I successfully got tier-1 for myself and my wife with the premium same day application at UKBA Solihull. It was a pretty smooth ride, though my case was pretty straight and I had complete documents. Will share some things about the whole process:
1. The premium same day service at UKBA office can only be booked through online booking system or by phone. Well I tried the online system and it never had any slots. This was reflected in many other forum posts that people normally dont get any online slots. So I tried the phone option and rang exactly at 9:00 am (you wont believe but I actually used timeanddate.com for the exact GMT time
). What I observed from the phone booking system is that you get appointment date after exactly 6 weeks of your booking date. And you should be sure of your first choice of centre as they ask it while booking. And once you are in the call at 9 am, you will definitely get a slot, as I got it twice - once for the first booking and then for shifting it a week ahead. So in nutshell, you will get appointment after 6 weeks and only if you call them at 9 am sharp. You may get an earlier date due to last minute cancellations.2. For salaried employees in UK, its pretty straight - official salary slips + bank statements to support that. THAT's IT.. Seriously .. No employment letter (I took it but not asked to give) .. Then your degree certificate, last 3 months statements for Maintanence funds (If you dont have the last months statement because it didnt reach by post, do get a stamped and signed statement from the bank). I also took marriage certificate but then the officer dint take it as my wife was already on WP dependant visa.
o The officer enters all your information in the points based calculator on his system as you would do on the UKBA website and verifies section by section. You will observe even the application form is in that order. Pretty straight forward.
o He did ask me one question - Why I am not claiming for immediate 12 months but last 12 months period in the 15 months time - And I answered so that I am able to include the annual bonus I got - and he was pretty satisfied . So if you are not claiming for immediate 12 months, you should have a genuine reason , and for people who apply by post - they should mention it in their cover letter.
3. At UKBA office, usual security check, then officer called for submitting application and documents.. checked them in front of you (this took 15-20 minutes) and told us that he is happy to give tier-1. And then we had to wait for 2 hours and got our passports stamped.. Very professional and indeed helpful service at the UKBA office
You may reply to this post if you have any queries and I would be happy to help.