90 day rule for getting multiple visas stamped

[zoompat]

Hi -
My Current H1b (along with my Spouse's h4) is expiring on September 15 2015 and is not stamped.
I do have my next term I797 (along with my Spouse's h4) approved for September 2015 to September 2018.
Now m and my spouse appeared on 19th of June 2015 for Visa interview to get my 2012-2015 Visa stamped.
After the interview I handed over both of my I797s (2015 and 2018) to the VO.
Since The new Visa (Sept 16 2015-2018) will be effective within 90 days of the Visa interview (18th ofc and Visa interview on 19th June) for the current Visa (2012 to Sept 2015) date, I am expecting that we will be getting both the Visas stamped on both the passports.
According to my research we should get 1 stamp on both of our passports with two receipt numbers mentioned under my employer name, with the expiry date of 2018 (corresponding to the latest (2015-2018) I797).

My questions:
1 - Is my expectation correct?
2 - if we just receive the stamp with receipt number of the next (2015-2018) visa term... is that good enough?... I think not - because then I will not be able to travel till September 2015....correct?
3 - is there any documentation out there regarding this concept?
Thanks

[zoompat]

visa stamped but only the latest one

K... so today I finally got the passport back with the visa stamped.
they stamped it with an expiry date to September 2018 ... so they honored the new visa. (effective from September 2015 to 2018)
but the petition number mentioned on the stamp is also of the new one...
so technically - they have stamped it for the new Visa and there is nothing mentioned about my current Visa on this stamp.
I think this is an issue and I cannot travel to US till 10 days prior to the effective date of the next Visa...(because thats the one which is stamped)

Does anybody has any thoughts on this?

[shervin143]

I think you are confusing between visa and approval notice. Are you saying that your Visa is stamped with the new approval notice's number there. That is how it is usually stamped. By carrying both the new and old approval notice, you can enter U.S and there is no need to wait 10 days prior to the new approval notice's effective date. If your old H1B approval notice is still valid (Let us say it is valid until end of September) and your new approval notice is effective form Oct 1st, then you can enter now by carrying both the new and the old approval notices. No need to wait until Sept 21st to travel.

[zoompat]

Oh really?

I think you are confusing between visa and approval notice. Are you saying that your Visa is stamped with the new approval notice's number there. That is how it is usually stamped. By carrying both the new and old approval notice, you can enter U.S and there is no need to wait 10 days prior to the new approval notice's effective date. If your old H1B approval notice is still valid (Let us say it is valid until end of September) and your new approval notice is effective form Oct 1st, then you can enter now by carrying both the new and the old approval notices. No need to wait until Sept 21st to travel.

Hey... Thanks for the reply... And yes... You understood my problem correctly...
Hmmm... K that's good.... I might be over complicating things.
The reason I got confused is because one of my friend also had the same use case last year ....
In his case the embassy initially stamped him only the current petition with current petition expiry date.
He returned the passport to them asking them to honor the new (next) petition and then they stamped him with next petition's expiry date and petition numbers mentioned for both current and next petition.... Any thoughts on that?, because that makes more sense to me...

Also... Do you know If there is a website or some government office I can contact to get this stamp issue confirmed...?

[shervin143]

You may either contact the consulate or your best bet might be to consult a good immigration attorney to get more clarity.

Hey... Thanks for the reply... And yes... You understood my problem correctly...
Hmmm... K that's good.... I might be over complicating things.
The reason I got confused is because one of my friend also had the same use case last year ....
In his case the embassy initially stamped him only the current petition with current petition expiry date.
He returned the passport to them asking them to honor the new (next) petition and then they stamped him with next petition's expiry date and petition numbers mentioned for both current and next petition.... Any thoughts on that?, because that makes more sense to me...

Also... Do you know If there is a website or some government office I can contact to get this stamp issue confirmed...?

[zoompat]

ok

You may either contact the consulate or your best bet might be to consult a good immigration attorney to get more clarity.

Ok... Will do and post update ...
Thanks again Shervin !!

But if course if anybody else has an experience or advice on this... Please chime in...

[zoompat]

Ok... Will do and post update ...
Thanks again Shervin !!

But if course if anybody else has an experience or advice on this... Please chime in...

K... so.... here is what has happened since my last post on this thread.
I would like to close this thread with what I got, as it might help people in future.

So... once I got the passport back and I saw that the petition number mentioned on the visa is of the next petition and there is
nothing related to the current petition mentioned on the visa stamp, I wrote an email to the ustraveldocs customer care....
(because its mentioned on their website's faq section that we need to contact them for any visa stamp print issues).
The next business day I got the response that I need to submit my passport back with copies of my both I797s.
Now.... I am not sure if it means that they agreed that it was a mistake, or it is just that they did not have time to explain me that its not an issue.
As mentioned by Shervin too in his comments that may be it was not an issue to travel with just the petition number of the next term with I797s of both current and next term.

After 3 business days I got the notification to collect my passport again and this time the difference is that they have mentioned my current petition number under annotation section.
So... I think that I got what I wanted but may be I over complicated things for myself.
There are not too many resources out there to justify the correct stamp.

Thanks