We are slowly making progress on our Visa Application. So far, we have filled in all of the information and had it reviewed by the service we are using to process the Visa in Washington at the China Embassy. The review has been a little tedious, the forms are not easy to fill out and are not exactly straightforward, so we are relying on our reviewer, Shawn, to help direct us. We finally had everything on the application, so yesterday evening, we officially submitted them on the China Embassy website. After the submittal, you are given links to download the forms so they can be printed and signed. Once submitted, no changes can be made, so I carefully reviewed them to make sure our Passport Numbers, Names, and Birthdates were all correct and matched between the application and our passports.
Even after we submitted the applications, it was confusing. Immediately. a file download was started, and this was the “full application” in PDF format. However, we were also given two links at the bottom of the website for printing an Application Confirmation and the Application. I clicked on both links and saved the files as a PDF. This application was slightly different from the one that had automatically downloaded, it also contained our uploaded photo.
I tried to print the confirmation from the PDF download, but it was not formatted to be on one page, and I was not certain that it did not need to be a single page since the area for signature was on the second page. I went back to the website and decided to print the confirmation directly and not print to PDF, and I was able to shrink it to 82% and have it all fit on a single page. I do not know if that is correct, but I did find out through all of this process that we could go back to the website and pull up our application again if need be, but only to print, not to make any revisions.
I did this same process for Stephanie’s application, so now we had both the confirmation and the application printed. The instructions I had received from Shawn told me to let him know when the applications were printed, which I did via email.
This morning, I had Stephanie sign her two forms before she went to work. After I had signed mine first, I decided to get our [passports and see how they were signed, thinking that the forms needed to match the passport signatures, not really certain of this but it seemed to make sense. I had luckily signed mine the same way as the passport, and I was glad we had looked at Stephanie’s passport since she had originally signed that with her full name. I had only used my middle initial in my passport since that is the way I always sign official documents unless directed to use the full signature.
Now we just need confirmation from our service agent Shawn that the signatures need to match the passports, and hopefully not be written out fully. I will have to re-print the signature page and resign if that is the case.
These applications will need to be mailed off, along with our passports and passport photos we used for the application. In our case, they will need to be mailed to someone in Washington instead of where Shawn is located in Chicago since for South Carolina, we have to use the China Embassy in Washington DC, not the consulate in Chicago where Shawn is located. We do know that there is a section on the application for the service agent to sign that is processing the application on our behalf.
I went ahead and sent a Zelle Payment to Shawn this morning to pay for the application fee, the service agent fee, and the FedEx mailing costs for our Visas
Now we are just waiting on further instructions from Shawn, but the applications are signed and ready to go.
On another subject, we did purchase Travel Insurance for this trip, but only for a total trip cost of $1000.00. We are only out our $50.00 total non-refundable deposit so far, that is the payment we have made to Viking for this trip. I just did not think purchasing insurance for just the $50.00 deposit was appropriate, but technically, I suppose it is. The insurance is only required to cover non-refundable costs anyway. We needed to purchase a policy now to be able to take advantage of the pre-existing conditions waiver, an important feature because of our mom’s chronic health problems. We covered the cost of the Visas, which is $586.00 total, but I am not even sure that would be covered by insurance since the Visas are for ten years. We will just need to update the policy amounts as we incur more non-refundable costs.
The only issue we had with the travel insurance purchase was that I had to purchase it through a different online insurance company to get the policy we wanted. I did not know that when I had initially looked at policies online and compared their costs and coverages I had selected a different online travel insurance “broker” than we normally use, which is InsureMyTrip. We were initially comparing the cost and coverages of three different insurance company’s policies and decided on a policy through CF Travel Insured, which we have used several times in the past.
When I looked at policies on InsureMyTrip’s website, the policy from CG Travel Insured that we wanted to purchase did not show up. I tried several ways to find it on their site and finally found a link to policies by CF Travel Insured, but the website gave me a message stating that the particular policy I wanted was not available for residents of South Carolina, which was strange, I had input South Carolina in the competitor’s insurance website and had no trouble getting the policy I wanted to appear. I went to a third broker website, and again, the policy I wanted came up without any issues after putting in all of the trip information, including our state of residence.
I even went to the CF Travel Insured website directly and it worked. I was perplexed, so I started a chat session on the InsureMyTrip website to ask what I could get the particular policy I wanted from other insurance brokers even though I lived in South Carolina. I was given a very weak answer that they had negotiated a better rate on a different CF Travel Insured policy, and that was the one I needed to use if I wanted insurance through their website. I responded that the policy costs are all the same for everyone selling them, which is a true statement, each broker sells the policies at the same price, and it is regulated. I did not understand the negotiated pricing comment, but in the end, that was the only reason I was given, and I ended the chat as well as using InsureMyTrip as my travel insurance broker.
I did some online research to see if I could find any comparisons for the two other main insurance brokers, travelinsurance.com and squaremouth.com. I did find a comparison on the InsureMyTrip website, which I thought was ironic. They compared themselves in several categories with Squaremouth. It was almost a comical comparison. In the first several categories, Squaremouth was the winner. There were only two categories that they lagged behind InsureMyTrip on, and both categories were in the customer service arena. However, InsureMyTrip was only rated a couple of thousandths better, as an example. 4.58 versus 4.56, hardly even statistically relevant. I was a little amazed that InsureMyTrip would have even put the comparison on their website, it made me want to use Squaremount after I looked at it, and that’s exactly who I used for our policy, no issues with us being from South Carolina, that was all a ruse.
I used the estimated full cost for the trip when making my initial policy comparisons, so we already have an idea of the eventual insurance cost once we pay more money on the trip. However, for now, the total for the $1000.00 policy we purchased was $97.00. This policy had better medical coverages, and higher medical evacuation coverage, especially when compared to the Viking Travel Insurance. We opted not to purchase and Cancel For Any Reason coverage, it added quite a bit of cost and was only good for 75% coverage. Plus, all of the coverages are primary, not secondary.
So, we are set for travel insurance, and will only need to make sure we are definitely going on the trip before we make the substantial final payment at the end of April.
UPDATE TO VISA APPLICATION – MARCH 21, 2024: Today, we finally had all of the forms printed and ready to send off for our Visas. We received a pre-paid FedEx two-day mailing label, so I headed to the FedEx store inside our Walmart to mail off all of the paperwork, and our Passports. I had put each application inside a manila envelope that was larger than 8.5″ x 11, and it would not fit in the tiny FedEx envelope I was given. I had expected to get one of the large white envelopes, but the man at the FedEx counter did not seem interested in giving me anything larger, so I had to fold up the larger envelopes in both directions to get them to fit in the envelope I was given. I was not sure why it was so small, and not even a white FedEx normal envelope. Maybe these local storefronts don’t have all of the normal packaging. I did not ask and no explanation was given when I said I was expecting a larger envelope, other than he said that an 8.5 x 11 manila envelope fit inside. They eventually fit and it was sealed and I received a tracking receipt.
The two-day delivery was guaranteed to be made by 5:00 PM on Saturday, March 23. however, when I tracked that package on the morning of March 22, it was already at the processing facility and getting ready to be delivered the afternoon of March 22, so in essence, it was overnight.
We do not know when it will be taken to the China Embassy in Washington DC for processing, probably on Monday, March 25. It is supposed to be processed in 3-5 business days from what we have read. We are not in a rush other than to have the Visas before the final payment at the end of April.
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