Firstly thank you to everyone who contributes to these boards, the information I've gathered from this place by both directly asking and lurking has been invaluable.
Most important piece of advice: Start attempting to book your premium appointment very early (like more than 6 weeks in advance of your earliest eligible date)! I was incredibly lucky to be browsing these boards looking for another piece of information when I discovered that getting a premium appointment was incredibly difficult. I ended up looking for an appointment on that day only to find the dreaded "no appointments available in the next 45 days" nonsense. I checked again at midnight and a whole load of appointments magically appeared, the earliest of which was my visa's expiration date! I was hesitant to book it since it was my visa's expiration date but if I hadn't booked that appointment then and there, I would not be in this position now because the next night the appointment was no longer available and it never became available ever again. I needed a premium appointment because I'm getting married in December in another country and having to apply by post would have completely destroyed that plan. I always planned to do premium, but never knew it was so difficult to get an appointment. Nothing else in this country is like that...
Here are the documents I provided:
Covering letter.
All of the birth certificates and marriage certificates that I used for my initial ancestry visa application.
6 months of printed online payslips, stamped and signed by my HR department.
9 months of bank statements (6 would have been fine but some of mine were quarterly so I gave more instead of less) including one interim statement printed and stamped at Lloyds Bank (they were very happy to do this for me).
2 letters from employers, one from current employer and one from previous employer who luckily I'm still on good terms with and who could comply with my request for a letter.
1 email stamped and signed by HR stating September's pay date to explain why my latest payslip was more than 28 days old (may or may not have been overkill).
P60s from every year I've been here.
My Life in the UK pass letter and my English B1 cert from Trinity College.
Print outs of my old flight e-tickets and boarding passes because I was missing an entry stamp to the UK in my passport for my latest entry (silly lady at Gatwick just didn't stamp it). Also probably overkill.
Photocopies of all of the above as requested by the application form (more on this later).
This is for me on my own and my case was pretty simple. 2 full time jobs over 5 years, no family, only spent 2/3 week holidays out the country each year.
My experience:
I arrived in Croydon 2 hours early because I don't trust Thameslink or Southern rail
There's really nothing to do in this part of Croydon besides go into the Whitgift centre which was initially closed so I just sat at the bus stop til it opened lol.After entering Lunar house a security officer checks your booking checklist to see your application and lets you through. You immediately get to the second security check which is similar to an airport, just quicker. The second security guys don't check any paperwork so you can put in away while you do this.
I knew I had to be on the 3rd floor from previous readings but no one tells you where to go, you just have to follow some signs and it seems like the lifts are broken, so you have to take the stairs. I basically followed the dude in front of me.
At the entrance to the third floor it's not immediately clear what you should do. Go left and then look right to see the reception queue. They are strict about your appointment time! I got to the receptionist about 20 minutes early and got told to wait in the cafe on the other side of the hall. When I returned I timed it perfectly so that I got the the receptionist at 1 minute to my appointment time
She asked for my application form but actually wanted the booking checklist, she gave my application form back and said "I don't need all this". After a short time she gave all my papers back and gave me a ticket number and got told to wait in the cafe area.Waited around 20 minutes to get called for case registration at the counters. There are automated announcements that quote your ticket number and tell you which counter to go to. There are also manual voice announcements from the people at the counters over the intercom that sometimes overlap the automated ones and no one can hear these properly anyways because of the sound distortion. It's a tad confusing but for all the initial steps your announcements will be via the automated ones and show up on the screens, only for the last step will you be called by a person over the intercom.
The case registration lady took my booking checklist and application form and did her thing with them, removing photos etc. She asked me if I wanted my BRP delivered to my home and I asked if it could be my office, she said yes and gave me one page of my application form back where I could fill in my office address. I had my supporting docs all neatly organised in a plastic binder separated into sections. She told me take all of that out of my neat plastic binder and put it all in one messy pile and shove that into plastic envelope. I don't understand the thinking behind this at all and personally think it's stupid and makes everyone's life more difficult. So don't bother organising your documents. She told me to put the photocopies at the back of the envelope. She put the application form and photos on top of this.
You then wait for biometrics from the same area. This actually took a long time and numbers were being called very slowly. The screens in this area are glitchy and the announcements very soft in volume (what are they doing with our huge application fees?!). I probably waited about 30 minutes before being called. The actual biometrics are very quick. You do your fingerprints on the glass reader, sign your signature on a Wacom tablet and turn 90 degrees to get your photo taken. The person here then takes your passport and your single massive envelope of papers. She wished me the best of luck, which was nice I guess and then got told to wait in the cafe. I did not get told I could leave although I probably could have.
You then wait in the cafe area where you can sit, use your phone, buy food and drinks or go to the bathroom. You can watch your ticket number go from "awaiting biometric verification" to "awaiting consideration" to "under consideration". The "awaiting consideration" list got extremely long towards the beginning of the afternoon and I'm very glad I had my appointment in the morning. The earlier your appointment the less likely you will get stuck in a backlog. I waited around 3 hours from this point until I heard a person announce over the intercom for my ticket and another person's ticket to come to counter 43. Some people get called to the counters midway through consideration because there is an issue or they need more documentation or they need to ask a question. I didn't get called midway and when I reached counter 43 I was told that everything was approved and got handed back my massive wad of paper with my passport. I was told to check all the information in the approval letter was correct. It was and they had verified my office address which was clearly where the delivery was going to be attempted.
You are then free to leave!
So about the photocopies, they didn't take a single one of my photocopied pages. Which is annoying cos that's a huge waste of paper and time. My documents were also handed back to me in a complete and utter mess. Photocopies mixed in with originals, things upside down and in no order at all, nothing like how I'd supplied them. I don't understand how they can work like this or why they won't accept a neat and organised file. They took my cover letter and my contents page/dividers but gave back my employer letters and all other docs. They also gave me one photo back so they clearly don't need two.
There were three things that were freaking me out before the application that in the end were nothing to worry about:
1. Applying on the date of expiry. I know this is supposed to be fine but the visa wording says "Valid until 24/09/18" instead of "Valid till 24/09/18". In my mind this means that it isn't valid on the 24th but it actually is. So this was fine.
2. Missing entry stamp for my last entry into the UK in October 2017. I doubt my e-tickets did much so either they take your word for it, my employer letters which mentioned leave dates were enough or they have some other way of finding out when you exit and enter the country.
3. I had not filed my tax return for the 2017/2018 tax year yet because I don't have to do so until January. There is no reason why this should have impacted my application but since they're all so trigger happy with minor tax issues on the Tier 1 guys you never know. But this was also fine.
Whole experience took 4 hours and while stressful was not that bad
If you need your ILR decided quickly, it's worth the extra money.
