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DV 2019 Oceania Selectees

Bob22 said:
Thanks for all the great tips. Got some good ideas now!

Also I am curious about this police report expiry. I thought that only applied to the interview? So you also need to go before the police check expires?
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Which ever one expires first you have to get your behind to the states before that date.
 
@darren_H , US doesn’t really have “transit” areas like other countries where you bypass immigration- so it almost certainly will count as your entry.

Re expiries. Police is one year as far as DoS is concerned (no matter what the individual country expiry date is) and it is interview it matters for, so it’s always medical (6 months) that matters for entry. Consulate determines that and sets visa expiry accordingly. To answer darren’s specific question, no it’s never longer than 6 months from medical expiry.
 
SusieQQQ said:
@darren_H , US doesn’t really have “transit” areas like other countries where you bypass immigration- so it almost certainly will count as your entry.

Re expiries. Police is one year as far as DoS is concerned (no matter what the individual country expiry date is) and it is interview it matters for, so it’s always medical (6 months) that matters for entry. Consulate determines that and sets visa expiry accordingly. To answer darren’s specific question, no it’s never longer than 6 months from medical expiry.
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While the majority of the time that’s the case re the medical being the one to expire first there could be some eager beavers that went out and got their police check done last year before the interviews started when they had first been selected.
 
Thanks Mijoro and SusieQQQ. That helps very much to know that there's no transit areas as such!

Just so that I am absolutely clear - my medical examination was done in late March. So when I get my passport with a visa back from the consulate - which I'm hoping will be within a couple of weeks - it will have an visa expiry date that is 6 months from the date of the medical. Which would make for an expiry date of late August. Is that correct?
 
Mijoro said:
While the majority of the time that’s the case re the medical being the one to expire first there could be some eager beavers that went out and got their police check done last year before the interviews started when they had first been selected.
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The embassy doesn’t take that into consideration when issuing the visa. Like Susie previously said, it is the date of the medical exam that determines visa validity length.
 
Oh ok I just figured it would be both as per the visa website. But I probably read that wrong. My apologies.
 
Mijoro said:
While the majority of the time that’s the case re the medical being the one to expire first there could be some eager beavers that went out and got their police check done last year before the interviews started when they had first been selected.
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Again, only needs to be valid at interview.
 
I’m now officially a legal permanent resident....
The longest part of immigration was the 1 3/4 hour wait in the line (pretty standard for LAX) the first CBP officer doesn’t normally work at LAX and was unsure of their procedures for processing new immigrants.
He called through to a second officer who took me to a desk at the far end of the area, opened my visa packet, confirmed my address, he then stamped my passport and wrote my alien number under the stamp and told me it was my proof of status until my green card arrived. The whole process took no more than 15 mins and both officers were very nice.

Now I’m waiting for my flight to Seattle.....

Then sleep!!!
 
Aidyn said:
I’m now officially a legal permanent resident....
The longest part of immigration was the 1 3/4 hour wait in the line (pretty standard for LAX) the first CBP officer doesn’t normally work at LAX and was unsure of their procedures for processing new immigrants.
He called through to a second officer who took me to a desk at the far end of the area, opened my visa packet, confirmed my address, he then stamped my passport and wrote my alien number under the stamp and told me it was my proof of status until my green card arrived. The whole process took no more than 15 mins and both officers were very nice.

Now I’m waiting for my flight to Seattle.....

Then sleep!!!
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Congratulations Aidyn!!!!!!!!
It must feel a bit surreal right now!
 
I am sure it has been mentioned here, but what timeframe for the physical green cards are people seeing after their activation trips?
 
I think i may need to look into this extended stay thing. I was dealing with some apartment community but they quickly lost interest when they found out I would be a new immigrant with no credit history or US income. I even offered to pay three months rent up front but oh well.
 
Aidyn said:
I’m now officially a legal permanent resident....
The longest part of immigration was the 1 3/4 hour wait in the line (pretty standard for LAX) the first CBP officer doesn’t normally work at LAX and was unsure of their procedures for processing new immigrants.
He called through to a second officer who took me to a desk at the far end of the area, opened my visa packet, confirmed my address, he then stamped my passport and wrote my alien number under the stamp and told me it was my proof of status until my green card arrived. The whole process took no more than 15 mins and both officers were very nice.

Now I’m waiting for my flight to Seattle.....

Then sleep!!!
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Sounds good. I am going through LAX as well. Nothing like a 90 minute wait after a 12 hour flight from Auckland with two young kids to set the mood....
 
Bob22 said:
I think i may need to look into this extended stay thing. I was dealing with some apartment community but they quickly lost interest when they found out I would be a new immigrant with no credit history or US income. I even offered to pay three months rent up front but oh well.
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That was the issue we found, that the managed apartments were most legit, but also the most inflexible in terms of credit history etc that they wanted.

Re extended stay: To a large extent location will probably determine which you go for. The main ones seem to be :
Hyatt House (we got a good discount for a long stay, I can’t remember if it was 2 or 3 weeks that was the key for that.)
Marriott residence inn (said they offer discount but from what we saw didn’t really)
Extended Stay America (didn’t have one in the area we wanted so didn’t investigate too deeply)
Hilton Homewood Suites (ditto)

The rooms will be different sizes but generally they will all have some sort of living area and a decent kitchen. The bigger ones are like proper apartments. I think most offer breakfast and some offer free drinks/snacks a few evenings a week.
Bear in mind a number of these are aimed at business travelers, and tend to be on or near busy roads with easy freeway access. One minor exception is the Hyatt house in Seattle, which is a prime tourist spot right next to the space needle!

Again, get points if you go for one of these. We got straight to platinum status (as it was then) on Hyatt with our initial stay which gave us great perks at other Hyatts! (Free nights, room upgrades etc. all of Hyatt, Marriott and Hilton have a wide selection of hotels ranging from fairly basic to luxury.)
 
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For those discounts, did you contact them and ask for one or did you just get one from booking.com or equivalent website?
 
Bob22 said:
For those discounts, did you contact them and ask for one or did you just get one from booking.com or equivalent website?
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For those hotel chains I would book directly on their own websites. (Though I might use booking.com to find hotels in a particular area.) They have lowest price guarantees, that’s where you’d get any discounts, and you usually don’t get points etc booking via another website. I use booking.com a lot, but not for the big chains, though it’s always worth looking at it as a comparison just in case.
 
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