mibaobao wrote:Dear friends:
I received my passport and approval letter today, but still waiting for the BRP.
However, I have a flight booked tomorrow. Shall anyone tell me that can I leave the UK without the BRP? I've got my old visa on my passport which expires on Feb 2012. Then I will ask my friend to send the BRP to me after it arrives, so I can come back to UK with the BRP.
I appreciate your help
Melody
Hi I had exactly the same query and after a lot of research I postponed my travel. There is no clear guideline anywhere on this and asking UKBA does not help.
There are 2 points which influenced me to postpone my travel
1. Someone in this forum who is a guru said that your new visa invalidates the old visa which though I have never seen documented any where seemed reasonable to me.
2. UKBA clearly mentions in the approval letter (which you must have seen) that they strongly advise against travelling until you have received your BRP and if you travel without BRP you may have to apply for visa from abroad (which you can no longer do for T1). I do not know whether they are saying this as a general rule for everyone or they are saying this thinking your old visa has expired but this statement scared me enough.
Anyway there is always another solution which appears full proof to me because they do not check your VISA when you leave the country and that is : at the worst case you can arrnage your BRP to be delivered to you in person by someone traveling to your country (Post is a big risk I would guess in case you loose it and they might decline to carry it anyway). This offcourse assumes you are married/partnered etc. and you have someone here to receive the card on your behalf.
In this forum a guy went to India without getting BRP and with an expired visa and tried his luck with the aproval letter only. He managed to come in and said he would never advise anyone to do it because of the hardship he faced. I think he was just lucky to get a reasonable immigration officer who did not pack him back.
