BNO to Citizenship [Full Timeline]

Hi fellow HongKongers, I searched for a thread for this on Reddit but I didn't find anything so I thought I'd write a post here so future people can find this easily.

• I was on Tier 4 student visa from 2011 but because I was out of the country a lot during that time due to school holidays, I didn't even consider the 10 year route tbh.....
• Tier 2 visa from Oct 2019
• BNO visa from July 2021 (applied in the UK)
• Applied for ILR 4 years 11 months into the 5 year count, ie in Sept 2024
  • To ensure I can get the priority application quota, i submitted my application at 1am since thats when (allegedly) the page refreshes for the daily priority application quota
• Applied for naturalisation on exactly 1 year after I received my ILR approval email
• I received an email from my council inviting me to book a British citizenship ceremony today, this was 129 days from my application date.
  • For more stats on general British citizenship application timeline, you should have a look at this mega thread (Naturalisation (Citizenship) application processing timelines [only]), its been super helpful for me to set/lower my expectations. However, my application did take longer than the others who applied around the same time as me

I kept a detail log of my ins and outs of the country in a spreadsheet to make sure I didn't go over the limit of absence, but this also helped me with the actual British citizenship application coz I had to tell them where I've been in the last few years in detail.