application successful…..which is what you pay us for after all.

So yes, takes time to prepare, and takes 2 – 4 weeks to process. And that’s with a normal workload.

Christmas is rarely a normal workload. It’s the same everywhere. It’s the same with shops at Christmas time. It’s the same with most businesses. Everyone wants everything in time for Christmas, more so than any other time of year. And it can also be a time when some staff are away on leave. With visa applications, you can hardly bring in the schoolkid casual workers to make up for lower staff numbers either, can you? So the Australian Embassy in Manila becomes a busy little place running up to Christmas.

And I must say, they do a sterling job. Every year we get visa grants coming through right up until Christmas Eve. They do their very best. But reality exists, despite their best intentions and despite your most earnest desires to be together with your lady from the Philippines. Whilst Christmas is and should be a special time to those of us who believe in a real meaning of Christmas, there are not too many miracles that take place in the visa section of the Aussie Embassy. Reality exists and reality rules. More-than-usual numbers of applications, plus probably less staff, plus limited time, and you will get visa applications taking longer than usual.

How can you get a Christmas visa (tourist visa) in time?

Very simple! Start earlier!

This is really just a reminder of the time running out, plus the pending bottleneck of applications coming into the Embassy late. If you want to bring your lady from the Philippines to Australia with a tourist visa so you can spend Christmas together, please contact us now. Start now. If you haven’t decided whether you wish to do so or not? Think about it and decide now!

Contact us now and let’s make a start, and we’ll do our very best to make your dreams come true. I’m sure it would be the best Christmas present for both of you.