Dear Mr Bergman, I am not sure whether you can provide any assistance but my step father Daniel Francois Boshoff, who lives in Alberton has applied for a UK holiday visa to visit us in the UK on the 27th July. His previous holiday in 2020 for my niece (his granddaughter's ) wedding was cancelled due to Covid and when the wedding went ahead in 2021, he also missed this due to Covid so we booked his ticket to visit this year over the summer holidays as grandchildren would be off school and University and we could all take time off to see him. I applied for his visa on his behalf mid May 2022 and at that stage it said the visas were taking up to 6 weeks to be granted. We had 10 weeks at the time. He was only able to get an appointment for his biometrics on the 26th May as they were full but this left us with 7 weeks and 6 days, which was still ample time before he was due to fly. His visa application is GWF064882404. He almost died from Covid in 2020 and this trip has been keeping him going as we last saw him in 2013. We paid for the visa and it was 6 weeks last week and we have not heard anything. I have paid to e-mail them 3 times. I was told to refer to the website for times (which still said 6 weeks at the time) and when I asked them whether they could confirm that he would get his visa in time they said they could not give us any time frames. I have tried calling on numerous occasions and it just cuts you off with an automated message referring you to the website. I have e-mailed again today which you pay for but they can take up to 5 days to respond and my step-father is due to fly next Wednesday. I have looked at social media and many people are posting that their parents are applying together and 6 weeks later one parent has it and 8 weeks later the other parent does not have an answer. Someone said their family member applied in June and has their visas but visas from May have not been decided on yet. Another person posted that she was told that a whole batch of visas for the end of May were not sent over and I suspect this is the case for my step father's visa, as on the website it is still showing as not even been transferred to the VAC yet. I am now desperate because I cannot change my leave to accommodate him coming later , as other people have taken leave over the summer and if we have to pay and change his ticket for a later date, I will only have 4 days with him out of the 6 weeks as my leave was booked for his 1st 2 weeks. He is also very stressed and worried. This is a service we paid for and when we applied it said 6 weeks. Is there any way you or or any member of your party could assist with this? My father is a retired pensioner and he has been on holiday twice before in 2008 and 2011 and all we want is for family to see each other. He is only coming for 6 weeks and I cannot understand why they have advertised a 6 week turnaround, which you have to pay for and then we are messed around. I would really appreciate any assistance if possible to try and escalate this for our family. The website now says it is an average of 7 weeks but can take longer but a week ago it was still showing as 6 weeks and even said they are working hard to get back to the 3 week time scale. If they knew there was an issue, they should have told people to apply months before and yet you cannot apply more than 3 months before. I would really appreciate your assistance, as would my step-father and my family. Thank you, Janine