eVisitor and drink drive conviction

What is your nationality? In general, you cannot apply for a visa at the High Commission in London -- most or all applications are processed online. And the standard current processing time for a Visitor visa (subclass 600) is 16 working days:

• https://www.border.gov.au/Trav/Visa-1/600-

Realistically, there is no way to put your mind at rest. Since you have allowed only 9 working days for processing an application that was flagged for review (otherwise it would have come through already), there is indeed a significant chance that the visa won't be approved in time. This is a busy time of year for visitor applications.

It is possible that a reviewing officer will give the application some sort of priority attention since the travel date is so close. But that depends on how many other applications are also facing imminent travel dates. There might be a request for further information from that reviewing officer, so dig out NOW all the documents relating to the incident you have described, especially those that describe the penalty, so your husband can prove his claims.

Hi, thanks for coming back to me. As you can imagine I'm feeling very worried about it.

Do you know if the eVisitor can be approved without further information or will we need to provide this? What about applying for an ETA as that specifies a 12 month sentence, which he didn't receive it was just a driving ban. I've seen some people say that they got the ETA and then declared it on their landing card?

Thanks again for your advice.

Lucy

I just wanted to say thanks for your help and I wanted to update you as the application came back just half an hour ago to say finalised and approved. We were honest on the application so I feel better about it now and it only took 24 hours to be approved.

This was the eVisitor but we did also apply for the ETA through STA and we've not heard back. Little worried this might mess things up but I have emailed STA about the situation. I'm not bothered about a refund as I'm just so relieved it's been sorted but do you think they should cancel our ETA or let it process?

Thanks again, it was a very stressful day and your answers did help put my mind at ease a little.

That's good news. I can imagine it was very stressful. Reason has prevailed and a wrong of that nature 10 years ago isn't seen as barrier to entry - just needed someone to review it. Enjoy the trip!

I'm glad things have worked out well and thanks for reporting back.

It seems to me that you should definitely ask STA to cancel the ETA application, as having overlapping travel approvals in the system could create some other sort of problem.

Not 100%,. I think there is a 10 year rule called time spent. Meaning. Non jail offences are waved.
A friend travelled to NY with previous charges, and no convictions with no problems, didn't even declare because of time spent (10 years).

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