I booked a trip to China and then figured out I needed a Visa, which is quite complicated compared to most countries. After looking up the requirements it seemed like going to the consulate, while doable, was going to be too much of a hassle as I'd likely have to take off two days of work.
I looked at reviews for multiple services and decided on ItsEasy given the generally positive reviews and lower end for prices.
Overall, I was very happy with the outcome as I received my passport and visa back in exactly 8 days when the standard turnaround was 12 business days. It wasn't the easiest given all the requirements from China, but looking back on the process, it was pretty painless and hassle-free.
Pros:
-Their free photo app allows you to take your visa or passport photo from your smartphone and saves you the time and money to go get them done at a store or to figure out how to do it and print it yourself.
-Fast turnaround
-Helpful chat: I had a question regarding some of the paperwork prior to buying any service and got a quick and helpful response.
-While some other reviews have noted their phone line was hard to reach or unhelpful, I did have to call and was only on hold for about 2 minutes. Customer service wasn't the nicest in the world but I got my issue worked out.
Cons:
-When I placed my order, the payment didn't go through but it initiated my order regardless. It took me a few days to figure out I was supposed to call to pay for my order since there was an error through the website. This didn't delay the order but it would have been nice to get an email or phone call to say I still needed to pay.
-Shipping costs aren't clear until you start filling out an order. So of course there were some surprise fees.
-When I submitted the photos through the photo app, it said someone would review them and let us know if they needed to be retaken. I never got an email or other communication so I assumed they were okay but I would have liked confirmation of that. Also, we did not pay for the doc review service so I was unsure if they would review our photos or not.
-There seemed to be more documents required than what is listed on the consulate website. I asked the chat and they said it's because more documents are needed when a 3rd party is submitting it. I didn't totally buy this when comparing to other sites, but they are the experts so I was trusting that they needed this.
-Also there were differences between the checklist you get when you place your order the list of docs required on their website. I didn't want to have my application rejected so I submitted everything but it would have been nice if everything was consistent.
This may seem like a lot of cons but they were all pretty minor and I think are just areas for improvement. The most important measure is getting the visas and that is exactly what I got. Would definitely use again.