My wife is a green card holder and a citizen of China. Three times in 2018 (“Best of RS Tour of Europe”), 2019, and 2023, she had no trouble getting a Schengen visa. This year she applied in plenty of time for her Schengen visa with the Swiss Consulate in SF. She had an interview on April 11 and all seemed to go well, her documents fully in order etc. However, much to our surprise, a week or so later she got a letter of refusal. There was no indication in the letter why she had been refused, and my research shows that Switzerland is one of the easier countries to get a Schengen visa.
On the back of the letter was a very complex and involved description of the formal appeals process, but we are due to leave June 18 and there is probably not time for a formal appeal. So I/we are resorting to informal appeals to the Swiss SF Consulate by letter and fax including one addressed to the head of the consulate there whose name we managed to find online by luck. Any thoughts, suggestions, or ideas based on anyone’s experience, would be most welcome.
We are very disappointed as we have paid for our flights, and I spent hours, if not days, planning an itinerary, and booking hotels in January of this year—fortunately the hotels are fully cancelable.