Visitors to the UK from 48 countries must now apply and pay a fee before travel

18 points by teleforce 2 days ago | 7 comments

paranoidrobot 2 days ago |
All this "Oh, no, you're not applying for a visa, you're applying for authority to travel" is such bullshit.
It's just a Visa in a trenchcoat.
ksec 2 days ago |
>The apps — for iPhone and Android — boast of being quicker, with 10-minute processing times
10 min is not quick in modern world. Especially when previously it was 0.
May be the whole world government could just make a single Visa application that they all agree on and just let me pay automatically when I buy a plane ticket.
Charge me 50% more than what you are charging now. ( around $6? ) and get rid of the hassle.
Instead they are introducing MORE bureaucracy.
jacobp100 2 days ago |
It’ll take a lot longer in the EU. You need fingerprints taken there
paulb73 2 days ago |
When I last travelled to the USA from the UK, it took weeks to get the ESTA. Might be quicker now, but 10 minutes sounds like lightning to me!
dagw 2 days ago |
Some people seem to get their application flagged for manual review, and that can take a long time. Otherwise it takes less than 20-30 minutes to get a reply in my experience.
Havoc a day ago |
>Charge me 50% more than what you are charging now. ( around $6? ) and get rid of the hassle.
The cost is completely notional & arbitrary with these visa waivers. Doubling it doesn't make it faster/better somehow.
>Especially when previously it was 0.
As the article stated...blame the country that kicked off this trend. It's reciprocal to the US ESTA.
shubb 2 days ago |
The UK introduced this to mirror / sync with the EU ETIAS evisa system introduced recently, which in turn mirrors the US ESTA eVisa. They all cost about the same.
It's interesting how UK stories are reported.