A real question
What if the permit does not arrive in time?
In short
It can happen, and no service can promise otherwise, because the timing belongs to the authority and sometimes to a postal system. What we commit to is telling you the realistic window at the start, chasing where chasing is possible, and flagging it while you still have a decision to make rather than after.
Why nobody can guarantee the date
The chain has several links and most of them are not ours: a doctor's turnaround, an external notary or translator, the authority's own queue, and in some routes a postal delivery at the end. We move without delay on our side. That is the honest extent of what anyone can commit to. Any service that promises you a date is promising something it does not control.
What we actually do about it
Tell you the window at the start. In the free consult, before you pay, including where our record has an open point.
Start with the longest queue first. Usually the doctor's appointment, not the application — see lead time, and why early matters.
Track and chase. Where a route allows a status enquiry, we make it. Where it does not, we say so rather than pretending to have visibility we lack.
Warn early. When the runway starts getting short, you hear about it while options still exist, not the night before.
The options when it is tight
Which of these apply depends on the route, and some will not be available:
- Ask whether the route offers expedited handling. Occasionally it does, and it
is never something to plan around.
- Establish whether a decision issued after departure can still reach you.
- Consider whether the itinerary can move. A changed date is cheaper than an
abandoned trip and far cheaper than a border problem.
- Look at whether the supply can be handled at the destination instead — a
question for your doctor as much as for us.
What we will not do is tell you to travel and hope. Where an authorisation is required and absent, we will say plainly that we cannot support the trip in that form — see when there is no permit route.
The refund position
The fee covers the accompaniment, and it is not refunded because an authority was slow. The single refund case is our own discovery, mid-work, that the route is blocked. Set out in full in pricing.
The way to avoid this question
Ask early. The free consult takes minutes, and the difference between starting now and starting in three weeks is usually the difference between choosing a route and being assigned one.
Other questions that come up here
Is the fee refunded if the permit does not arrive?
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