First off, I’d like to thank all the people who have posted or commented regarding their experiences applying for DTVs. It was really helpful for my partner and I in figuring out what we were going to do. Thank you!

We just got approved in Hanoi under Soft Power (Medical) in only 5 CALENDAR days (they sent it to us on Sunday night after having applied late on the Tuesday before).

While I think our situation is a little unique, there are some interesting points to share. The biggest one for me is: write cover letters! Explain what you are attaching and what it means. I can’t say for certain that they helped, but they sure seemed to. We didn’t get asked for any additional documentation and it seemed like everyone was getting asked for that.

Quick background: we have spent much of the last 20 months in Thailand, me entirely on entry stamps and two actual tourist visas, her on tourist entry stamps, then on a work visa, then a tourist visa. We had applied for the most recent tourist visa using the e-visa system, so we were already in there…not sure if that helped us or not.

In terms of medical documentation, we had one set of medical appointment confirmation letters. Mine was just for a health check-up, hers was for a health check-up and for a consultation for longer-term treatment. We had also made a second set of appointments, but had been unable to get a confirmation letter, so really it was one set of appointments and that was it. But, we explained that we had another appointment and were planning additional appointments (true) in the cover letters.

For financial, I had an issue getting my bank statement on time, so I sent in a print-out of my current account balance which didn’t look very official, but also included an account statement for my investments account which has substantial assets in it. She sent in a current account balance letter from her bank along with her most recent bank account statement, but had only transferred in the required amount a few weeks earlier which showed on the statement. I wrote a cover letter explaining the situation with my accounts, but didn’t bother with hers as those seemed pretty self-explanatory.

Hopefully this is helpful to someone. Happy to answer any questions anyone has.

Hi everyone, I'm in England and trying to apply for a 60 day tourist e-visa, I've done this many times but this time there's no drop or drag button to click on to to download my bio-page of my passport and it won't let me go to the next stage, I've tried calling the embassy in London but they don't answer the phone, has anyone experienced this and how did you get around this problem, thanks in advance.